Ben Rawlence

THE FORGOTTEN REFUGEE CAMP WHERE LIVES ARE LEFT IN LIMBO

Dadaab is the world’s largest refugee camp, but it lies forgotten in the scrublands of northern Kenya. It has roughly the same population as Leicester, some 500,000 people. Most have fled from neighbouring Somalia. But the Kenyan government has also placed people fleeing Sudan there, out of the way.

Author Ben Rawlence visited Dadaab with the NGO Human Rights Watch. He has built a powerful picture of life in the camp through exhaustive show more interviews with nine residents about their lives and their hopes. Tawane grew up in Dadaab, but is now a youth leader, taking risks for Western aid workers too scared to leave their compounds. Muna is a Somali woman who arrived at the camp as a baby. She is now under threat from her family for marrying a Sudanese man. Others have fled famine or more recent wars.

Rawlence says Dadaab is “the meeting point between two contradictory arcs of the twenty-first century: the rule of law that had spawned the international humanitarian system and…the chaos unleashed by the end of the colonial project to subjugate and carve up the globe.”

He shows how Kenya’s invasion of Somalia in 2011 was not the simple anti-terrorist manoeuvre it was presented as at the time. And it made the situation much worse for the refugees. The refugees are not allowed to work. But they cannot survive on United Nations rations alone, particularly as they have to constantly pay bribes to police and officials. So a vast and complex black market has grown up.

The refugees dream of being resettled in the West, as a tiny minority of others have been. Rawlence writes, “The young men and women at the youth centre were the ones left behind, who followed the progress of their friends abroad on Facebook.” They set the nightmare of their current lives in limbo against the risk and expense of trying to get to the West.

Ken Olende, Socialist Worker 2490, 9 February 2016
https://socialistworker.co.uk/reviews-and-culture/city-of-thorns-the-forgotten-r... show less

Lyrical Anthropological Examination That Needs Better Scientific Documentation. When Rawlence is describing the people and peoples he is traveling to and among, he has such a lyrical quality to his prose here that it really is quite beautiful - these are the best parts of this book. However, Rawlence is also quite the pessimist about human action and survival, going on at one point to proclaim that Earth would be better off without humanity. While this is not an unheard of proposition, show more fantastical claims like that require substantial documentation - and documentation is what this text sorely lacks, clocking in at barely 10% of the overall text (25-30% being more "normal", and I've read books making far less fantastical claims clocking in north of 40% documentation). Ultimately, your opinion of the book is likely going to depend on whether you agree with Rawlence's politics and philosophies, though, again, the writing when he is *not* speaking to these really is quite beautiful. Still, even in what he does present and even with the lack of documentation, this is a book that needs to be read by most anyone speaking to any level of climate science, as he does bring up some truly valid points here and there. Recommended. show less

This book is the perfect read for those of you that might think, “I get that climate change is real but how bad is it really?”. The answer in short is: It’s quite bad. This book tells the story of climate change through the unique perspective of the Boreal lens. It doesn’t hold your hand or pull any punches and it lets you reach your own conclusions.

I had never expected a book about trees to be so interesting as the author cleverly intertwines the story of the forest and its show more innerworkings with the indigenous peoples that have lived in it. There are tons of facts about fungi and soils and permafrost that I now care about and appreciate.

The author’s voice and writing style really captures your imagination and wonder with his vivid descriptions of the forest surroundings while deferring to his expert guests to paint the sobering picture of our troubled future.

This is a life-changing book with a strong call to action that garners a sense of urgency. It inspires hope and an appreciation for the complexity of nature that will (fingers crossed) find a way. show less

Powerful book on the Dadaab refugee camp for Somalis driven out of their country into Kenya because of drought and war. Yet this huge refugee camp in the desert is inhospitable in so many ways--corruption, lack of jobs, brutality and yet refugees come and come and come. Rawlence tells the stories of 9 inhabitants who struggle desperately--their reasons for being there, their life while there, and what happens to each--he also turns over his profit from the book to helping them. Youth leader show more becomes disillusioned, young teacher gets the education she needs to perhaps survive, etc. Rawlence also analyses the AID programs, the UN programs, and the Kenyan government, the Somali smugglers--all keeping these refugees poor, starving, and with no options. The book has no pollyanna ending as the struggle continues. show less