Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher
| Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher | |
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| Category: Travel | |
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Reviewer: Lesley Mason
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| Summary: More adventures in Africa, following the trail of Graham Greene's epic 1935 trail through Sierra Leone and Liberia – a wonderful mix of history and contemporary reportage. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 336 | Date: April 2011 |
| Publisher: Vintage | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0099532064 | |
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Tim Butcher's day job from 1990 to 2009 was "journalist".
I wonder what today's school-kids imagine when they say they want to be a journalist… do they envisage writing about science, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing in flak jackets doing the obligatory piece-to-camera in the latest war zone? Do they even read newspapers any more? Do they realise that there are still also people out there in those war zones, without the glamour flak-jacket, just (if they're lucky) the ordinary pock-marked one, that they prefer not to wear because it's way too hot? People who still ply the classic trade of actually writing what they see and trusting that they can do it well enough for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"?
If this particular kind of journalism isn't penetrating the young consciousness, it should and I urge English teachers, teachers of modern history, sociology teachers and anyone else who can work it into their curriculum to seek out the best reporters, the best "journalists" and ply their charges with the best of their work. Whatever the doomsayers vouchsafe solid written reportage is not dead yet. The daily papers may be yielding to the internet, but they won't go down without a fight. If nothing else, this kind of journalism is the best grounding imaginable for a career in other kinds of writing.
Which brings us back to Tim Butcher.
"Journalist" is his case meant writing for the Daily Telegraph during those years as Chief War Correspondent, Africa Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent. Presumably not all at the same time.
Many of the early years of the 21st century he spent in Africa reporting on some of the most vicious and most under-reported wars of the last fifty years. We might think of the Telegraph as being a fairly conservative journal, but 'conservative' depends upon your perspective and it won't stop foreign regimes taking distinct exception to what you're saying. In Butcher's case it led to a series of promises that he'd never work in Angola / Zimbabwe / Bosnia / [insert insulted country of choice] ever again, but such inconveniences paled into insignificance in 2003 with the very personal death threat emanating from the Liberian authorities that was to keep him out of the country during the worst of its conflict years.
Taking this in his stride, Butcher decided to take a sabbatical and head out to the Congo to follow the route of Henry Morton Stanley, the results of which can be read in his stunning debut travelogue Blood River.
A few years later, recovered from that ordeal, and trusting that the Taylor regime's death threat has subsided into the Liberian jungle mulch, he considers another major undertaking. This time Sierra Leone and Liberia: on foot.
Let's face it, Butcher is just one of the those chaps who will never be happy unless he's making life as difficult and miserable for himself as he can. Fortunately, he is also one of those who needs a pseudo-purpose to the trip. He couldn't just go wallying about in Sierra Leone and Liberia on a whim. There has to be a point.
Fortunately for us, he is also (a) very good at finding just such a purpose and (b) a darn fine writer who can render the experience enlightening, riveting and at times quite simply amusing. He writes with intelligence and compassion and integrity.
He writes with that finely balanced ability that leaves the reader satisfied with the dish served, but also sufficiently intrigued to want to know more, to follow up the leads laid.
The premise for this particular trip is to follow in the footsteps of Graham Greene. Butcher's original desire was to find a way into the back lands of the two countries concerned, away from the main foci of the wars, places where he can connect with ordinary people and try to understand them, their culture and the impact (or otherwise) of the conflict on small communities. In reading as much history of the area as he could, he stumbled across Journey Without Maps , Greene's account of his overland journey in the region with his cousin Barbara, in 1935.
Mystery surrounds Greene's motivation for his journey. It may have been, as he claimed, a mere fancy; it may have been at the behest of the Anti-slavery and Aborigine Protection Society; it may have been political (perhaps the author's secret service role started much earlier than has hitherto been acknowledged). None of this matters to Butcher. He simply determines to follow the route as closely as possible and to do it all on foot (if possible), investigate how much has changed in the intervening seventy-plus years, and try to analyse what this presages for the future.
Much like Greene, Butcher is blessed by an abundance of contacts. Don't try this at home. His way is smoothed by knowing people in consulates, in NGOs, by years in the field that have taught him how the local systems work (or don't). Whilst all of his experience will not prevent him from making numerous faux pas along the way, it is sufficient to ensure that the results are generally inconvenient rather than life threatening. He even acquires a "support team" of guide & motor-bike luggage courier engaged to assist on the first stage but who appoint themselves guardians of the entire expedition to the extent of purchasing their own self-devised "uniform" to make themselves more "official" when they cross the border from Sierra Leone into Liberia.
That is not to say, that the journey is easy. Three hundred and fifty miles, mostly on foot, through rainforest and malarial swamp, is no picnic in the park by anyone's estimation.
You need to be a particular character to respond to the heat and the blisters and the monotonous blistering footslog, with humour and clarity of observation. Butcher responds in typically practical fashion. Early on, having decided that he cannot contend with the heat of jungle huts at night, and the scurry of rats, he simply takes his mozzy-proof tent and pitches outside – much to the curiosity of more than one village gossip-group.
He is blessed – he freely acknowledges – with his Barbara. He's accompanied by the son of a friend and former colleague: a recent Oxford graduate, who he'd not previously met but who endears himself primarily by being helpful and tactful and playing to the author's self-confessed alpha-male-ego sufficiently to allow it to remain intact, whilst being helpful, practical, self-reliant and intelligent. What more would you ask of a travelling companion?
The journey itself does not have the dark heart that the Congo trip (Blood River) displayed. There are moments of genuine danger and real fear. The bogeymen in this part of the world are for real. Ritual slaughter is still an everyday occurrence in parts of the region and the power of the Poro, the local forest societies responsible for initiation ceremonies into adulthood, is absolute and deadly secret. There are war stories, and the decimation caused when rescued chimps escape their sanctuary.
But travellers are not so uncommon, and are mostly made welcome. Christian and other NGO "missions" and stations are to be found functioning and respected locally.
In both countries the problems are primarily those of poverty and the legacies of corrupt governments and uncontrolled war. These are dutifully depicted in the personal stories of those passing encounters along the way.
As is the tenacity of local culture, which refuses to bow to any form of westernisation.
The colonial history is most clearly played out through references and quotations from the works of both Greenes (Barbara wrote her own account of the trip, which doesn't always agree with Graham's). The contrast between their responses and Butcher's showing a clear shift in attitudes. Our author sees beauty, where his literary guide saw only dullness. Our journalist is minded to consider the why's of the current situation, where his forebear appears to have had approached with far too many foregone conclusions. To that extent the book is beyond all its other merits, an interesting primer for anyone studying Greene in any other context.
No travelogue survives without the lightening of humour, and Butcher peppers his with wonderful snippets of Krio (the pidgin English of Sierra Leone) "if god gree" for "god-willing" or da ples weh dey men dababoons – the chimp sanctuary to you and me – sheer delight for those of us in love with language. There is also one wonderful laugh-out-loud moment following the travellers' making themselves at home in one particular NGO household, that would be ruined by the retelling.
Having loved Blood River, I came to Chasing the Devil expecting more of the same. What I found instead is in many ways an antidote to that first book: another epic journey, yes, and one fraught with incident, fear, and horrible histories, but also one that speaks of potential that could – subject to one or two admittedly difficult challenges being met – could raise this part of Africa into a more economically viable and genuinely sustainable existence, and provide a model for the rest of the continent. Liberia was borne of political machinations combined with a genuine hope of restoration – that dream is not dead yet.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
Further reading suggestion If you haven't already read it, I can't recommend highly enough Butcher's debut Blood River, which makes an excellent counterpoint to this later adventure. We were also impressed by his approach to the First World War.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher at Amazon.com.
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