Who Hates Whom?

Who Hates Whom?, Bob Harris, Three Rivers Press, 2007

Subtitled "Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully
Incomplete Guide," this book gives short essays on the various "little wars" going on around the world.

Where is the world's deadliest conflict since World War II? Try the Democratic Republic of the Congo, right in the middle of Africa, where nearly 4 million people have been killed in the last six years. Huge deposits of gold, diamonds and copper, all over the country, have not helped the situation. The term "blood diamonds" came from the simultaneous civil wars in the west African countries of Cote D'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone (also paid for with diamond mining).

Burma is full of various ethnic groups who have had a hard time getting along with each other. Currently,
it is like a Third World Soviet Union, a group of diverse lands controlled by police state tactics. Did you know that the official calendar in North Korea says that time began with the birth of Kim Il-Sung? While it's 2008 in the rest of the world, in North Korea, it's the year 97.

In a way, America is financing both sides in the civil war in Colombia. On one side, the US Government
sends millions of dollars in aid, usually military, to the right-wing government. On the other side, Colombia produces 80% of the world's cocaine, of which America consumes more than half, so American drug users are financing the rebels.

The national motto of Scotland, translated into English, is "Nobody provokes me with impunity." Seriously. The nationalist symbol of Wales is the leek, a type of large green onion. Nobody knows why.

Who Hates Whom? may be intended as a humor book, but it does a really good job at explaining the various wars and insurrections that sometimes reach the evening news.