Against humanity Lessons from the Lord's Resistance Army

Dubal (medical anthropologist; surgical resident, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center) takes as his task nothing less than a revised understanding of the rebellious Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). That is no simple matter considering that social media have tied the LRA to kidnapping, training child soldiers, forced marriage, and sexual slavery. The author moves the needle in his desired direction using a standard ethnographic practice: he provides renditions of those who lived the experiences. As presented, these accounts are more temperate than one would expect. Dubal then subjects these narratives to a textual analysis that deepens appreciation of their meaning. The result, as the subtitle promises, is that there are lessons to learn from the LRA. The enigmatic title is also brought into play as the author convincingly argues that this abbreviated extract from the UN's International Criminal Court's statement of purpose is applied too casually and frequently in the African context. In this instance, the LRA's brand of personal violence is apparently more unacceptable to relevant audiences than similar activities perpetrated by the former colonial and present Ugandan regimes. A revision of the author's dissertation, this controversial and challenging book is required reading for scholars of African studies. Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. --W. Arens, emeritus, Stony Brook University