...Africa in Cinema- Final Paper Professor Rice May 2010 Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone This semester, the topic of Child Soldiers presented a very interesting dilemma that several countries in Africa continue to face today. Sierra Leone, in particular, has struck an interest because of the many films and readings that try to depict this story of the civil war. In class, we have viewed two films representing the problems with child soldiers in Sierra Leone which include films titled Blood Diamond and Ezra. Both films represent opposite sides of the spectrum, as Blood Diamond shows the Western view of child soldiers and Ezra represents the first African view of child soldiers. Before discussing the two films, there are also two articles that depict the issues of child soldiers in great detail. In the first article by A. B. Zack-Williams titled, “Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone,” the author describes the reasons behind children even joining rebel based armies such as the RUF, why children are chosen as soldiers against their will, and the examination of policies that are yet to be instilled on this matter. The first valid point that the author makes is the purpose of the RUF (Revolutionary United Front). The focus of this organization is to seek a better life for the people in Sierra Leone. They feel as if their lives have been wasted because of poor housing, malnutrition and no opportunity to succeed and that the government is to blame. With that said...
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...Ishmael Baeh a child soldier from Sierra Leone that wrote the book ‘A long way gone.’ I have chosen a biography because we were reading this book in class for a very long time and that’s how I got interested in the life of Ishmael. In my essay I have tried to get on a personal level with Ishmael which makes the essay more interesting. I’ve done this by writing in a lot of detail. In my essay I also talked about the child soldiers that are active now, because of the main topic in the book ‘A long way gone.’ This essay is aimed at people that read on of the books of Ishmael or are willing to read a book of him, with this essay they will understand the writings of him better because they know more about his personal life. The challenges I got during this essay was the research about Ishmael because there wasn’t much information available of him from after he left Sierra Leone. I solved these problems by searching for newspaper...
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...Child Soldiers in Africa Starting around the 1980s, a horrible new source of warfare was introduced to Africa. This method is using children for warfare, or in other words, children soldiers. A child soldier is any boy or girl, under the age of 18, who is forced to join and operate within an armed force or armed group in any capacity. It does not only refer to a child who is carrying, or has carried, weapons. The method of using children in combat was first introduced in Africa in the lowlands of Mozambique, where rebel commanders used children for war. Almost half of the numbers of child soldiers in the world come from Africa. They thought that this was a great method because they were easily manipulated, very loyal, and there was an abundance of them. Also the rebel forces found it difficult to convince adults to join them, which initially drove them to the idea of using children instead. Do not be mistaken though, for Africa did not create the child soldier. In fact it was the Nazis who drafted children after they got desperate. Other countries also used children soldiers such as Iran, Iraq, and countries in religion-driven or nationalistic wars such as in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the Palestinian territories. But in Africa the situation is at the lowest level. The children were used for the sole reason of greed and power and with no recognition of them whatsoever. The children were fooled by using many different schemes. The way they will try to keep the children was...
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...The RUF: revolutionary ideals turned ideology of terror The RUF was created around 1982 by a small number of disenfranchised Sierra Leonean intellectuals with an ambiguous revolutionary ideology with a poorly articulated socialist agenda. The RUF’s pledge to fight against the one-party system, imposed by the All People’s Congress since independence in 1961, and for a more transparent and democratic state, initially received some popular support across ethnic and religious lines. However, until the RUF invasion, the group was relatively unknown. The increase in RUF activity was largely due to both the fight for control of Sierra Leone’s mineral resources (a dominant factor driving the RUF for most of the war), and the impact of external influences, especially the spread of the Liberian civil war into Sierra Leone. The military strength of the RUF was increased by considerable support from the NPFL, formed by Charles Taylor, one of the warring factions in the Liberian civil war, Burkinabè mercenaries, and the provision of military training to RUF fighters from Libya. Liberia, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Libya reportedly also provided the RUF with military equipment. Much of the RUF’s original ideology was lost among RUF fighters themselves, since a large proportion were in fact Liberian rebels fighting for their own cause. Moreover, any initial popular support that the group had enjoyed in the past was undermined by its...
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...costumes of their favorite soldier, dreaming of engaging in warfare, only to abandon the costume the following day. For children of Sierra Leone however, the costume is plastered against their bodies, and the dreams of the American children is their reality. Children residing in Sierra Leone from the years of 1991- 2002 were forced to participate in their country’s civil war, having to endure countless atrocious experiences. If these children are able to evade death for a long enough time, they may be lucky enough to be moved to a completely foreign area for rehabilitation and reintegration back into regular society. However, due to their role in the war, child soldiers...
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...A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah illustrates Beah’s childhood under Sierra Leone's Civil war in the 1990s. The book recounts Beah’s experience as a 12 year old boy struggling to find his family. Although this book mainly follows Beah, it also gives a lot of insight on the instability in African countries like Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah was a normal child before the Civil war in Sierra Leone, which is what the beginning of the book illustrates. In the early chapters, Beah talks about his childhood, which seemed to be very normal (Beah, 6). However, his childhood would take a drastic turn for the worse. When visiting his friends in Mattru Jong, Beah runs into swarms of people talking of rebellion. One passerby warned...
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...“Weapon Conflict”, a song performed by Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars are two differing pieces of literature that render powerful messages about the menaces of war that these authors have faced. In the 1990’s, war broke out between harsh rebels and the corrupt government of Sierra Leone. Beah and the members of Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars have different, yet effective ways of telling their stories about the horrors of Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, A Long Way Gone, expresses the true dangers of war more effectively than “Weapon Conflict” because it goes into...
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...following arguments such as residential schools, slavery and the Sierra Leone civil war. Residential schools had a negative impact on Aboriginal people, many children suffered greatly. The government thought Aboriginal people’s history and culture were not worth preserving and acknowledged.This resulted to loss of culture, they were stripped out of their traditional ways and culture and taken away from their families. Rita Joe wrote a poem about how her voice...
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...The decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone involved an estimated 10,000 children fighting for both the rebel forces, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and for the Sierra Leone government (Jang). Many people know Ishmael Beah’s story about his childhood as a child soldier, but not many know about what he does to help kids who are going through the same thing he went through. Ishmael Beah is a former boy soldier from Sierra Leone who used his awful past as fuel to become a better person and help children who are in the same situation as he was. Ishmael’s childhood was definitely not easy, even before the war. His parents were divorced, and his father went through multiple wives after Ishmael’s mother. Ishmael’s stepmothers, who did not want...
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...Way Gone by Ishmael Beah explores his time as a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Armed Forces during the country’s civil war. During the course of the book, Beah recounts his time of being brainwashed into being a child soldier after his family and entire town is brutally murdered by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), while Beah is away with friends to attend a talent show. After years of committing violent crimes with the rebel army, and abusing various drugs such as “brown-brown” during his teenage years, Beah is removed from the rebel army by UNICEF and taken to a rehabilitation center where he heals from his time in the army and begins to opens up to others and learns to forgives himself and the people...
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...days of hunger. The people of Sierra Leone lived through this reality from the later eighties through the early twenty first century. The film Blood Diamond is based on this politically volatile era in the history of Sierra Leone. Three places are of prominent importance in the film. In these places life changing decisions and choices are made. The significance of these palaces drives the characters to defy common human behavior, put their lives in extreme danger and seemingly achieve the impossible. Of great importance is a mining valley in the countryside which is a stronghold of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel insurgency seeking to oust the current government. The government remains in control of the capital city of Freetown. A third significant place is the a United Nations meeting hall where the United States and other powerful Western countries make life altering decisions regarding the state of Sierra Leone. Despite the stark differences in the characteristics of these places, there’s one element that is present in all three – corruption. Greed and personal interest is the uniting factor in the three significant places in the film. So rampant is this self-interest attitude that it takes a reality of its own as TIA, short for “This is Africa.” Here, no one can be trusted and everyone strives for himself. On the RUF controlled mine field, enslaved men sift through muddy valleys for diamonds at gunpoint. With child soldiers holding rifles ready to shoot...
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...had been through. Ishmael Beah was a child soldier the Sierra Leone government army recruited to fight against the rebels in the Sierra Leone Civil War. He was forced to fight in the war when he turned thirteen and he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. Throughout his time in the war, he had seen extremely horrifying actions that no child should ever see. History has proven that the use of child soldiers should be banned internationally because child soldiers suffer from mental illnesses, are exposed to...
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...When reading both Mariatu Kamara and Ishmael Beah's memoirs regarding their experience with the Sierra Leone Civil War, it's evident that the authors endured similar suffering and hardships. The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClellan and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah have many similarities in regards to the two themes; loss of innocence and survival despite great suffering. Mariatu and Ishmael thoroughly demonstrated resilience all while experiencing the struggles of being a child during war. To start, both characters recalled memories of family members saying important things to them in order to give themselves hope for survival. On page 45 of The Bite of the Mango, Mariatu recalls her grandmother saying, “...every person has a spirit watching over him or her. Some people, if they’re really good, have two or three spirits. These spirits are often relatives who have died, like a grandfather, like Santigie, and sometimes they come to you in the guise of an animal, a bird or a reptile.” This helped Mariatu continue on her journey to safety, feeling like she had a guardian angel. As for Ishmael, page...
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...In the historic memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael documents his experiences of becoming a child soldier in the war struck country, Sierra Leone. Beah flashes back to his life in Mogbwemo where his family, including his brother, Junior and his friends, Mohamed and Talloi were all content with the life they were living. One thing he shared in common with all of them was their fascination with rap music. Rap was their form of happiness despite their never-ending fear of being attacked. Unfortunately, as the boys and Ishmael went to participate in a talent show, the rebel army returned to Mogbwemo without a given warning and began shooting all villagers in site. In this ‘life or death’ situation, many families were separated and were forced to leave their belongings for the sake of living and successfully escaping their home....
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...Khadijah Abdurrashid BB&N 8th Grade Writing 11/31/14 In Sierra Leone, children are used as child soldiers to fight against the government. Children are manipulated and brainwashed into killing and torturing innocent people. Ishmael Baeh, a child soldier survivor tells his story to share his horrifying yet inspiring memories of the war. In his autobiographical story A Long Way Gone, which takes place during a civil war in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Baeh writes a memoir about his experiences as a child soldier. Ishmael Baeh left his hometown, Mogbwemo, in 1993 to the town of Mattru Jong for his friend’s talent show; little did he know that at that moment his life would turn upside down. At the age of 13, Baeh was chosen by the government army to join the war. After 2 years of being in the war and going through rehab, he successfully recovers and moves to New York and writes his memoir. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Baeh presents the idea that you should be held accountable for your actions even if you chose to do so. Accountability shows that Baeh should be held accountable for his actions. Baeh triggers a memory of him as a child soldier killing innocent people at a school dance. ‘’A memory of a town we had attacked during a school dance had been triggered’’. Ishmael Baeh chose to kill those people, if he actually had a second thought, the situation would have been a whole better. Baeh had a flashback on when he torments rebels so they can feel the pain he felt. ‘’Before...
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