Pictiúr as Darfur

Publication Instance Details #1980

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	Poverty/Deprivation/Lack of Sustenance Genocide
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This poem describes 'pictures from Darfur' - a war-torn region of Western Sudan on the continent of Africa. War broke out in 2003 when revolutionary groups accused the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab citizens. The government responded to this by committing ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. In this poem, the focus is on a young girl, who is near death due to hunger and deprivation, caused by the ongoing conflict. She is described as a 'human sacrifice' for those who are the cause of her hunger. The speaker of the poem describes the camera man taking her picture, while the 'badhbh' - a mythological harbringer of death in Irish folklore - waits patiently above. This publication of the poem is slightly different than its publication in 'An Guth' - the verses are changed slightly, and some of them have been removed. This publication also blames 'Giollaí Mhamóin' as the cause of the girl's deprivation and death. 'Mammon' is the Arabic word for 'wealth' and 'money', but also for the debasing effect of wealth on an individual. It is sometimes construed as the demon of greed in terms of the Seven Deadly Sins. Jesus spoke of Mammon: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Thus, the speaker of the poem blames the greedy and unrighteous for the death of the girl.