1
Imagine you are lost in space.
In a tiny cabin.
And when you slowly approach
a rather hot planet,
your feet and your fingers
are freezing.
Your spacecraft
is a relative flying tin can.
It's a tin can
with a motorcycle engine
and wings out of fabric.
You come closer to this planet,
Africa.
This is where humans originated.
And much later it was discovered
over and over,
and enslaved and dispossessed
and colonized.
Colonized by foreigners who
had invented maps and compasses,
engines, airplanes.
Now you may start feeling strange.
The strangeness penetrates you.
It enters your heart.
You recall some sinister memories,
that you'd prefer to forget.
From now on,
you're a complete stranger.
You're an alien.
Dangerous.
There was this mighty queen
named Victoria.
She had never
set foot here in Africa.
With her finger on the map,
she had drawn a line.
And in the distance, a line of steel
would be cut into the sand.
The steel pushed straight south,
into the continent's heart.
And along the tracks came
the soldiers and their rifles
and the British flag.
But also,
the queen sent her only god.
And set him up
against someone else's god.
And so it went.
And again, the war became holy.
You witness the end
of Africa's biggest country.
It will soon no longer exist.
And you meet the two toughest
warriors of this poor country.
The chiefs,
ultimate enemies
from decades of civil war.
The man in black, Mr. Kiir,
will be president and military leader
of the new South Sudan.
He's a freedom fighter, a war hero
and he believes in Jesus.
Mr. Kiir is a really good friend
of the US of A.
That's why George W. Bush
offered him a cowboy hat.
The man on the right,
Mr. Bashir,
is Sudan's mighty ruler.
He is a really good friend of China.
He believes in Mohammed.
Mr. Bashir is one of
the world's most wanted men.
Wanted for war crimes,
crimes against humanity,
and genocide in Darfur,
which is nearby.
The nation's war machine
can only be financed
through the exportation of oil.
And someone's finger,
in some far away country,
cuts across a map.
No, no, no, no!
Imagine you can travel
in space and in time.
Go backwards 100 years.
You are in a place called Fashoda.
Imagine it is 1898.
On the craters of the moon
no spaceship had ever landed,
and no man had ever raised a flag.
Even here on the banks of the Nile,
no flag had ever been put up.
The trees here would not stand
in straight lines like soldiers.
There were no fences or gates.
Fashoda is the epicenter
of the colonial scramble.
French and British armies have
planted their flags here.
And at the same time...
two grand imperial dreams collide.
The British desire to connect
the Nile to the Cape,
the north to the south,
and the French fantasy to possess
Africa from east to the west,
from the Atlantic
to the Indian Ocean.
On set crossroads,
the villagers must learn many things:
how to wear uniforms,
how to march in step.
The local people have to learn
how to need money
and how to give up
their ancestors' land.
The masters from London,
Paris or Berlin announce
to "bring light into the darkness".
They draw lines into the savannah,
borders that separate
resources from people.
Borders that divide
cultures and tribes.
So then brothers and sisters
would fight.
- Hello.
- Hello.
That water if you...
If you touch it, you're going to die.
Even the animals drink that water,
also is going to die.
If the kids touch that water,
also is going to die.
...are all charged
with war crimes
for their actions in Darfur.
So the obvious question is,
why should we care?
Seven...
six, five...
four, three...
two, one...
blowing up.
Yes.
Where I'm doing this.
Yeah.
- Here?
- Yeah.
On the eve of South
Sudan becoming an independent nation,
there's growing violence along
what will be its new border
with the north.
Lindsey Hilsum has traveled
to the Nuba Mountains
where some of
the worst fighting is occurring.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I know!
How are you? Good?
I like, but not that place.
No, no. You hate that.
You really hate that.
Happy new year.
Shake!
Oh, I'm shaking it!
Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby!
Yeah, baby!
Welcome to BBC World News.
The declaration of independence was
read before tens of thousands
of singing and cheering people.
...in this part
of the African continent.
If the government
is surveying the land...
Yes.
Boys, girls sing song.
National anthem.
The heart has to change!
You wouldn't think in today's
world kids would run around naked,
holding a stick.
This is okay?
Yeah, it's okay. It's okay.
- Hello.
- Hey.
Sure!
Hey!
It's snow!
- Oh, man! It is.
- Oh, wow. Where?
It is snow.
It's 27 degrees.
It's 27 degrees!
And, um...
Um...
Yeah, yeah.
A large percent of the people I am
telling the story to are naked.
So I'm not gonna talk about the...
I don't want to...
Well, how should I say this?
...among the trees around them,
but the lord God called
to the man and said to him...
Hand down.
Is it clear?
Okay.
Hands down.
Hand down.
That is, uh...
What she's saying is...
- Hmm?
- "My Land" the song?
Your Excellencies and Honorables,
Ministers, deputies,
members of the diplomatic corps,
investors, business communities,
Hello.
Yeah, so, what do you actually do?
What do you want?
You may feel the detonation
somewhere else.
There are
hard rate concerns, you know?
...is being held
in a time of worsening crises.
...has become
what the UN chief is calling
a serious threat to
peace and security in the region.
And that's combined with an ongoing
humanitarian crisis in the south
where an estimated 120,000
people are in need of aid,
and that's because of the wave
of ethnic clashes there.
Then, of course, there is
war and famine in Somalia,
which has also dominated
this year's summit.
That country has been in a
state of anarchy for 20 years...
Subtitle edit by JackRaiden (Subtitle Edit).
Subtitle source by RedBlade (DVD).