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The screaming of the innocent door Unity Dow
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The screaming of the innocent (origineel 2002; editie 2002)

door Unity Dow

LedenBesprekingenPopulariteitGemiddelde beoordelingAanhalingen
374660,867 (4)5
When a twelve-year-old girl goes missing near her village, the local police tell her mother and the villagers that she has been taken by a wild animal. Five years later, a young government employee finds a box containing evidence of human involvement in the affair.
Lid:thorold
Titel:The screaming of the innocent
Auteurs:Unity Dow
Info:North Melbourne : Spinifex Press, 2002.
Verzamelingen:Jouw bibliotheek
Waardering:****
Trefwoorden:fiction, Botswana, crime, corruption

Informatie over het werk

The Screaming of the Innocent door Unity Dow (2002)

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Toon 4 van 4
Dow tackles a very tricky subject: the ritual murder of children to harvest body parts for use as muti, ingredients for "traditional medicine". We all know how (false) accusations of killing and torturing children have been used in the past to discredit whole cultures, so it's something you have to approach with extreme caution as an outsider, but of course Dow is very much an insider in the Botswana legal system, so we have to assume that this is based on real experience.

And the approach she takes is a very clever one: from the start, the crime is presented as a particularly nasty and perverted way that privileged members of society abuse the power they have over the poor and weak, to increase their own strength. The question of whether it is a genuine part of traditional tribal culture becomes irrelevant. The muti is effective because its existence gives confidence to the people using it and strikes fear into the hearts of their opponents. Even if you don't believe in magic, you're going to be scared of messing with someone that you suspect of being involved with this kind of thing. The more so if you are a government official in a country where everything runs on hierarchies of influence and patronage.

The very tangible horror of what has happened is always there in the background, but the main storyline focusses on the semi-comic story of the campaign to reopen the crudely buried police investigation into the disappearance of a young girl five years ago. The residents of the village where the girl lived are helped by Amantle, a student who has been assigned to them for a period of community service. Her selection for this out-of-the-way spot seems to have been due to a reputation for being a trouble-maker, gained during an earlier brush with the police over their inappropriate response to a protest march, but her experience of the way the police mind works — and her contacts in the legal system — that help the villagers to use their people-power to push the authorities into action. Dow puts what's obviously meant to be a comic version of herself into the story, the sophisticated Gaborone human rights lawyer scared out of her wits at the prospect of spending the night in a tent in the bush.

Dow's message is clear: as long as we accept that society should be run by powerful men who exercise patronage and influence on all those below them, we can't claim to respect human rights and the rule of law. True for eighteenth century England, equally true for twentieth century Africa. ( )
  thorold | Jun 21, 2020 |
Part of my ‘long-term world challenge’, this book is set in Botswana, where the author was born. Unity Dow is a High Court judge and a human-rights activist who has helped to affect real change in her native country.

The novel opens with a snapshot of the life of successful local businessman Mr Disanka. He has a wife whom he loves, and a mistress who he loves equally. He has children who he spoils, especially his youngest, a daughter on whom he showers affection - and food - making her a somewhat chubby child. Mr Disanka is watching a group of children playing but his reasons for doing so are not what the reader might immediately imagine.

The action moves forward five years to a young woman called Amantle Bokaa. Amantle is the first person in her family to receive a proper formal education and she wishes to become a doctor. Before she can do this, she has to take part in a compulsory ‘national service’ scheme and finds herself sent to a remote village to work in the health clinic. Feeling very positive about the job, she soon finds that the two nurses in charge are less than enthusiastic about their jobs and the health centre, and rather than teach Amantle anything they make her tidy out the store cupboard. There she finds the box which is to change everything.

Frustrated by the lack of information or action on the part of the police, who appear to be closing ranks, she determines to get to the bottom of what the box means - and what happened to young Neo.

This is the second book I’ve read recently set in Africa, both of which have been impulse reads and both of which have been excellent. Unity Dow really knows how to write, and the reader is taken not only through the story of Neo’s disappearance, but of Botswana’s culture, and is absolutely fascinating. ( )
  Bagpuss | Jan 17, 2016 |
The Screaming of the Innocent is set in the author’s native Botswana and tells a harrowing tale about a young girl who goes missing, the men who are responsible and the ease with which they engineer a cover up of their actions. The girl is 12 years old and one day she is spotted playing with her friends by a local businessman, Mr Disanka, which seals her unfortunate fate. He calls upon two men he knows who share his heinous interests and together they plan what they’ll do with the girl. Although at this point there is no graphic depiction of what is done to the girl, the passage in which this odious individual, who is thought to be a good man despite his many mistresses and other moral lapses, identifies the girl as ‘perfect for his purposes’ quite literally made my skin crawl.

We then jump forward five years and meet Amantle Bokaa, a young woman in her 20s, as she begins an internship at the clinic in the same village from which the girl disappeared. When carrying out some cleaning at the clinic Amantle finds a box marked Neo Kakang: CRB 45/94 and when she tracks down the village resident who shares the name Kakang the box is opened to reveal a set of blood-stained clothes. The villagers, including Motlatsi Kakang, are stunned because the clothes clearly belong to Molatsi’s daughter Neo who went missing five years earlier. They were told at the time by police investigators that the girl had been killed by lions. Amantle, being a remarkably strong young women, then takes it upon herself to uncover the facts behind Neo’s disappearance and what she soon realises must have been the official cover up of those facts.

The subject matter of this book is undoubtedly dark but, because it is based on a real case of ritual killing, there is a purpose to that darkness. This is not gruesome violence for the shock value of it like so many ‘thrillers’ contain these days; this is actually quite a restrained depiction of events which will keep occurring in the real world unless they are exposed in this way. But perhaps the most important thing to know is that despite the utter wretchedness of many of the events in the book there is a sense of optimism and hope too. The introduction of Amantle and the friends she co-opts to her cause is a master stroke on the part of the author, allowing the reader to imagine the possibility of a brighter future for Botswana and its poor people, especially its women.

For Amantle is a delightful character who, as the youngest of seven children in a traditional Botswanan family, was selected to be the first one who would go to school. We learn via flashback some of Amantle’s personal history and it becomes clear how she developed into such a smart and resourceful young lady who is prepared to stand up for herself and those she identifies cannot do so for themselves. She is not entirely alone, engaging the help of a young female lawyer friend who in turn ropes in another chum or two and you get the sense that the author sees these young people as a big part of her country’s future.

This is one of those books that oozes its setting, both physical and psychological, from every page. The traditional values which are increasingly at odds with modern thinking, the entrenched poverty, the heavily hierarchical social structure in which women at each layer have to struggle more for their share of what is in offer are all present. But so are the beauty of the landscape, the strong sense of community that develops among the rural villages and even, albeit briefly, some flashes of humour such as when the young people have to spend a night camping and the city-living lawyer is terrified they will all be eaten by lions.

If the book had depicted only a single note of despair and sadness I would, I think, hesitate to recommend it but knowing that it also contains the seeds of reason to be optimistic I do think it’s well worth reading. It is emotionally harrowing (the ending particularly so) but not gratuitously so and, on balance, I am glad that I read the book, despite the sadness and sense of impotent outrage it engendered.

My rating 4.5/5 ( )
1 stem bsquaredinoz | Mar 31, 2013 |
My partner is wary whenever I start a Unity Dow book. I cry and cry and cry. Such clear writing, such evocative images and such awful stories. ( )
  ott | Oct 24, 2006 |
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» Andere auteurs toevoegen

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
Unity Dowprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Radke, BertholdVertalerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Schwaller, CélineVertalerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
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When a twelve-year-old girl goes missing near her village, the local police tell her mother and the villagers that she has been taken by a wild animal. Five years later, a young government employee finds a box containing evidence of human involvement in the affair.

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