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Matthew Green: The Wizard of the Nile

12.11.07

Victoria Arnstein writes:

The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted (Portobello, February) recounts the experiences of Matthew Green, a Reuters correspondent on a six-month sabbatical. Rather than backpacking around the world, learning Spanish or whatever else people do, Green heads to northern Uganda to pursue the elusive Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the rebel group that has waged war in Uganda for the last 20 years. Green's objective, which he finally achieves, is to meet with the internationally-wanted Kony to try and uncover the psychology of a man who continues to wage a war few understand.
The story is hard going, mainly because it's difficult to keep track of the different political groups involved in trying to stop - or aid - the LRA, especially if you know little about Ugandan history to start with. Then Green's brief meeting with Kony, which comes near the end of the book, is as disappointing for the reader as it must have been for Green. The poor guy, who has tracked Kony across the country for six months, basically gets to ask one question which is returned with a pretty unsatisfactory answer. Still, the book paints a broader picture of the effects of the LRA's cause on Ugandan citizens - around two million of whom have been displaced by the fighting and are now living in aid agency camps - and of the many families whose children have been kidnapped and forced to fight or who have been taken as "ting ting" (commanders' wives).
Green befriends and tells the story of some interesting characters, including Moses, a young man who was abducted but later escaped and returned to his family, and he meets some people who knew Kony in his youth and gives some interesting background on the Acholi tribe from which Kony descends. However, Green's story only just managed to hold my interest. Having said that, The Wizard of the Nile is likely to interest followers of Uganda's history, and with recent media reports that the LRA has asked for forgiveness, Green may just have written the right book at the right time.
 

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By Daniel Simpson

Having read a draft of the book, I think this review both misses its point and helps to make it. That "it's difficult to keep track of the different political groups involved in trying to stop - or aid - the LRA" says more about a lack of interest in what drives far-flung conflicts than it does about a failure to oversimplify them, which is refreshing in comparison to the media's fixation on cartoon villains and atrocity pornography. It's a shame that the reviewer highlights an inevitably inconsequential meeting (as if an extended interview would have elicited something revelatory, like the confessions of guilt Western leaders routinely offer the press). As with the reference to "backpacking"; it serves only to undermine the author's authority and grates against the conclusion that "Green may just have written the right book at the right time". Since his objective wasn't to meet Kony, however, but to demystify his significance, it's difficult to decipher the endorsement. What seems clear, nonetheless, is that the review reads better back-to-front.

12 Nov 07 13:52

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By Judith Evans

Having read the book, I'm more inclined to agree with Daniel. One of the big points of the book is that conflicts look much more complex, and characters much more human, close up: something that armchair analysts of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the war in Afghanistan etc, could often do with remembering. The portrait of Moses, and indeed the portrait of Kony, makes its subject seem if anything more mysterious the more we get to know him - but that's the point. Whilst remaining angry about the atrocities that continue to happen, Matthew Green never resorts to stereotyping. It's refreshing. However I have to say that I found the 'my search for Kony' aspect of the book a bit cheesy and suspected it had been grafted on in a later draft. Perhaps I'm wrong here but the narrative structure did seem a bit artificial, and the author uncertain of the extent of his own role in the story - he came to the foreground at unexpected moments and then faded out again, and the tone was uneven. Still, I think he's an interesting writer, and brings together history and reportage pretty effectively.

12 Nov 07 21:24

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