orbis quintus

Yes, it’s hard to believe that they’re trying to pass this relaunch as the premiere issue, but so it goes…

What i did like in it was a six page comic towards the back, done by illustrator Brian Wilcox when he was teamed with Kareem Fahim for some work with the Village Voice in 2003. It details the life that the reporters led after the fall of Saddam, but before the country slid into what is an unacknowledged civil war. The style is a little rough, more in line with a self-published zine than a polished graphic novel, but there is a perspective fo the American presence in Iraq that doesn’t reach the mainstream in it, something that deflates the rigid framing that is received in the U.S, something that shows how completely unprepared for the road ahead America was. I’d wish that Wilcox devoted more time to work like this than coloring books mocking Bush.

Sudan has enough problems. Despite the need to modernize though to increase the national power supply and create more arable land, the Merowe Dam will cost more than the $1.8 billion price tag.

But modernization comes with a price. The dam, which experts say is the largest hydropower project under development in Africa, is expected to create a sprawling 100-mile long lake that will displace 50,000 people who live in villages along the river.

Also to be submerged are some of Sudan’s ancient sites, where archaeologists are now working feverishly to find what they can while they still can. The affected locations, according to government scientists, include the noted Pharaonic and Napato-Meroitic towns and cemeteries at Gebel Barkal, the post-Meroitic tumuli of Zuma and the Christian monastery of Ghazali, among others.

Actually they don’t even know what’s really going to be submerged.

The work is already producing surprising results, said Dr. Ahmed, who has devoted his career to the area. Before the hurried digging began, many archaeologists did not consider this particular stretch of the Nile to be a major settlement site. But the ancient buildings, tombs, pots and other finds are proving that wrong, he said.

“This dam has a negative side but it also has a positive side,” Dr. Ahmed said. “This area has been ignored by archaeologists. It has never been surveyed properly. We are mostly relying on surveys from British occupation. We’re learning that the area is far more interesting than anybody thought.”

It seems that every time a dam is built, this story is repeated, with new place names and cultures plugged into the equation.

The current inhabitants of the land to be flooded always get an even rawer deal too, with inadequate compensation that’s administered in a haphazard fashion.