From the child on the television in their living room whose ribs protrude from her skin and whose lips are cracked from lack of water, they turn away. From the frail, homeless veteran less than a mile from their front door, holding out his trembling hands and pleading with eyes full of pain, they turn away. People turn away and ignore the most excruciating truths of the world to avoid the discomfort and responsibility that comes with acknowledging reality. Whether it is used by individuals and villages as coping mechanisms or by countries that remain negligent to their neighbors’ problems, ignorance can be a deadly vice. Although Ishmael Beah’s survival in the war was dependent on withdrawing from reality and losing himself, both his and Mariatu Kamara’s memoirs prove that willful ignorance is a temporary solution to a …show more content…
Most readers have never heard of this war in Sierra Leone. Some are unaware even of the existence of Sierra Leone. Each country lives enclosed in bubble, neglecting the destruction of its neighbor. Zia, a journalist who writes about the war in Afghanistan (where children are similarly being forced into battle), describes the permanent psychological effects of worldwide ignorance. “Morally, the experience of indifference from the surrounding world, or worse still, malevolence may cause children to suffer loss of meaning in the construction of themselves in their world” (Zia Para. 11). Children are being taught to shoot a gun before they are taught to read and innocent families are being slaughtered; yet citizens in countries like America, who know an hour after Kim Kardashian dyes her hair, remain repulsively ignorant to this. If more people were aware of the terror the children faced in the Sierra Leone war, UNICEF might have had the resources to rescue and rehabilitate thousands of more