 July/August 2002
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Wrestling with Values Beverly Naidoo, The Other Side of Truth. Harper Collins, 2000 The Other Side of Truth is about 12--year-old Sade and her 10-year-old brother Femi who live in Nigeria. The story starts with a drive-by shooting. The attackers have come to kill the outspoken journalist Folarin Solaja, Sade and Femi's father. The men in the car, who we find out were sent by the government, miss Folarin and instead kill their mother, promising to come back and finish their job. Sade and Femi are smuggled out of the country on false passports to England to live with their uncle, their father promising to join them soon. They make it out of Nigeria safely, but when they get to England their uncle is nowhere to be found, and no one seems to know where he is. Sade and Femi are scared to reveal their identities to the social workers who find them for fear that they will be deported. They are sent to a foster home and to school where Sade has to deal with bigotry on top of the endless waiting. Finally when they are losing hope, they find out that their father has come to England but is in prison for illegal entry. He has also been accused by the Nigerian government of murdering his wife. Folarin is worried that he will be sent back quietly to Nigeria where he will almost certainly be assassinated like Ken Saro-Wiwa. He goes on a hunger strike to bring attention to his case. Sade also has an idea: she will go to the TV news station, to tell their story so that it won't be so easy to send their father back to Nigeria. But will they listen to her? I like this book because it has such a strong political message and deals with such disturbing issues, while remaining enjoyable to read. It will keep you turning pages because you care about the characters. This book is fascinating because it deals so much with what's right and wrong. Sade and Femi's parents said to always tell the truth, but when they find themselves in London with no one they can trust they have to question what their parents told them, hence the name The Other Side of Truth.
--Eoin Gaj is a 15-year-old dancer and a Peacework
volunteer who lives in Cambridge, MA. 
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