Final Presentation on "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier"

Ishmael Beah, growing up in west Africa, lived a perfectly normal life until it was turned upside down by the Revolutionary United Front.  His village, his family, and the daily life he was used to, was turned upside.  He began a life that involved running from the war, fighting in the war, recovering from the war, suffering from the war, then finally recovering from the war for good.
       This book outlines the horrific challenges that faced one boy, and face many other children still today.  This book has added importance on account of the recent interest sparked by the Kony 2012 campaign.  The problem described in this campaign and the one in the book are not the same, but the overall outline is very similar.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc .  Just as with the campaign, this book show the injustice that are occurring in African countries.
       In the setting of this book, the victims of the war are pretty much helpless.  The rebel group that started the fighting destroys villages and families tearing apart people's lives in the process.  The Sierra Leonian government is combating the rebels, but they end up doing about the same things as the rebels, which only makes the problem worse.  The only time in the story where any aid is offered to the people in the war is when Ishmael is taken out of the fighting by UNICEF.  Before this, Ishmael ends up fighting for the governments army and still commits the same war crimes that were committed against him.  As Ishmael fights for the Sierra Leonean Army, his perspective on the war changes.  he becomes exactly like the people who killed his family and destroyed his home.  He destroys villages, kills innocent people, and is feared just as much as the rebels.  It provides an inside look on what the war looked like from the soldiers' prospective.
       Reading this book opens us up to the cruel and violent world that child soldiers are exposed to.  Before the Kony 2012 campaign, child soldiering was a fairly unknown issue.  Just as with that campaign, this book is supposed to open us up and raise our awareness levels about this issue.  It should make us realize what the people in an other part of the world are going through and give us a new outlook on them.

Critique

       A Long Way Gone is the story of a young man, Ishmael Beah, during a time when a war is tearing apart his home country, Sierra Leone.  It covers his life before the war, his life running from the war, his participation in the war, and finally his recovery from the process.  It is a fantastic redemptive tale that should be read by anyone looking for a good story.  Beah does an incredible job of retelling his experiences in vivid detail.  In these experiences, he describes some very graphic scenes.  His descriptions of the violence of war as well as drug use by him and other soldiers can be quite disturbing.  Overall, this was a wonderful book and I give it a 8 out of 10.

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2007. Print.

UNICEF

UNICEF (the United Nations Childrens fund) is an international organization dedicated to helping children around the world and protecting their rights.  They believe that caring for children is essential for human growth.  To help children, they protect their basic needs, try to provide education, and protect against HIV/AIDS among many other things.

On UNICEF's website, they have a link to their online store, where you can buy specific toys, gifts, and essentials for children in need.  One gift that you can buy is called "school in a box."  This is a large box with all types of educational essentials that is used to provide schooling for children for 40 days dung an emergency situation.  You can also provide vaccines for children through UNICEF's web store.  Vaccines are an important part of UNICEF's mission to protect and provide for children around the world.  Through their store, you can buy vaccines for diseases like polio and measles.

2 Favorite Parts

1. pgs. 7,8- This is one of the only parts in the book where Ishmael's life is peaceful and happy.  It is cool to hear about his daily life before it was flipped upside down by the war.  Its light tone provides a good image of what life was like before all the violence kicks in.

2. pgs. 67,68- In this part, the boys are saved from a hostile village by the hip-hop tapes that the boys had with them.  The chief is amused by Ishmael's dancing to the songs and allows them to go free.  The way this scene unfolds is slightly comical and strange, it is still chilling due to how the boys react to the scenario and how it disturbs them.  It is an example of how the boys' lives are at that point.  Life is hard for them and everything they go through is frightening and unsettling.

Website Related to My Topic

Child Soldiers International is an organization devoted to ending the recruitment of child soldiers around the world.  They are one of the biggest advocates for ending the recruitment of children in war.  They do a great deal of research about the topic as well as running campaigns to raise awareness and support for these children.  Their work reaches all around the world, helping the situation on almost every continent.

http://www.child-soldiers.org/regions/country?id=83

"A Long Way Gone"

This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped-up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s.  Children have become the soldiers of choice.  In more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.  Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
       What does war look like through the eyes of a child soldier?  How does one become a killer?  How does one stop?  Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives.  But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
       In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a powerfully gripping story: At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.  At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to heal.
       This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

Solutions!!!

1. Journalists must stand up for their colleagues.  Because of the number of journalists being killed, many of them have become too scared to do anything to help their friends and their profession.  The general feeling among the journalists is that they must be careful about what they print because anything sensitive could provoke violent action.  As long as they are walking on eggshells while writing their stories, they will not be able to publicly stand up for their fellow journalists.  If they unite in solidarity then they will have strength in numbers and then the actions of the government can begin to change.
source: http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/reports/no-justice-for-journalists-in-ukraine-belarus-and-russia.pdf
2. Human right activists and the Russian population must stand up for the journalists in the country and against the injustice that is taking place against them.  In 2006, the murder of Anna Politkovskaya sparked an international outrage.  People all over Europe made it known that unjust killings such as these were not going to be tolerated.  This kind of action needs to take place after every outrageous murder of brave journalists.  If the people do this then it will put pressure on the Russian government and make it harder for them to get away with these crimes.
source: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19735
3. Legislation must eventually be passed to protect journalists' rights.  Possibly one of the most effective ways of protecting journalists is passing a law that will allow journalists to publish whatever the want and promising them protection from any ensuing violent action.  The knowledge that they can write whatever they want and not having to worry about awful consequences would help their medium flourish.  Although Russia may not be ready for such legislation now it must be a goal of the people and the government to set up law protecting their journalists.
source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/opinion/8188872/Why-are-Russian-journalists-being-killed.html

My Topic and IR Paradigms

       Realism is an IR paradigm that says different states use their power to establish their own interests. This can define my topic because Russia can be seen as trying to silence the journalists who are working against them and their interests and challenging the government.  A major theme in realism is the idea of big states overpowering little states.  Since the Russian government is obviously larger and more powerful than these individual journalists, it is possible and easy to overpower and get rid of these people.
       Constructivism also can explain my topic.  This International Relations Theory is defined by states and their ideas.  In my topic, the ideas of the journalists are to expose some of the wrongs in the Russian government and give the truth to the public.  The government's ideas are obviously in conflict with this and this is why it is trying to silence the journalists.  since the values and ideals of the two groups are opposite, that is why they are in conflict and are pitted against each other.