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There's something odd about the cover of Stolen Angel: the picture of a cute little black girl, chin resting on arms and eyes looking mischievously up at us, clashes with the title. Call it racist or just culturally determined, but angels summon in my mind images of white, ethereal forms suffused with innocence.
Kathy Cook, the author, herself carries off a classically angelic look: white, small-featured, blonde. Standing in front of a rapt audience at the National Archives, head inclined slightly downwards to read from her own text, she sounds a bit angelic as she quietly reads a passage that catapults us into a place where religious convictions are a matter of life and death: Northern Uganda. She describes an Italian nun who ventures unarmed into the Ugandan jungle, tracks down the armed rebels who have kidnapped more than a hundred teenage girls from her school, and steadfastly demands their release from the Lord's Resistance Army.
That is the fascinating story of Stolen Angels: Christian religion inspiring, on the one hand, the kind of steely and highly intelligent heroism of Sister Rachele, who against all odds negotiates the release of the vast majority of the captured girls, and on the other hand the terrifying delusion that fuel the Lord's Resistance Army. While Christianity inspired Sister Rachele to work tirelessly to improve the lives of those around her, it also inspired Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA to "fight to destroy all who want to fight," with the aid of "anyone who knows the name of God” - including thousands of teenagers captured and forced into combat.
It seems not coincidental that Kony's parents, members of a prominent witch-doctoring family in Uganda, were converted to Christianity and convinced to burn all of the artifacts of their trade when Kony was a child. Can there really be any saving grace to such as Christianity, in the face of the destruction that it has left in its path?
Stolen Angels answers that question in the affirmative, through a serpentine narrative that takes us into the LRA camps and the meetings, local and international, strategizing to liberate these girls. The faith and spirit of the captured teen-aged girls helps them though their hellish ordeals - and in some cases on to stellar careers after their escape: one is a rising star in the conflict resolution circuit, another is working at the International Criminal Court. Christian faith also motivated religious leaders in Uganda, who steadfastly pursued effective peaceful means to bring the captured children home and restore peace to this war-torn region.
There was animated discussion after Kathy's presentation at the National Archives, most of it led by the African-Canadian members of the audience. One of them pressed Kathy to say more about the Catholic priest who led peace delegations to bring the rebels to surrender, and who started a radio station that successfully convinced young soldiers that they could give themselves up without facing punishment.
One African-Canadian woman said, 'Those are my people that you are talking about. I am touched by your story, and I wonder what more we here in Canada can do to help?' There was no absolute answer to that question, only the suggestion to support progressive groups in Africa and ensure that people here in Canada, especially public figures, understand the issues. It was clear from this discussion that these links between Africa and Canada are valuable, and that the building of positive links between 'white,' 'black' and other worlds is an important way to mend the terrible damage inflicted by the collision of those worlds in the past.
I was intrigued enough by all this to start reading the book as soon as I got home. I read until I finally fell asleep, exhausted, at about five in the morning, with just a few pages to go. The narrative is captivating and the characters fascinating, making it possible to absorb the surprising amount of social and political analysis packed into this short book.
But when I finished I looked at the cover again and still felt uneasy about it. Is it really appropriate to invoke angels, these sentimentalized inventions of latter-day white Christians, to call attention to these extraordinary young African women? Were they not victimized by a conflict that bares the darkest colonial side of Christianity? Was it their 'angelic' natures that got them through, or rather the combination of their wits and resourcefulness with the most profound, unsentimental facets of faith? I'd say the latter, and I would encourage the publisher to put a new title and a new marketing spin on this fascinating book.
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