by Fergal Keane (born 1961); Penguin
Books/BBC Books; 1996; 232 pages
Fergal Keane is an Irish journalist,
whom we still see from time to time on BBC-TV programs. The book’s title refers
to his son, who was a newborn when he published the book. The chapters cover
family matters at the beginning, but then drift into coverage of events he
reported on throughout Africa and Asia.
Keane began
his career as a writer for a small Irish newspaper, but quickly progressed. He
is now one of the BBC's best known foreign correspondents, and has received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from the Queen.
This work
contains a collection of his pieces and includes the Letter to Daniel and a
similar dispatch he wrote to his deceased father. The book also features many
of his pieces for From Our Own Correspondent and articles written for The
Spectator, The Guardian and the BBC Worldwide magazine.
This is a
wonderful read – especially if you have a particular penchant for history, as I
do. One chapter deals with South
Africa’s transition from a white-dominated autocracy into a liberal democracy. He
is a superb journalist, and the tales are all engaging. Among his stories focuses
on the Transvaal region of South Africa and the story of how one of his
colleagues, journalist John Harrison – another journalist, and a close friend –
was murdered at the bidding of a local chief. Following that chapter is a one-page
item, Poem for John.
The next
chapter seems almost to develop from this theme. Titled “Season of Blood,” its dateline
is Nyarubuye, Rwanda, 1994. He begins the chapter with the one-line summary “Up
to a million people lost their lives when the shooting down of President
Habyarimana’s jet led to a hundred-day orgy of killing in Rwanda.”
In the
chapter itself, he talks about travelling through a country littered with
rotting corpses – mostly Tutsi women, children, and men slaughtered by the
country’s militia, which was manned by country’s dominant Hutu tribe.
The stories
go on, and on, and on. Each is brilliant, but the last – titled No Man is an
Island – is extraordinary. At the time, “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland were
driven by religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Writing from his
peaceful sanctuary in the liberal democracy that the Republic of Ireland had
become, he writes,
There is a spirit of openness reflected in the willingness of
the media to confront the most powerful figures in the land, be they churchmen
or politicians, and make them truly accountable for their actions.
Reflecting
on the status of the North and its Troubles, he recalls an encounter in Rwanda
with a Catholic priest: “They think that by killing the other ethnic groups
they can solve all their problems,” he said, in tears at the sight of the
corpses of children.
Keane’s
answer concludes the book. “A man not born to hate, but who has learned hatred.
A man like you and me.”
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