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Amina Mire, I’m very sorry for your loss and pain, and you have the right to say what you want…But, this story is about an American journalist who was there to spread understanding of what was going on to the US. That’s what the movie’s about.

My intervention is informed by the fact the American people are being fed by one sided tragic saga about US involvement in Somalia. Hence, the 2001 Ridley Scott’s Hollywood’s film ‘Blackhawk Down’ based on Mark Bodwen’s Memoir of the same name had played up the Hollywood formula: ‘good guys’ - usually, white, heterosexual, viral and militaristic fighting the ‘bad guys’—weak, black, feminized, liars and cowards.

Second, I am an expert in the cultural production of "truth" and this film is a discursive production of specific  truth of specific western[Jewish]journalist who was killed in Somalia.. I have never said that he did not come to Somalia to help the people of Somalia nor did say that his life does not deserve remembrance. the question is do western public know about death and destruction against the people of Somalia so that loss of Daniel to his family is placed within the context of great loss to the people of Somalia?

“In his foreword to Mogadishu!: Heroism and Tragedy, Ross Perot wrote: ‘Read this book carefully. Never forget its contents as you watch the TV docu-dramas of smart bombs going down air shafts, where war is presented in a sterile, sanitized environment. Remember, war is fighting and dying.’1 Notable by its absence from the final sentence is the verb ‘killing’. Careful readers will find, for example, that U.S. helicopters fired off no fewer than 50,000 Alpha 165 and 63 rockets on 3 October 1993 in the course of the battle near the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu, in which eighteen U.S. soldiers died and one was captured. The book lauds ‘the world’s most highly trained and effective military “extraction unit”’, that gained more decorations than any other American flying unit in U.S. military history for a comparable size of operation.2 But there are only hints at the carnage among the Somali civilians who lived—and all too commonly died—in this closely packed residential quarter of the city.”U.S. War Crimes in Somalia Published on: Feb 28, 2007 Printable VersionBy Alex de Waal

From the New Left Review, 30, 1998, 131-144.

http://hornofafrica.ssrc.org/de_Waal3/

Tansey, that’s not true, December Boys is selling lots of DVDs which shows that if WB would have given it a proper distribution, that’s it: releasing it more than in 3 or 4 cinemas… it would have done lots of money. WB did a great damage to that movie, but I guess not many people know the true about that. I don’t understand your frustration, why can not you just be happy for Dan? He is a good boy who just love his work and put a lot of passion, energy, love, talent and work in it. I watched MBJ and Dan was great in it, he was fantastic in DB too. You are just a basher so the surprising thing is you’d write something positive I guess. About your first comment, I’m sure you wouldn’t say that if the actor you like would be the one in it. Also, it shows you are writting a comment about a post you have not even read, what bashers usualy do… because the article explains this movie is not going to be like that, all the contrary.

Amina, Dan Eldon was a good young man, thanks to him the world knew for the first time what was happening in Somalia, and thanks to that many lives were saved with the food people sent there. The dream of her mother is to make a movie about his son’s life so it can inspire other people to continue the work his son did. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. If what you write it’s true, you should understand better than anyone else what it feels to lost someone you love, you should understand her.

I don’t really understand why you write about that here. But I think you should be happy they are going to film this movie because it’s a way to show to the world what happened, how many lives were taken that day. If this movie is not done, no-one will know about it. For example, I didn’t know about what happened that day until I read the New York Times article the other day about Dan Eldon. Thanks to him, his family and Mr Radcliffe, many young people like me are finding out about all what happened during those years, and still happens in Somalia. If they would do a movie about all the people who are killed inSomalia, I’m sorry but the true is not many people would be interested in watching that. But doing a movie like this, a lot of people will want to see it and then they will learn about it. Maybe you should look at it from that point of view.

You are criticizing the world doesn’t know about this, and atthe same time you are criticizing something which could tell the world about it.

You visit this site, so you are obviously a HP fan, but you don’t criticize all the money spent in the HP movies, or all the money Jo Rowling earns, instead of doing a movie about what’s happening there. From my point of view that’s hypocritical.

This film is way to show to the world how many journalist risk their lives everyday so the world can know what happens in places like Somalia, do you think that’s wrong too? The work they do is really admirable.

How stunning that you think the very ontology of the suffering of people of Somalia need ed the gaze of western eyes for to it be receive d as real suffering! Thanks for backing up my point!

Amina, before criticizing maybe you should inform yourself better. Dan Eldon was nor American, he was British, but most part of his lif he lived in Kenya, so you can say he was African. You have not seen this movie so you don’t really know from what point of view it will be told. And you obviously haven’t even read the article before writting your opinion because if you would have read it you would know Kathy’s words contradict many of what you say. She doesn’t want people to see her son as an hero, she just want to tell his story, like he told it with his journals. You don’t even know if this is an American production, because the producers have still not been announced. And the scriptwriter is Australian btw.

Dan Eldon loved Africa, he lived there most of his life, you want a movie told from the point of view of Africans, this is a good opportunity to do it. Have you seen Dan eldon’s diaries? Please, read them, then tell me if he didn’t love Africa and African people. There is no better eyes to tell a story like this than from Eldon’s eyes.

Ridley Scott’s Hollywood’s film ‘Blackhawk Down’??? how can you compare two movie if you haven’t even seen one of them? If you think Dan Radcliffe would choose to be in a movie like Blackhawk Down, you don’t know Dan at all…

Amina, Please go someplace else to post your political theories. This is NOT the place. I hope Daniel does it if he wants to. Go Dan!

“How stunning that you think the very ontology of the suffering of people of Somalia need ed the gaze of western eyes for to it be receive d as real suffering! Thanks for backing up my point!”

Oh! So it would have been better to let 6 MILLIONS of Somalies dying?

And please, don’t change my words, because you know very well I’ve not said that. Actually, what I’ve said it’s all the contrary. I’ve said that because Dan Eldon lived most of his life in Africa, he was more African than British (you didn’t even know he was not American, you didn’t do great research before criticizing…) his story is not told from an Occidental poin of view, it’s told from an African point of view.

I am not the one who brought identity politics to thisstory or to thread! The “Jewishness “of Daniel as the reaosn reason why this specific actor might be chosen to play him is well reported in the media! I am only responding to it. I’ve read the thread very carefully. Perhaps you do not like my intervention of it is coming from the location of the other! My posts are interventions from the position of the discursively silenced voices of thousands of dead Somalis, killed by the USA war machine. This is not the narrative Hollywood want s to produce. I realise that. But people need to think through the factual merit of my links.

Can everybody just get along? Dan is a great guy (and possibly my boyfriend) and I just want him to do well!

6 Million Somalis ‘saved’ by US invasion 1993 is pure myth! Please read the links I have provided, in particular Alex De Waal’s link.

Discursive production of "truth' is powerful, indeed!

MODERATORS: can someone please get in here and clean up this comment thread? I didn’t come on here to read about world politics, no matter how well-intentioned the posts.

Amina, it’s funny how you can change the subject so quickly… you have just showed all of us what you really meant writting all those comments. It’s just, you don’t want people to be happy for Daniel!

First of all, I’ll tell you: I’m not American. So you didn’t even got that right. I live in Spain, but my mother is from South Africa and my father was from Algelia, and I don’t like when some people like you are so “outraged” for things that actually can be helpful for us, like this movie.

It’s obvious you like to take things out of contest, because if you read the article, Kathy doesn’t say he chose Dan because of that. She says Dan shares many things with his son, and one of them is that one, just that. Using that as an excuse to write about politics doesn’t make sense.

It’s not that I don’t like your intervetion, it’s that I think it’s very off topic and you have not documented yourself well before writting. You didn’t know who Dan Eldon really was, you thought he was American. You haven’t read his diaries. You didn’t read his mothers words before writing. You were talking about a movie you haven’t even seen yet.

What I understand reading your comments is you don’t like American movies who tell stories from their ponit of view, often very patriotic and too “heroic”. Well, I’m sure this movie is not going to be like those. First, because he lived most of his life in Africa, so when he died, it was an African dying, so if you are really from there, you should feel this, like I feel it. Second, reading her mother’s words, it’s obvious the movie will be very different of that. And if you’d know Daniel Radcliffe just a little, that’s not the type of movies he want to be part of.

Basically, you are prejudicing, and the only reason I find to that here, is that: you are just a basher, and this is your way to try to dirty this news. I’ve been reading Leaky since many years ago, I know HP fandom too well, I know how it works, and the extrems some people reach in order to bash…

If you really are from Somalia and you have internet access that means you come from one of the rich familes, and the ways those familes use to get money… that’s more shameless that what those you criticize do. So either you are lying, or you are not the better person to be judging.

Amina, again, you are changing my words. I didn’t say 6 millions were saved, I know that was nothing at all like that! My father was there helping, that’s an aproximation of the nunmer of people who were dying because of hunger. Thanks to Dan Eldon the world learned about that, and food was sent there, I think that’s better than nothing.

I’m sorry, but I agree with Kelly all our posts should be deleted, it’s too offtopic. Look Amina, if you want to continue talking about this, please send me an email: leoleo_ds@hotmail.com I would be more than happy to share with you my father’s pictures and expiriences, and talk about what you wrote in those sites.

Leonard

“If you really are from Somalia and you have internet access that means you come from one of the rich familes, and the ways those familes use to get money… that’s more shameless that what those you criticize do. So either you are lying, or you are not the better person to be judging”.

that is a stupid commet, firstly I am from North somalia which is relatively safe, and internet access is in abundance. the are literally thousands of internet cafes. Also my i remind you that somalia has one of the best internet connection in East africa, even though it has no fuctioning government.

I just hope the movie shows the suffering of the somalis and not just focus on the journalist. and turn it into some rose-tinted hero worship movie.

Ok, I think everyone has had their say. Now its time to get back to what this site is really for. I am glad the actors of the HP films are getting other movies. I am reallly looking forward to the JK A Year In The Life. I hope it comes to the US soon:)

ALi hirsi, I’m sorry if I offended you, I have my own reasons to say that, like I said before, send me an email and we can talk more about it. Basically, I think it’s not fair the ones who live in the “rich” part of a country are the ones criticizing certain things, but if you don’t agree, I’d like to talk about it using emails.

The true is we don’t even know if the movie will be based in that time of Dan Eldon’s life or the time when he was in Kenya for example. And he was not a journalist, he worked as a photojournalist for Reuters, and focusing on his life they would be focusing in the lives of my other people he knew. That was exactly my point, I think everyone could learn a little bit about this young man before prejudicing. That’s all.

It cannot be an accident that at a moment in history when the US might face international community’s critical gaze for sponsoring the illegal invasion of Somalia by proxy that have caused unmitigated death and destruction in Somalia, a caring young journalist, whose life was cut short by brutal and unjust killing by angry mob in Somalia, is being enlisted to turn a potentially story of genocide and shame to one of America’s heroism. Now, as how many Somalia lives have been saved as a result of US shock and Awe “operation restore hope” saved in 1993? According the UN: “The humanitarian garb of Operation Restore Hope was superficial from the start. Launched in December 1992 just as the famine was waning, the dispatch of troops had more to do with testing the newly emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ than saving Somalis. An independent review by the U.S. Refugee Policy Group concluded that the operation saved between 10,000 and 25,000 lives rather than the two million initially advertised.3 This sober reality was noted at the time, though few chose to listen amidst the hype generated among the media, the UN and the Pentagon. Much more modest forms of relief aid could have achieved exactly the same result.” http://hornofafrica.ssrc.org/de_Waal3/

Amina, really, why don’t you read? He was not American! And his mother has been trying to do this movie since 2003! But they were waiting for the right actor! You can google about it and find many articles from 2003 and 2004. You don’t know if the ones producing this movie are Americas. We got your point, you don’t like America, repeating it won’t make you been right. You are so blind you don’t see all the good things this movie can bring, you don’t see all the love this young man had for Africa, you just want to think it’ll be another typical American movie… whatever, I think you just are just another typical basher. I just can not understand how Leaky always delete these kind of comments, but when it is related with Daniel people can say whatever they want, no matter how offensive it is, or it is based in right facts or not.

Another tragic death of a young man???!!! Is Dan trying to follow Alan Rickman in his early movie reputation as a dying man? Is this the ultimate thrill for a young actor; to die on stage? What is going on in the head of that boy? I don’t know how much influence he has on the enscenering, but I think that when he has his way the scene of “the forest again” will be much more spectaculair then the rather prosaic line in the book.

Amina, I can respect that these are your personal and political opinions, and that you want to get them out there. However, I do not feel that your comments address what we were meant to talk about on this particular comments board: Daniel Radcliffe’s new role. When we speak of Dan Eldon, it is on topic - but you are bringing another level to it. I don’t want to sound unfeeling - I’m very, very sorry for your loss and pain. But truly, this Harry Potter site isn’t the place for it.