Creating & Presenting (Section B)
ENCOUNTERING CONFLICT
Every Man In This Village Is a Liar: An Education in war By Megan
Stack By Megan Stack
2014 MSC Revision Booklet
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General advice
This section is based around the texts: Every man in this village is a liar- An education in war or Paradise road.
However, this is not a text study The ideas, characters, themes and writing style of the text are there to
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inform your writing when creating your own text
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stimulate ideas that address the context (theme) Identity and Belonging.
The characters and themes from the text are not the focus of your writing: the ideas from the context are the
focus. The prompt is your starting point and the text is your inspiration. You may want to use world events,
other texts and personal experiences to complement the inspiration you derive from the text, but it's not
something you have to do. Remember to use an identifiable form (and write for the audience and purpose this
form requires) and write well. The exam will not specific a required audience and purpose. It's all about the
quality of the writing and the quality of the ideas.
Exam Advice
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You can choose any style of writing: creative, expository, persuasive or a combination of these styles.
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You can choose any form
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·Make sure you choose a style and a form that best allows you to respond to the prompt.
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If you choose creative, make sure that your piece explores three or more key ideas connected to the prompt.
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If you want to make sure there is a really strong connection to the text, then base your story on the world of
the text (characters/settings)
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When writing creatively use a very well defined form. Eg. An article or a speech. A story is fine but it is harder to
write this sort of piece under exam pressure.
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Make sure you connect your piece in some way to the prompt in the topic sentences. (You don't have to use
the exact words of the prompt and it's probably better if you don't.)
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Make sure your language suits the form, audience and purpose
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If you are writing in the style of… ensure you use and maintain the voice of that character.
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Persuasive writing should use persuasive techniques appropriate to its form.
Some supplementary material that was successfully used in the examination
• Band Played Waltzing Matilda
• Quote from Dante
• Quote from Alighieri
• Gandhi
• Charles Perkins freedom ride
• Berlin Wall
• Kev Carmody
• Harvey Milk
• Resistance in WWII (Nancy Wake)
• Waleed Aly
• Painting of Guernica
• To Kill a Mocking Bird – quote from Atticus Finch
• Inherit the Wind
• Galileo
• Cronulla Riots
• Protest against mosque/Islamic school in Sydney
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Activity One
Use the table below to guide your revision reading the text. Remember to allow the text to INFORM your understanding of encountering conflict - it is not
necessary to remember every detail about this text, you need to consider how the ideas Stack expresses contribute to your broader understanding of Encountering
Conflict
Chapter
What happens?
What we learn about
conflict
1 Every man in this village is a
liar
Afghanistan
2. Chasing ghosts
Afghanistan
3. As long as you can pay for it
Home to America but
disconnected
4. Terrorism and other stories
Israel/Palestine
Intifada – uprising, rebellion,
literally ‘shaking off’
3
Events in this chapter are similar to……..
This makes me question……………
5. Forgive us our trespasses
Iraq
6. The living martyr
Iraq
7.The leader
Libya
8. Sacrifice
Iraq
9. We expected something better
Jordan
10. A question of cost
Saudi Arabia
11. Loddi Doddi, we like to party
Yemen
12. A city built of garbage
Lebanon
13. The earthquake no one felt
14. All Things light, and All Things
Dark
Iraq
15.There Would Be Consequences
Iraq
16.Killing the dead
Lebanon
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Activity Two
After you have reread the text, complete detailed responses to the questions below.
*Remember to try to refer to supplementary examples wherever possible.
1. You humanised them. You’re writing about suicide bombers as people who have corpses and families.
They can’t stand to see them written about like that.” Why was it seen as important to dehumanize the
enemies during war?
2. Who was lying? Why? What were the repercussions?
3. Choose 3 memorable personal stories told by Stack. What do these contribute to the reading of the text?
4. Why does religious fundamentalism so often lead to violence? Has America been guilty of the same kind
of self-righteous extremism in its opposition of the Middle East?
5. Why did Atwar Bahjat have to die?
6. Discuss 6 incidents highlighting the role of women.
7. Is it a problem for the reader that Stack does not go into too much detail about political and historical
background? Discuss.
8. In your opinion, how successful is the book as a memoir? Discuss.
9. The subtitle for this book is ‘an education in war?’ What did Stack learn about war? What did you learn
about war?
10. How do you think Stack’s voice and editorial choices have shaped and influenced your conclusions about
:
o American involvement in the Middle East?
o Crisis and wars in the Middle East?
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Activity Three
Stack’s memoir is really her reactions and experiences in ENCOUNTERING/witnessing the war in the
Middle East . Use the questions below to guide your thinking and then complete a response to one of
the prompts and the bottom of the page.
1.What do we know of Stack before the events of this book? 2. How does Stack feel towards America before and after her experiences in the Middle East?
3. Is Stack religious? Describe how she relates to her faith in the book. 4. What are some of her special abilities/talents? Is she good at her job? 5. Do Stack’s views grow and mature throughout the novel? How and why? 6. What do you feel Stack would go on to do after the events of this novel? 7. Which sort of people does Stack admire in the book?
W hi
ort
ofchpeople
s
does Stack condemn in the
book?
8. Does Stack seem to have many close friends/family? How close do you think they are? 9. Does Stack have any fears or inner conflicts throughout the book? How does she deal with these? 10.What views/values are most important to Stack?
11. What do you think her purpose was in writing the book, considering she has obviously already written a
lot of articles about the Middle East?
Practice prompts
Ensure you time your response; 4 minutes planning time, 45 minutes writing and 3 minutes editing
and reading back over it.
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‘The process for self-discovery inevitably involves some kind of personal struggle.’
‘An encounter with conflict can make you a better person.’
‘The way we deal with conflict has an impact on how we relate to others.’
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‘Encountering conflict can cause an individual to reassess their values.’
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‘The way individuals respond to conflict is often determined by past experience/culture/gender.’
‘It is impossible to fully comprehend conflict as a bystander.’
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Links to the text – Supplementary text ideas
Soldiers experience with war:
It makes sense to compare what was Stack’s response as journalist to the response of people who
directly participated in conflict. An excellent collection of pieces on war is: Dear America: Letters Home
From Vietnam – an anthology of correspondence sent by troops home to their family during the Vietnam
War
(read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DearAmerica:LettersHomefromVietnam)
Aid workers:
You could also compare how Stack’s experience as a witness to conflict compare to the experience of aid
workers who see to bring relief to war ravaged areas but also witness series distress:
http://saferedge.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2012/10/James-Roger-Trauma-piece.pdf
Films:
A number of films deal with war correspondents and the impact on them of the conflicts they are covering.
The two films below are both Australian
The Year of Living Dangerously: This 1982 film follows the story of a young Australian journalist sent to
cover the 1965 coup in Indonesia
(see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheYearof LivingDangerously(film)
• Balibo: This 2009 film dramatises the story of five journalists killed in 1975 by Indonesian troops in Timor
while covering Indonesia’s invasion of that country
(See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo(film)
More indirect example…
Violence in the media
Stack is a witness to violence around her, consider how we all witness violence and conflict in the media either in films, tv or on the news. How does witnessing this conflict impact us? These three articles below
look particularly at the impact of violence on children:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/10/08/3864849.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/violence-on-tv-childrenb3734764.html
http://www.parenting.com/article/tv-news-too-violent-for-children
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Activity Four
After reading the quotes below, write a one page expository piece on Conflict
‘There was a problem with the corpses of the suicide bombers. They were piling up in the steel
refrigerators of Israel’s morgue, and nobody could figure out what to do.’
‘I love living in Israel, that was the hardest part. I loved it every time I climbed the dry heights of Masada
and felt the desert wind and saw the Dead Sea gleam below, like spilt ink.’
‘I was a reporter and I wanted to see. Only after covering it for years did I understand that the War on
Terror never really existed, it was not a real thing.’
‘Because they all had their stories, they all had – every family had scars, secret graves, people had just got
erased from the world.’
‘It was not that the War on Terror was flawed, not that it was cynical or self-defeating or likely to breed
more resentment and violence, but that it was hollow. It was essentially nothing but a unifying myth for a
complicated scramble of mixed impulses and social theories and night terrorism, cruelty of business
interests, all overhung with the unassailable memory of falling skyscrapers.’
Activity Five
Some ideas for writing a creative piece
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Imagine you are Stack. Write an editorial or article with the contention that the war on terror is not
real for a newspaper.
Write a letter from the point of view of someone living in a war torn country.
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Write an article for a psychological magazine about mentally surviving conflict.
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Themes and central ideas in the text
Common conflict ideas throughout
• The price for innocent civilians of war and endemic violence
• Lives destroyed by constant fear
• Suffering is not just physical
• Surviving and not surviving
• Being a journalist and being human
• The endless cycle of revenge
• The lies we tell ourselves
Central Concern #1 Lies, Truth and Trust:
"Every man in this village is a liar." It was a punch line to a parable, the tale of an ancient Greek traveler
who plods into a foreign village and is greeted with those words... It's one of the world's oldest logic
problems, folding in on itself like an Escher sketch. If he's telling the truth, he's lying. If he's lying, he's
telling the truth.
How is this show in the text? Connect this idea with a supplementary example.
Central Concern #2 Compromising principles in order to achieve our own agendas Stack shows us time
and time again that the primary internal conflict is one of compromise, and the consequences it brings.
How is this show in the text? Connect this idea with a supplementary example.
Central Concern #3:
The war on terror "never really existed.
Stack proposes that it creates a liminal space between "surviving and not surviving."
Stack forces us to think about the Middle East as a whole, rather than as separate countries with separate
conflicts.
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Central Concern #4
War is elemental - it is kill or die
When in the middle of combat, there is no humanity. There is no room for compassion, only survival.
Central Concern #5
Circles of suffering and brokenness radiate out from one another. It's all connected.
Central Concern #6
War transforms human experience.
Stack does not claim that the U.S. mishandled the war on terror, but rather that the war was an illusion
from the start, "a way for Americans," she writes, "to convince ourselves that we were still strong and
correct."
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Encountering Conflict Prompts
The below prompts are just a guide. Feel free to use any of the prompts you have been given in class
or past exam questions.
1. A conflict’s importance lies not in its causes but in its consequences.
2. Often, how we respond to conflict depends on a
ety of cultural factors out of our control.
vari
3. Conflict is born from fear.
4.Who we are is truly tested and proven when we
5.Without conflict, there is no progress or
encounter conflict.
change.
6.‘The ways in which individuals respond
expectations.’
to conflict are
determined
by their personal experiences and
7.When the war ends so too does the conflict.
8.Once conflict is encountered, it is never forgotten. All conflicts can be overcome if one tries hard
enough to conquer them.
9.The only way the powerless in society can achieve change is by creating
10.In times of conflict, a group’s actions speak louder than just one person’s voice.
11.Although a conflict may have ceased, its effects on people always persevere.
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conflict.