Death of Two Sons

Micah Schaffer, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, has produced what looks like a fascinating feature length documentary called Death of Two Sons. It explores the deaths of Amadou Diallo and Jesse Thyne. Diallo was a Guinean living in New York City whose inexplicable death at the hands of the police provoked national outrage. Thyne was a Peace Corps volunteer who served in Diallo's village shortly after the Guinean's death. He was killed in a grizzly traffic accident a year later. That too provoked a public uprising against the extremely unsafe road conditions in Guinea.

(Sadly, such tragedy is not limited to the West African nation. The World Health Organization expects road accidents to be one of the three leading causes of death in developing countries by 2020.)

The documentary promises to look at many difficult questions, such as those of race, justice and public revolt against the very different systemic problems that led to Amadou's and Jesse's deaths.

The work also reminds us that before we are Guineans or Americans or any other nationality, we are first and foremost human beings.

More information about the film can be found at its website: www.deathoftwosons.com.