Aminatta Forna - The Devil that Danced on the Water

This is a daughter's memoir to her father, Mohamed Sorie Forna.  As I read the book, I pondered what I would rant about given its depth and feared that I would not do the memoir justice in a single rant. I couldn't help noticing many parallels with the life we live in, not only politically but also at a micro level in our organisations. This book about Sierra Leone from the Aminatta's perspective is a book about interrupted childhood bliss, about siblings and kinship, about unfulfilled dreams, misplaced hopes, broken families and failed promises.  It is a book about betrayal,  about international and local politics. Most of all it is a book about Africa..Oh beautiful Africa. 

I wondered what would tempt Aminatta to dig deep into the recesses of her memory to exorcise the ghosts that lay deep within. Wouldn't it have been easier to let sleeping dogs lie? I did not have much interest in Sierra Leone until I read the book, although my sister, working for an international NGO, was extremely vocal about blood diamonds, which it is said fuelled the eventual civil war in Sierra Leone.  The beauty of this book...is that most of it,  predates the blood diamonds saga but the problems are perhaps a precursor to the war that was to taint the face of Sierra Leone forever.  This is a book all Africans should read...not for its factual accuracy or otherwise...but for the present and the future.

I much prefer the exotic and romantic view of Africa. Of aunts by the thousands, galleries of uncles, of children, of traditions, of spirits that fly back to their ancestors when their owners die.  A poem that I read in my french class came to my mind quite unbidden...femme noire femme africaine, oh ma mere. That is the Africa that I longed for... Aminatta's book drew me because it is a book by an African...about Africa...in her context and perspective. 

My best character is Yabome Kanu Forna.  To me, she emerges as the silent heroine who is committed to children that are not her own in the best way that a woman can for children she has not carried in her womb - her husband's children - and builds an unbreakable bond with them that is to last decades even after his death by hanging. I am tickled that she is tough...orders the kids not to refer to her as 'Aunt' but 'mum'. I like Am and all her childhood shenanigans...After all she is writing the book very honestly from her perspective and would want us to understand her excesses, failures and strengths...what would her siblings say about those 10 years of their lives if they were to write it themselves?

Some people will find this book biased. Of course, it has to be biased. It is written through the eyes of a child as she witnessed her life evolving in the tumultuous years in Sierra Leone and seeking answers to questions by researching her past during her adulthood. Children often do not have answers to their experiences...they do not need to know...I am biased towards Mohamed Forna.  (I am sure my father would have loved the parallels and fallen in love with Mohamed Forna despite his human failings.) What is it about physicians that drives them to politics? What is it that beckons people, that they do not know when to stop even when heading to the abyss and carrying others with them?...What compels them to sacrifice their families for their own ambitions?  As I read the book, I wondered who were the wiser people...those who jumped ship for their families' sake, the turncoats who became informants, those who stayed in 'Salone', the ones who kept away, those who took sides, those who betrayed or those who turned a blind eye and refused to be tainted. Who are the people we should praise and emulate...the lone protesters like Amnesty International, those who played ball or the silent protesters who receded into their homes for the sake of their children and families?

It is said that the business of development intertwined with politics is indeed complex.  Although not the principal focus and somewhat mentioned in passing, the role of 'development' as promulgated by our global institutions of repute and foreign powers is interspersed in the book. (As I rant, one august institution was seeking a successor to lead it in the cause of alleviating the needs of poor countries).  I wonder how the candidates would answer to the suggestion that that the institutions did not stand out to be counted as Sierra Leone was going down the brink. I am all the more amazed that Aminatta, the last born child, would gather the courage, many years after the hanging of her father, to so boldly discuss what was perceived by many as a sham trial that led to his brutal death. I wonder what feeds the perception that Africa is ungovernable? As I read the book Mali and Guinea Bissau were embroiled in coups d'etats...oh Africa! Is it as Pa Roke mused, that before colonialism there was a system that 'worked' and this system had to be forcefully eradicated and replaced by an alien system that Africans just cannot adhere to?  Or is it, as oft quoted, that Africa's advancement is hampered because for many years people have made excuses about corruption or poor governance.  That  people have excused Africa's problems as the result of neo-colonialism or of the west being oppressive and self centered around its own interests. I shall not venture at this juncture to opine on this  difficult question as there are no easy answers...I can only wonder.

Reading the book...whatever religion we may believe in, I couldn't help imagining that humanity...not just Sierra Leoneans...have a lot to answer for, both in this life and in the life to come. 

However, when all is said and done...Africa is beautiful. This beauty is demonstrated by the bonds created through families and extended families, ties that bind us and cause us to look out for each other...the larger the better, carrying the family name into perpetuity despite the adversities.