Customer Reviews

EMERGENCY SEX: AND OTHER DESPERATE MEASURES

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an astonishingly honest description of what happens to people from a sheltered Western background who suddenly have to cope with some of the most horrifying aspects of the world we find ourselves in. As you read it, look at the situations they find themselves in, and try to imagine how you would respond. Of course you'd criticize (often justly) the chiefs above you, but that doesn't mean that you'd do a better job. Don't read it as a political diatribe but as individuals trying to protect themselves and still do something when nothing can be done. I've worked in these and similar situations for twenty years, and have known many people like these three. Often you won't like them, because of the psychological coping mechanisms they have and the personalities they have developed that helps them through the morass.

THe sexual elements that run through the story--particularly Heidi's narrative--are one way of responding to death: by engaging in one of the most life-affirming acts there is. I've known people who, in the face of death, suddenly need 'emergency' sex to prove they are alive. I'm glad Heidi had the honesty to tell this side of the story, regardless of the consequences. I can't criticize her because I know many people who have many relationships for far worse reasons!

This isn't a book that should be read for its political position, for the 'truth' about what 'really happened'. For example, I disagree strongly with Ken about whether the Rwandan Genocide could have been stopped--and I was next door in Burundi watching it happen. He doesn't mention that the French sent troops in to reinstall the Hutu government, that they found it an impossible situation, and withdrew to the quietest corner of the country. But these are quibbles, and reflect our differing perception of the situation. I'd bet he and I could come to a common ground in a few minutes in a bar over a beer.

But get back to the point. This isn't a political expose, it's a psychological one, and it is the best book I've read that grapples with this issue. I know. I've been there.

This book is a gripping read--an alternately fun and horrifying, sexy and perverse look at what it means to be a UN Peacekeeper. If you're someone who is intrigued by war zones but self-protecting enough to keep yourself out of them, these three authors take you there. The story is one giant adventure, related with mirth, honesty, and a healthy dose of humility. I love the authors for not foisting a political agenda, for being honest about their missteps, their passions, and the persistent question of whether it's redemptive or even worthwhile to stick three fingers in the dyke of global poverty and oppression. I found it more illuminating--and far more engaging--than any policy-oriented or historical rendering of the conflicts in Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia and Bosnia.

Here's a book for anyone who'd like to learn something about what's going on around the globe, in human language--not development jargon, not bulleted press notes, not preachy moralistic speaches, but real human language, from real people, who lived ten years of their lives in some of the world's toughest places, and who lived, loved and lost in those places. A gripping, moving, funny account.

I used to work with the UN myself, and the experiences that the authors write about are in some ways familiar (and in other ways, totally unfamiliar). This is not just a book about UN scandals or failures, as the media (and some reader reviews) suggest. This is largely, and maybe more to the point, a coming-of-age story, about three young people who confront their own life values and beliefs. It will make you think about your own role in the world -- and the roll those who are in positions of relative power, who have been given the "official" authority to proclaim moral judgement over the globe's hot spots. This is an important, moving book, that's sad in some parts, but also immensely rewarding.

This book very aptly expresses the mixed emotions of aid workers everywhere, and the gradual destruction of their idealism by the realisation that despite all the rhetoric, even genocide can be pushed aside with meaningless platitudes and resolutions, as in Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia, and in present day Darfur, ignored in the interest of corporate profits. While struggling against bureaucratic inertia and downright dishonesty to contribute to the improvement of conditions for the most wretched of the world, they also struggle to find themselves. It is well written, entertaining, informative and sometimes very witty.

Want a compelling narative? You will find it in this book! I thought it was very well written by all three authors and brilliantly editted as their memoirs are woven together beautifully (the voice changes every few pages, yet transitions well). The book is a compilation of thier personnal stories as U.N. workers assigned to some of the world's most dangerous places in recent history. Their accounts seemed thoughtful and very true to how they felt living through all they did. Their perception of things beyond what they experienced first hand may or may not be accurate (such as their take on the politics), but their perceptions of these things are well articulated and give context to how they experienced what they did on the gound. Their accounts are gripping, touching, disturbling, and even humorous at some points - creating a vivid picture for the reader of what it would have been like to have been with them. The book is a page turner and is hard to put down. It is little wonder that Miramax is the publisher since I think it could be turned into a great movie someday.

From the moment I heard about this 2004 book, subtitled "A true story from hell on earth", I knew I had to read it. Co-written by three former U.S. peace workers who met in Cambodia in 1993, this book is a perfect fit for my interests. Told in alternating first-person narratives, every word of their story rings true. And, as an added bonus, there's humor mixed in with the horror which is so funny that there were places where I actually laughed out loud. Their assignments included Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia - and they soon lose their innocence about their "do-gooder" status.

When we first meet Heidi, she's 30 years old and has just walked away from a bad marriage. She's a secretary at the U.N. and jumps at the chance to travel to Cambodia as a peace worker for the elections. Then there is Ken, a Harvard law student who knows he wants more out of life than sitting in a corporate office. Andrew comes from New Zealand and is already working as a doctor in Cambodia. Through their own voices I felt I personally knew these individuals and was hearing their stories at a social gathering.

These stores, however, were more than just a tale told to entertain friends. They were personal, such as when Ken had a romantic experience with an Israeli woman during a scud missile attack and when Heidi, on a short vacation, has an affair with an African tribesman. But it is also about the abject fear they feel when the bullets are flying and the hard and scary choices they have to make when suddenly they are in charge. The stories also held details of terrible injustices and their privileged and powerless status of U.N. workers.

Andrew works in a hospital in Haiti that is not off-limits to men with guns who come in to finish off a patient. Later, he is put in charge of unearthing mass graves in Bosnia and Rwanda. Ken ties to get humanitarian aid for Hutu prisoners in Rwanda. Heidi works the radio at a base in Somalia when Ken is in a life-and-death situation. Their adventures are mixed with horror all the time. And there is also a feeling of impotence.

In addition to the human stories that unfolded in front of me, I also got an up-close-and-personal look at the U.N. impotence, especially since many of the so-called peacekeeping troops are thugs themselves. Also, serious questions were raised about some U.S. policies which seemed to promise so much in Somalia and Haiti, but instead left the people even worse off than before. I guess I always understood these things but this book opened my eyes in a whole new way.

I hadn't expected photographs but there is a whole section of pictures in the middle of the book. I loved each one of them because it made the authors even more real.

The final chapter which puts them all back in New York was rather anti-climatic but I guess it was necessary to bring the reader up to date. However, I loved this book and highly recommend it. It's engaging, it's real, there's much food for thought and a lot to learn.

This book is an easy way to learn a liitle about UN peacekeeping history. I also found the writers to be very honest. I also love books where the same story is told from different perspectives.

I liked all the details about the sex. Firstly it lightened up the book after the heavy parts. Also, one of the points was how they used it as a coping mechanism.

I think a theme in the book was the mistake of conducting a humanitarian mission for one's self. The book showed this fault in UN missions (as with pulling out of Haiti and Rwanda) and in the three writers.

My only problem was that I didn't feel the development of the relationship between the writer's. There was little conversational dialogue between. There was more description of how the relationships were rather than actually showing them, if that makes any sense.

I can see why some of the review writers have bees in their bonnets: these authors gore a lot of sacred cows. But I didn't read this book as a political or policy critique, more a story of friendship and innocence lost. It's almost literary in the way it reads. Don't buy this, as Jack Nicholson said, if you "can't handle the truth" about war. But if you can, it's a hell of read, and you won't forget it soon.

Three twentysomethings join the UN out of motives ranging from ennui to idealism. Over a period of a decade, they mature, then burn out, after seeing the depths of utter depravity to which humans can sink, in some of the worst hellholes on the planet. This is their story.

Things start out reasonably, as each of them wends their respective ways to Cambodia in the early 90s, as part of the international team supervising the first free elections. We read about many sad stories, but this one at least has a happy ending: despite the cynicism of the protagonists toward the process, each is humbled at the outcome, as 80 percent of Cambodians turn out to peacefully elect their first non-dictatorial government.

After that, it is all downhill: from Somalia, where things are bad, but turn immediately worse when the United States scuttles home after the Battle of Mogadishu; to Haiti, where the UN presence is unceremoniously ejected by the shameful failure of the US to back them up; to Rwanda, where the UN and US are jointly complicit in the worst massacre since the Holocaust; to Bosnia, where the UN role is reduced to picking up the pieces after the indigenous Moslems are massacred; and finally, to Liberia, where the "peacekeepers" are as terrifying as the "insurgents".

Although this is not a book with an agenda, but rather a series of eyewitness testimonials, there appears to be no doubt as to who the villains are (in addition to the obvious ones): it is made clear that the situations in Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia get considerably worse after the US skedaddle from Somalia makes it clear that we have a "glass jaw". In addition, the venality and outright incompetence of the UN are pitilessly exposed.

Recommended reading for anyone who still entertains the delusion that the Iraqi situation would be improved by UN participation: on the contrary, it is clear that the only times the UN has been effective is when it is credibly backed up by the threat of US force.

Cain, Postlewait, and Thomson have captured the human face of UN peacekeeping. Yes, they expose the good and the bad, but ultimately their cry for the world to prevent or at least witness atrocities -- even through the imperfect means of the United Nations -- comes through loud and clear.

The authors detail the UN's foibles, missteps, and mistakes, but they also send the message that it's better than nothing. While the rest of the world decides not to care, underfinanced and underresourced UN missions manage to save a few lives, make prisons safer, and -- eventually -- try the perpetrators of genocide. How -- with brave individuals who decide that it's worth risking their lives.

The authors also concede that yes, peacekeeping traumatizes UN personnel; rightly so since only the coldhearted would be unmoved by the mass graves full of rotting skeletons. Their testimonies to the intensity of friendships, love, and the occassional debauchery that helps them forget exposes an ageless coping mechanism for trauma and war.

This personal history of the international community's attempt to clean up after the gruesome wars of the 1990s is a must read.