Drink the Bitter Root
A Search for Justice and Healing in Africa
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Drink the Bitter Root is an international story about the ethical and environmental footprint world nations are leaving in Africa in their determined efforts to destabilize and loot the continent. In the spirit of Robert Kaplan and Samantha Power, Gary Geddes sets out in search of justice, healing and reconciliation. He begins his journey at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, then travels to Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Somaliland, crossing Lake Victoria and the Great Rift Valley, where human life began.
Geddes's quest takes the form of an intimate personal travelogue. Although he confronts the dark realities of abduction, rape, mutilation and murder, drawing on painful encounters, interviews and adventures that occur along the way, Geddes also brings back amazing stories of survival and unexpected moments of grace. His poet's eye and self–deprecating humor draw us ever more deeply into the lives of some amazing Africans, while never forgetting the complicity we all feel in the face of tragic events unfolding there.
In the words of author and Africanist Ian Smillie, Drink the Bitter Root is not only poignant, literate and funny, but also "a deeply textured journey without maps into the unexplored rifts of sub–Saharan Africa, the human experience, and the psyche. It's also the masterful handling of a full palette."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his latest travelogue, Geddes (Sailing Home) takes us on a dizzying spin through five sub-Saharan countries, asking why the international justice system and foreign aid have failed to bring peace to the region. Beginning in Rwanda and zigzagging through nearby Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Somaliland, Geddes encounters similar problems: poverty, sexual violence, genocide, kidnappings, and government oppression. In his search for answers, Geddes attends a hearing by the Gacaca (a traditional Rwandan court), meets an official from the International Criminal Court, and interviews child soldiers and rape and mutilation survivors, trying to probe the gap between the noble aims of international justice and aid organizations and the harsh reality of corrupt regimes, interminable bureaucracy, and foreign corporations exploiting ethnic conflicts in their resource grab. Although the book provides an overview of the region's morass of internecine feuds, it lacks the historical context that would allow a real sense of the conflicts to emerge. Still, when Geddes reflects on "awkwardly elegant" camels crossing a desert road, a church piled with bodies, or a pair of AK-47s lying barrels crossed on the sand as their owners splash in the surf, these moments glow with the stark beauty and ugliness of rich, though poverty-stricken, lands.
