By: Arushi Aditi
I met Ishmael Beah when I studied in Tanzania, to interview him about ‘creative writing’ for a fifth-grade project,; not knowing about what a child soldier does–, how they are forced into their struggles and life-long trauma. I bought the book a couple months ago, and embarrassment filled my body with every new page I turned as I realised the gravity of his journey and the strength, not only physical but emotional, this man had to make it out alive. And countless other children in Sierra Leone.
This autobiography summarises the experiences of Beah as a child during the Sierra Leone civil war in the 1990s. The war was instigated between the Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Action People’s Congress (APC). Child soldiers from the age of six were recruited by both parties to fight in the war. Beah was 12 when recruited to fight against “those who killed his family”, according to the RUF. His life became a series of violent spells where killing was “as easy as drinking water”. Guns and drugs became a way of life through his early teens, and he was finally dragged out of it by the UN.
We get an insight into his life before the war in rural Sierra Leone. He talks about his love for American rap, his love for his friends and family. He gives us an image of the short-lived boyhood he had. He sets context for what the war ruined, a potential life unlived.
The invasion of the violent parties brings a wave of chaos and melancholy, as he is separated from his family. We, then, walk with him through his tortuoustorturous journey of running away from destruction. For days, weeks, months; he and a few other boys kept running. He doesn’t fail to account for the laughter and joy he receives from their brotherhood. We see a glimmer of childhood presence in the background of things children should never have to even think about.
He speaks about himself as if it is not him when he was recruited. His tone when describing this drugged kid with a thirst rd to kill allows the readers to understand how he isn’t given a choice. He isn’t given the choice to understand what is immoral or inhuman. He isn’t given a choice to not kill. His writing doesn’t show remorse or regret, it merely reflects a sense of out-of-body, out of control violence that is pierced into a child with the intention to cause more chaos.
His rehabilitation is described as the most unimportant part of his journey. It is difficult, and it is volatile – maybe because it is something that he must continue doing for the rest of his life.
In my opinion, the most effective part of his narrative was not the philosophical takeaways, nor was it an implicit social statement made about the role of the West in conflicts of the South. The most beautiful element was his storytelling. Beah mentioned several times in his TED talks that he doesn’t expect the opportunity to change policies, have the geopolitical power to single-handedly shift global dynamics, or even a powerful political voice on a national level. He just wants a safe space to share his story, and others in his position to be able to do the same. There is this common thread of storytelling throughout the book; his grandmother’s folk tales that shaped his childhood before the war, his adoptive mother and how she caught his attention at a UNICEF conference, and in fact, the final page of the novel. It truly made me understand the power in the simplicity of telling one’s story, which is something he does wonderfully.
