Peace Pundit

An online game “Darfur is Dying” provides a taste of what life is like for the people who live in the Darfur region of Sudan.

From the game’s official description: “Darfur is Dying is a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Players must keep their refugee camp functioning in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias. Players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis.“

The game has two sections: life in a refuge camp, and foraging for water.

The life in a refuge camp section is a simulation: you move your character around the camp, performing various duties to increase the supply of food, build mud-brick buildings, and get medical care. (Hint: the central water fountain is important.) This section of the game is slow-paced and not easy to learn, but ultimately engaging once you figure out what to do. The main feelings it induced in me, which are probably intentional, were: a) life in a refugee camp is monotonous, b) you can’t rest, you must keep working to keep the camp going, and c) much of what happens is out of your control.

An important activity for keeping the camp going is foraging for water. This puts you into a different part of the game, where your character runs through the desert, looking for the well, hiding from Janjaweed militia, who will capture or kill you if they catch you. This section is more of an action game. It takes several attempts (and losing a few of the dozen available characters to the Jangaweed) before you learn where the well is and how to get there and back to the camp safely. The main feeling this section of the game induced in me is sheer terror.

In addition to raising consciousness about what the people of Darfur have to endure, “Darfur is Dying” also offers several ways to take action outside of the game: write the U.S. government to urge sanctions against the Sudanese government, donating funds to efforts to help Darfurians, etc.

Try the Game

I highly recommend the movie “Lions for Lambs”. I saw it on a recent plane flight. It was so good that I watched it twice. It is one of the most powerful anti-war films I have seen.

Produced by Robert Redford, it stars Redford, Merryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. Streep plays a news reporter, Cruise plays an ambitious pro-war Republican Senator, and Redford plays a political science professor. Their performances are outstanding, but they are almost upstaged by several unknown actors — Ernest Rodriguez, Peter Berg, Derek Luke, Andrew Carfield, and Kevin Dunn — who play other important roles.

I’m not sure how timeless this film will be, because it is extremely current. The story takes place in 2007, and concerns the U.S. led wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, and even Colin Powell appear in photographs.

The film weaves together three related stories: a reporter interviewing a Senator about a new development in the war on terrorism, a Special Forces military operation in Afghanistan, and a college professor trying to convince his students to do something meaningful with their lives.

The dialog is not the usual clever Hollywood banter. It is so natural and realistic that it almost seems that the actors were given loose scripts and told to improvise their lines based on what they really think (although I don’t know if that was how it was done). Even Tom Cruise, who plays the pro-war Senator, has important, thought-provoking things to say.

Highly recommended.

Links to further information about the film:

• Official “Lions for Lambs” website
• IMDB entry about the movie
• Wikipedia entry about the movie
• Movie trailer at YouTube
• Winner of film-sponsored “Take a Stand” video contest