What do you do when you have nothing left? Nowhere to go? What kind of person are you forced to become?
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What do you do when you have nothing left? Nowhere to go? What kind of person are you forced to become?
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...among the cacophony of so many different languages, so many different cultures, the pervading distance, the relentless uncertainty, all of it made clear that so many people from across the world were fleeing their homelands, had chosen to give everything up, under threat of life and limb. What did it say about how the world, how these distinct nations organized themselves? How could so many people be so unhappy as to risk their lives in exchange for a chance of some other way of living? Was the world really that broken?
This is a tale of two desperate men, driven from their homeland by greed and inhumanity, seeking a new life in a new place. But there are no direct flights from the one to the other, not for working class people like Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal. Theirs is an odyssey that takes them from Ghana to Brazil, through South and Central America and into the United States, where we first meet them.
[image] Joe Meno - image from Counterpoint
Seidu and Razak had first met each other in a Minneapolis bus station. Out of options in the US, both were determined to cross into Canada, neither knowing much about how to go about it. As they head to the border they must walk the last batch of miles on foot, in the face of a withering winter storm, with sub-zero temperatures and cruel winds, lacking the extra protective clothing anyone would need to survive such an ordeal. It is this life and death struggle which opens the book and to which we return at the end of most chapters. How could anyone survive such conditions? Do they make it? And if either of them does, at what cost?
The bulk of the book is their alternating personal histories and subsequent horror stories. Ever since he was a kid, Seidu had been a gifted footballer. He aspired to play professionally, and did, in Ghana. We follow his career as he steadily moves up to more competitive teams. When offered a chance to try out for a professional Brazilian team, he travels there with his coach. But his life takes a dramatic turn when that coach catches him in bed with a man. This might be a scandal in many countries, but for a Ghanaian, it is life-threatening. Publicly outed as a bisexual, he could be arrested back home, beaten, jailed, maybe even killed. His coach has made it clear that he will broadcast this to everyone in Ghana. Seidu’s career in his home country is over, and probably any hopes for a professional football career anywhere. Thus begins Seidu’s journey.
[image] Seidu Mohammed – image from The Believer
Razak Iyal’s problems were quite different, but no less terrifying. The first son of a man who remarried, having several more children, Razak is denied his inheritance when his father dies. His evil stepmother, incredibly selfish half siblings, indifferent, corrupt police and a corrupt political figure conspire to take what was rightfully his. His half-siblings threaten to kill him if he does not shut up about it. A few murder attempts later Razak flees the country.
Their two stories follow a similar route and tell a similar tale. Both begin their American journey in Brazil, Seidu by happenstance, Razak by virtue of the fact that it was the only county to which he could get a visa. Theirs are horrifying stories of the perils of refugees seeking asylum. They are preyed upon by extortion-minded police and human traffickers in country after country, being repeatedly cheated, robbed, and attacked. The little solace they find comes mostly from fellow emigrants, and only rarely from locals. The misery may take a different form once they cross into the USA, but it is a horror story nonetheless. Both men have a deep religious faith, and turn to the almighty to see them through the worst of their travails, putting their fates in His hands. It looks like God could use a little help.
Over the past thirty years a nearly invisible network of uncoordinated, small-scale smugglers had evolved into a highly organized enterprise. As the tide of migrants traveling to the United States grew throughout the twenty-first century, what was once a low-level, oftentimes family-run operation had become a multibillion-a-year business. Criminal organizations—including transnational drug traffickers—began to use human smuggling as an additional revenue source to support other illicit activities.
The portrait painted here is of an enterprise that preys on the desperate. Not just the human traffickers and the thugs with whom they work, but the police who demand money from the migrants, using their government-sanctioned authority as a weapon against the defenseless. Meno points out that for many living in the communities the migrants traverse, feeding on the frightened and disarmed is among their few sources of income. It reminded me of lions feasting on wildebeests as they make their annual migrations.
There was almost nothing to distinguish one country from another anymore. The sagging palm trees, their long leaves covered in dust; the rough, beige land; the cast-off clothes people wore; all of it was irreducible, continuous, a single continent that time had made plain by poverty. Dilapidated stores with metal bars covering their windows and doors, bleak-looking cell phone shops, travel agencies that appeared to have closed years before, all seemed strangely familiar. Shop after shop, business after business, built around the unending flood of migrants that passed along otherwise empty-seeming streets.
When they finally present themselves to US officials at the border, expecting decent treatment, they are thrust into a proprietary detention system with a very Kafka-esque feel.
Under current UN protocols, anyone who presents themselves at a port of entry or from inside the country can apply for asylum as long as they put forward an application within one year of their arrival.
Thus begins a lengthy period in which they are incarcerated, denied legal assistance, lied to by prison authorities, and are largely cut off from contact with their families.
Since opening in 1994, the Eloy facility has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Its existence, and the rapid development of many other private prisons and detention facilities over the past few decades, call into question the ethics of an industry that benefits from an inefficient immigration system. The more migrants who are detained, the longer the length of their detainment, the more these businesses have to gain. At any one time, nearly 40,000 asylum seekers are held in ICE facilities, with more than 70 percent of these individuals being imprisoned in privately run detention centers throughout the country.
This is a non-fiction book written by a writer of fiction. I was totally taken in while reading, even though I knew when I started that this was a work of non-fiction, griping in my notes about how the author had reverted to an expository form at times. Oh, wait. So, you will be engaged. Seidu and Razak are decent people, everyman migrants faced with overwhelming and unfair obstacles. It is hard to read on with dry eyes, both during the darkness of the horrors they endure, and the much rarer bright lights of human empathy.
Sadly, this epic struggle for freedom is a tale as old as humanity, or, in this instance, inhumanity. In bringing us the stories of these two desperate men, Joe Meno, in putting names and faces to the scourge of the global refugee crisis has shined a light on a particularly dark underside of the immigration experience. It is one that poor and working-class immigrants know all too well, but one that will come as a shock to most readers. The contemporary monetization of immigrant struggles has given us an exploitation-fueled Underworld Gauntlet in place of a hope-filled Underground Railroad. As troubling is that there are so many places on this planet where corruption rules, and decency, in order to survive, is forced to hide or flee, fueling the vast human migration we now have. We can only hope that this harsh, moving story can be shared with enough people that public concern will grow, and immigration policy can be moved from the draconian and profit-based to one that promotes a higher valuation of inherent humanity.
This is a dark journey I urge you to make, through one of the outstanding books of 2020. The International Bill of Human Rights states Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. It would be a wonderful, and just thing, if that right were recognized in practice as well as in law, if we could offer more than Mr. Kurtz’s rueful final words in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “'The horror! The horror!”
Razak recalled the feelings he had faced back in Ghana, unable to negotiate the corrupt bureaucracy, the systems of power that had been put in place. He had traveled thousands of miles only to find, once again, his life beset with obstacles put down by outside forces, controlled by a faceless government. We can send you wherever we want.
Joe Meno is an award winning novelist, short-fiction and comic-strip writer, playwright, and journalist. He teaches fiction writing at Columbia College in Chicago. Between Everything and Nothing is his tenth book.
Are you lost if you know where you are going—just not how to get there?
Niru has a problem. Sure, his parents are well off. Sure, he will be going
Are you lost if you know where you are going—just not how to get there?
Niru has a problem. Sure, his parents are well off. Sure, he will be going to Harvard after finishing his senior year at an exclusive private school. Sure, he is a pretty good athlete, more than holding his own on his school’s track team. Sure, he has a great bff in Meredith. Life is good, right? Well, not entirely.
When Meredith moves to increase the level of their relationship, Niru comes out. The core of the novel centers around Niru contending with the challenges of being gay. It does not help that his very conservative Nigerian immigrant family are appalled. His father even assaults him.
Niru is trapped between two worlds, his modern American world, in which homosexuality is becoming increasingly mainstreamed, however terrifying it may be for him to accept his true inclinations, and the old-world values of his Nigerian parents. His father drags him back to Africa, intent on subjecting him to a form of conversion therapy, administered by a friend-of-the-family cleric.
“If you grow up between two places the gap is a blessing and also an inner torment. You want so badly to be of a place but that’s not your lot. When people talk about Nigeria being a difficult place we all complain about it. Listening to the sound of generator, stuck in traffic, suffering inconveniences doesn’t make you feel good. If something happens to me will I get the medical help I need? Every Nigerian is acutely aware of that but other things make it wonderful to live here. You’re around your family. There’s extended family and a sense of community. You’re in a place where you see people hustling and pushing. That gives you energy. - from The Guardian interview
Some of the most warming, and heart-breaking scenes take place in Nigeria, as Niru can see both the dark and bright sides of his African heritage. Niru even makes at least some attempt to heed the conversion advice. He has considerable culturally-supported ambivalence, at times feeling unclean.
[image] Uzodinma Iweala - image from The Guardian
Another thread is the challenge of coping with police while black. We get a hint early when Niru is stopped for speeding (yes, he was) and recalls a tale his older brother told him of having been terrified for his life when stopped by the police.
“I’ve always been interested in the way that people process trauma,” Iweala explains. “This one deals with, in vague terms, police brutality – how individuals and societies process the trauma around them. – from the Guardian interview
The POV for the first three quarters of the novel is Niru’s. It then switches to his friend, Meredith. While it is not particularly unusual to have a shift in POV, I found it jarring here. An alternating perspective might have worked better. Also, I suspect that this was a residue from a prior structure for the book. A 2011 description of the project, from Iweala’s Radcliffe/Harvard bio, describes the book as
a series of interlinked narratives set in Washington, DC—that explores the themes of choice, freedom, and what we must compromise to live in a secure society. The book follows six different characters as they interact with one another and the city in which they live.
While Iweala does indeed look at how characters beyond the primary pair cope, or don’t, with Niru coming out and with the violent episode that takes place later, focus remains very much on Niru and Meredith. While there may have been other main POV characters intended on Iweala’s earlier vision for the book, they have been reduced to supporting players here.
Invisibility is a significant theme throughout the book. For Niru, it is a desired state, so he does not have to cope with taking crap about being gay, from his parents or peers. This is reinforced by a class in which a teacher expresses frustration at his students’ indifference to Ralph Ellison’s classic novel, Invisible Man. Meredith makes herself invisible to Niru for a time.
I had some gripes about the book. Did it really take Niru until he was a high school senior to realize he was gay? I expect folks with personal experience, and those who have read more than I on the subject would have a better idea, but it seems late to me. He is worried about his involuntary reaction to seeing naked boys in the locker room after he comes out to Meredith. But wouldn’t those reactions have been there before, offering a hint? Already noted above is my discomfort with how the POV shift was managed. It felt to me like Speak No Evil was what was left of a larger project that, for whatever reason, remains mostly on the cutting room floor. It did not address the police brutality element nearly well enough. And the depth and diversity of viewpoints that would have made this short book a considerably richer experience were missing, well not missing, but pared down so much as to reduce their impact. It also felt to me that the events leading up to the big event of the book were forced. As if the author had worked the scene backward from the ultimate event, then pondered what it would take for it to develop in the intended way. It did not feel organic. That said, there is some beautiful writing on display. Niru’s struggles through a difficult adjustment are gently and effectively portrayed. This is the man, remember, who wrote the magnificent Beasts of No Nation. Maybe it is a problem of expectation, that his first novel was such a triumph, and very tough to match on the second go round.
Still, Speak No Evil is an interesting read that will certainly add to your appreciation of diverse immigrant experience, and the challenge of straddling two worlds, as an immigrant, a young coming-out gay man, and a young black contending with a hostile constabulary. There are some pieces of beautiful writing here, and a good bit of craft. You will like Niru and care about his journey. I only wish there had been more of it.
“Sahafi! Media!! He yelled to the soldiers. He opened the car door to get out, and Quadaffi’s soldiers swarmed around him. “Sahafi!” In one fluid
“Sahafi! Media!! He yelled to the soldiers. He opened the car door to get out, and Quadaffi’s soldiers swarmed around him. “Sahafi!” In one fluid movement the doors flew open and Tyler, Steve, and Anthony were ripped out of the car. I immediately locked my door and buried my head in my lap. Gunshots shattered the air. When I looked up, I was alone. I knew I had to get out of the car to run for cover, but I couldn’t move.
Click!
[image] Lynsey Addario - from CBS News
You may not recognize the name Lynsey Addario, but if you read newspapers, check out magazines or are aware at all of the imagery that accompanies major events in the world, you have seen her work. Addario is one of the premier photojournalists on the planet and has the portfolio, the Pulitzer and a MacArthur award to prove it. In 2014, American Photo named her one of the five most influential photographers of the last quarter century. In 2012, Newsweek magazine cited her as one of 150 Women Who Shake the World. Thankfully, she does not shake her camera when she is shooting (unless of course it is for intended effect). Although no one could blame her if she did. Addario has spent a large portion of her career as a conflict photographer, working for extended periods on the scene in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Congo, Sudan and other garden spots. Wherever people have been shooting at each other in the last two decades there is a good chance that Lynsey Addario has been there. The one place she declares she will not go these days is Syria, which says something. She has been kidnapped in the field twice and has felt her life to be in danger more times than that, so when she says she won’t go to a place, it must be something really special.
[image]
US Soldiers in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan
It’s What I Do is Addario’s tale of her journey from growing up in a Connecticut suburb as part of a Bohemian family, to finding and developing a talent for capturing life through a lens, to pursuing a career in photography. While working in New York in 1999, she got a big break, being asked to work on an Associated Press project looking into transgender prostitution in the city, and the spate of homicides with which that community was being afflicted. It turned into a months-long undertaking and brought her work to public notice for the first time. Click!
[image] A shot from that series
In 2000 a family friend invited her to go India.
Everything that made India the rawest place on earth made it the most wonderful to photograph. The streets hummed with constant movement, a low-grade chaos where almost every aspect of the human condition was in public view. Click!
It was while there that she was encouraged to go to Afghanistan to shoot the lives of women living under the Taliban. She was able to gain access to a half of Afghani society barred to her male counterparts. Click!
[image] Women and girls study and recite the Koran in Peshawar, Pakistan, 2001 - from the Women’s Eye
9/11 brought on a whole new era of conflict. Addario was on the scene when the USA invaded Iraq, having set up shop in Kurdistan when Saddam Hussein was toppled. Of course that required some extra planning. At the time she got the assignment she was in South Korea covering refugees from the north, and enduring the extraordinary humanitarian horrors of the extended karaoke the refugees enjoyed. She needed to get tooled up for the job and it proved challenging. One thing she had to arrange for was body armor. She found herself befuddled by the on-line offerings. She wrote to her editor.
I have checked out the websites you recommended, and am not sure if I just tried to read Korean. Basically, I have no idea what I am looking at—ballistic, six-point adjustable, tactical armor, etc. Please understand that this language is not familiar to me—I grew up in Connecticut, was raised by hairdressers.
[image]
A woman prays at dawn after the 2010 earthquake that nearly destroyed Haiti
She was kidnapped for the first time while en route to Ramali with other journalists. And was subsequently jarred when Life magazine declined to publish her photographs, because they were too real for the American public. (The New York Times Magazine would later publish some of the work.) The experience of working in the Iraq war zone and coping with the politics of news publishing provided valuable life lessons.
...something in me had changed after three months in Iraq. I was now a photojournalist willing to die for stories that had the potential to educate people. I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full picture of what was happening in Iraq so they could decide if they supported our presence there.
Her work has often demonstrated the power of the image. When she got shots of a Sudan massacre she made it impossible for President Bashir to continue denying that the war crime had taken place.
[image] Addario’s image of armed boys and men near the Afghan border won her a Pulitzer – from The Women’s Eye
Addario pooh-poohs any notion that she is an adrenalin junkie. She says that she has come to recognize that the photos she takes have the power to inform the public and influence people, so feels a responsibility, a calling to bear witness to much of the awfulness of the world in order to shine some light on it, to bring it to the world’s attention.
[image] Addario stopped to help when one of these women was in labor, miles from a hospital. She gave them a ride. – From Itswhatidobbook.com
When Addario first submitted her manuscript, she was advised to make it more personal, as in writing about her off-the-field life as well as her experiences behind the lens. She includes in the final version a bit of her love-life history, which entailed some admittedly bad choices. As a dedicated career-woman, sustaining relationships has always taken second place to her work. She says she even walked out on dinner dates when she got an assignment.
Recently, a young photographer asked her how to get into the business. She told him to start traveling, shooting and contacting editors for assignments. When he told her that he didn’t want to travel much because of his girlfriend, Addario told him to break up with her. “He thought I was insane,” says Addario. “I told him you have to decide what your priorities are. If you are not willing to make that sacrifice, there are 10,000 young photographers who will.” - from Photo District News article
The book contains many amazing shots Addario has taken over the course of her career. They add significantly to the aura of outsized accomplishment that Addario has earned. One significant thing about the shots Addario takes is that they are not only journalistically effective but expose an impressive artistic talent. She is able to tell troubling stories while at the same time making outstanding art. The book is printed on very high-quality paper, images and text, which adds a very tactile richness to both the visual power on display and the engaging text.
[image] An Iraqi woman fleeing a massive fire in Basra in 2003
Although one can piece together information by reading diverse articles about her, and watching sundry videos in which Addario does presentations and is interviewed, those connections are not always spelled out in the book. Particularly in the earlier parts of her photographic sojourn, it was somewhat murky why and how she decided to uproot and move to Argentina, and later to India.
It’s What I Do is not a photography book. You will not get any technical tips there. While you will see some very nicely printed photographic images, those are there to enhance, to illuminate the text. The main thing here is her story. Lynsey Addario is a rock star in the world of photographic journalism. She takes us frame by frame on her journey from suburban origins as the child of hairdressers to becoming a world traveler covering important events everywhere on the planet in an attempt to illuminate the darkness. It is quite clear that her achievements have come at considerable personal cost, and that she is possessed of a rare personal fire that has driven her to take large risks in order to fulfill what she perceives as her mission in life. For those of us not familiar with the names that appear under all those news photos, It’s What I Do offers particular insight into just how important it is to have photographic boots on the ground wherever important events are occurring. Real-world photography is Addario’s contribution to the world. We are all enriched by her efforts, her sacrifices, her courage and her talent. This book will be an eye-opener for many. It is a perfectly focused, well-framed look at a life well lived, a life that has benefited and promises to continue to benefit us all. Click!
BTW, a deal has been struck to turn this into a major film, with Jennifer Lawrence as Addario, to be directed by Steven Spielberg
==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below.
To Nigerians in Osondo’s tales, America voice is a siren calling many to be dashed on the rocks of disappointment. But given how many awful things areTo Nigerians in Osondo’s tales, America voice is a siren calling many to be dashed on the rocks of disappointment. But given how many awful things are shown here about Nigeria, it is no wonder.
Osondo shows us working and middle class Nigerians both in the USA and in Africa, struggling not only with issues relating to emigration, but with personal injustices aplenty. One might think from reading these stories that almost all Nigerian men cheat on their wives, and not only cheat, but establish alternate families whenever possible without bothering to really divorce earlier spouses. The corruption and sometimes insanity of African governance makes it understandable that greener fields might be calling, as the Nigerian prince internet fraud we laugh at here would appear to be the tip of the iceberg in the real country. Osondu’s characters are often cheated, robbed, maltreated by their relations and their public officials and many live lives of desperation, both quiet and noisy. Poverty, as well as selfishness and foolishness, drives many to desperate, even criminal acts. A mother, driven from her home by the janjaweed, takes up with an ill-intentioned sort who reminded me of Jabba the Hutt, and who has dark designs on her daughters. The world shown here is a bleak place indeed.
[image] E.C. Osondu - from brittlepaper.com
But that is not all that Osondu offers. At least one philanderer is brought up short in a very amusing story, and occasionally immigration fraud works out in a way that will make you smile. Osondu applies a light touch in a story in which hopeful young men have their hopes raised when they hear a message on the Voice of America from a young American woman who wants to acquire pen pals in Nigeria. Some greener fields are found. The thing I enjoyed most about the stories is that almost all offer insight into the nation of origin, whether by showing the harshness of life there, or by relating myths and magical elements of local culture. You will learn how to tell which of the people you see in the marketplace, for instance, are really spirits. Larger issues are addressed as well. Orphans praying for adoption wonder if God is asleep.
Sometimes the author double dips when relating story elements. He repeats a tale about animals becoming intoxicated by eating cannabis. And the philander tales were a bit too much alike. But overall, this is a sometimes disturbing, sometimes amusing, and almost always informative look at Nigeria and how its people relate to America.
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