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JAHS in the
News
The following
article appeared recently in several Maryland local editions
of The Gazette:
The
Enquirer-Gazette
Riverdale
man writes book on war
by
Julia Oliver
Staff
Writer
Jan.
2, 2003, Page A-14
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PHOTO
BY LAWRENCE JACKSON JR
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| Author
John Dureke holds up a copy of "The Horrors
of War from the Eyes of a Child," a children's
book he wrote after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The
book is based on Dureke's experiences growing up
during the civil wars in his homeland, NIgeria. |
Riverdale
resident John Dureke has a message for today's leaders:
War
is hard on
children.
Dureke,
inspired by the violence of Sept. 11, 2001, wrote a book
about his childhood memories of the Biafran civil war in
Nigeria. Called "The Horrors of War from the Eyes
of a Child," the book describes the experiences of
a boy forced to flee a deadly conflict.
Dureke
began writing the story almost immediately after the attacks
on New York and Washington and published the book in May
through his own Hyattsville-based JAHS Publishing Group.
He has printed more than 1,000 books, he said, and some
are available at the Howard University bookstore, the Bowie
State University library and on Amazon.com.
In
1967, when Dureke was 10 years old, the eastern province
of Nigeria, called Biafra, attempted to break away from
the country. In a three-year conflict that the secessionists
ultimately lost, there were 100,000 military casualties,
and between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died
of starvation, according to an American University study
of the war.
For
those three years, Dureke, his siblings and his parents
were refugees, moving from village to village within Biafra.
Dureke
said his memories of that time were unleashed by the terrorist
attacks in 2001.
"When
Sept. 11 happened I was really shocked," he said. "I
never thought that in my adult life I would ever experience
war again ... Experiencing it again in America, and watching
all those people die again, provoked the trauma of war
in me."
So
he decided to write a book about his experiences. The main
character in his 46-page story is named "P," but
the events are from Dureke's life.
"It
was written so that parents can explain to their kids the
effects of war," he said.
The
story is written in simple language and includes images
vivid to a 10-year-old. It recounts a city boy's first
encounters with snakes and tells of his learning to swim.
The
pages are interspersed with scenes hand-drawn by Dureke.
Although some bloodshed is described in the story, most
of the horror is related to the disruption and confusion
P feels while in a constant state of flux.
For
P, the war began when his mother announced that the family
was moving.
"My
mother woke us up and told us we had to leave that night," Dureke
said. In the book, P takes with him clothing, a pair of
shoes and a soccer ball.
The
story describes P's Christmases without gifts, his traumatic
visit to a refugee camp filled with starving children and
his trip to the warfront with a boy soldier.
"The
continuous relocation, adjustments, and making new friends
and leaving again after adjusting to a new town, made life
as a refugee sad, embarrassing, and depressing," Dureke
wrote in the book.
Stanley
Onye, formerly a political science professor at the University
of Maryland, also grew up in Biafra in the 1960s and said
Dureke's book brought back memories. Onye said that he
would consider using the story in a course to illustrate
the far-reaching effects of armed conflict.
"We
have been talking about war, war, war, and until you experience
war, you cannot know the impact of war," Onye said.
He added that the story is a simple one and doesn't provide
solutions. "He's not writing from a global point of
view. He's writing from a little child's point of view.
It just exposes you to another perspective of war."
Dureke's
book concludes with this caveat, among others:
"To
avoid the horrors of war, the actions of our leaders and
the way they handle power under a democracy is very important.
Remember that the children of Ogoni (Nigeria), Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine are observing
and waiting to exhale."
E-mail
Julia Oliver at joliver@gazette.net.
OTHER
RECENT ARTICLES AND NEWS:
Late
2002, "A Different Approach," Our Society.
October
24, 2002, "The skinny on the Dureke's," The
Gazette.
To
purchase Margaret and John Dureke's books or for more information
on JAHS, visit www.Jahspublishing.com
or call 301-864-2800.
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