Say ’Never Again’ and mean it, fellow Rwandans

In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, the author frighteningly reveals man’s truly complex nature. Using young British boys, he maroons them on an island, and they really try to set themselves up to face life in the jungle. Their plan entails getting a leader who will organise their existence on the island. But it is not long before evil asserts itself, manifested in the fight for leadership of the marooned group and the determination to stop at nothing to achieve this single-minded goal - even murder. Mind, these are very young boys, yet unschooled in the wheeling and dealing that characterises adult man’s power games.