Book on race bags award

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JULY 15. A children's book which takes a long and hard look at race relations in Britain through the eyes of a teenaged Nigerian girl has won the prestigious Carnegie Medal, awarded by the Library Association every year and regarded as the children literature's equivalent of the Booker Prize.

Beverley Naidoo's ``The Other Side of Truth'' follows the lives of two Nigerian children-brother and sister-who are smuggled into Britain after their father, a journalist, flees persecution by his country's dictatorial regime which bears a close resemblance to General Abacha's dictatorship.

The story, narrated by the 12-year-old sister, centres round the children's traumatic introduction to what it means to be a refugee in modern Britain-their experience with immigration authorities, the humiliating encounters with bureaucracy, and the bullying they suffer at school. The book is based on extensive research of what happens when an asylum seeker arrives in Britain and is plunged into a world of ``hostility'' made worse by ``irresponsible'' political rhetoric.

``Images I saw while researching constantly took me back to South Africa'', said Mrs Naidoo, a white South African who fled apartheid in 1965 after spending eight weeks in solitary confinement for her anti-racism campaign. She said the long queues she saw outside the Immigration and Nationality Department in Croydon brought back childhood memories of the Pass Office in Johannesburg.

Mrs Naidoo, whose book beat competition from J.K.Rowling of the Harry Potter fame, used the awards function at the British Library here on Friday to attack the ``deeply racialised'' British society and asked politicians to stop using language which might contribute to racial prejudice. ``There is a tremendous amount of responsibility on the shoulders of politicians to watch their words, because language is powerful. They have a responsibility to think about what are the effects of the words they are using-could they attribute to racist attacks?'' she told a newspaper in what was seen as a reference to the inflammatory remarks of some Tory leaders during the recent election campaign.

The 58-year-old writer who is married to an Indian South African sounded particularly disappointed with Labour's record on race, though the party came to power promising to improve race relations. ``Mr (Tony) Blair and New Labour you say you are about social change. Well, I ask you to stop paying lip service'', she said in a hard-hitting speech at the awards function. She regretted that refugees were targets of attacks, pointing out that ``yet across the ages, the talent of refugees and migrants have enriched society.''

There was tremendous need in British society for literature that would help young people to explore issues of race and gender, she said. ``I hope this book will be a catalyst for young people to explore with sensitivity and intelligence issues of asylum and human rights'', she said.

Her first chidren's book ``Journey to Jo'burg'' was banned in South Africa under the apartheid regime.

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Section  : International
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