The Sierra Leone Civil War was a savage conflict that would rage for over a decade, claiming the lives of 300,000 and displacing 2.5 million civilians. The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier are firsthand accounts of children affected by the war. Mariatu Kamara had her hands severed and was left for dead. Ishmael Beah was conscripted by the government army to fight the rebel forces. Ishmael and Mariatu were both victims of the bloody Sierra Leone civil war, however their journeys to safety were vastly different. Throughout the conflict, rebel militias would burn down villages leaving few, if any, civilians alive. The government military, while more benevolent, was not often in a position to oppose the rebels’ atrocities. …show more content…
Mariatu was able quickly make her way to the capital, where she would continue the rest of her journey in relative safety. “He placed one hand tenderly on my cheek. With his other hand he cupped my chin. ‘You will die if you come with me,’ he said in a soft voice, ‘I don’t think you know how sick you are. But I do. Follow the road, and by midday you will find yourself in a village only a short distance away from Port Loko…” (Kamara 50). A single day after her village is decimated Mariatu finds some reluctant assistance and is given directions to Port Loko, where she will then be transported to Freetown. In less than a week Mariatu has escaped the dangers of the front lines. Unlike Mariatu, Ishmael’s journey to the capital city spans months of arduous combat preceding weeks of rehabilitation. Even when Ishmael finally makes it to the city, he finds its safety fleeting. “I left on October 31st, 1997, while it was still a little dark outside… It was less dangerous to travel at this hour as some of the gunmen were dozing off and the night made it difficult for the militiamen to see me from affat. Gunshots echoed in the quiet city…” (Beah 209). Freetown becomes yet another battlefield Ishmael must escape, unlike Mariatu, he never finds safety within Sierra
This psychological memoir is written from the eyes of Ishmael Beah and it describes his life through the war and through his recovery. War is one of the most horrific things that could ever happen to anyone. Unwilling young boy soldiers to innocent mothers and children are all affected. In most instances the media or government does not show the horrific parts of war, instead they focus on the good things that happen to make the people happy and not cause political issues. In his book A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah dispels the romanticism around war through the loss of childhood innocence, the long road of emotional recovery and the mental and physical affects of war.
No one knows what will happen in his or her life whether it is a trivial family dispute or a civil war. Ishmael Beah and Mariatu Kamara are both child victims of war with extremely different life stories. Both of them are authors who have written about their first-hand experience of the truth of the war in order to voice out to the world to be aware of what is happening. Beah wrote A Long Way Gone while Kamara wrote The Bite of the Mango. However, their autobiographies give different information to their readers because of different points of view. Since the overall story of Ishmael Beah includes many psychological and physical aspects of war, his book is more influential and informative to the world than Kamara’s book.
The R.U.F., however, was not alone in servicing children as their own messengers of evil, the military group countering their acts of violence also had children fighting their battles. A Long Way Gone and The Bite of the Mango are eye-opening books because they give various people all over the world a glimpse into the horrors kids in Africa were facing on a daily basis. However different Mariatu Kamara and Ishmael Beah’s experiences were regarding their journeys and disabilities, they both exhibited the same extraordinary resilience in the end to better themselves, create futures they could be proud of, and make the best with what the war left them.
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
In The Bite of the Mango, Kamara really only describes the rebels and her hands getting cut off in detail at the beginning. As the story progresses, there is not much explanation of the war. She barely describes the brutality and realness of the war. Once Beah becomes a brainwashed soldier, he goes into detail about killing. Beah discusses how killing the rebels is like a game, because the corporal times how long it takes to kill them. The soldier with the fastest time would win. He describes how he slit the rebel’s throat, and he does not leave out any detail about how sharp his bayonet was against the rebel’s Adam’s apple. Beah even says, “His eyes rolled up and they looked me straight in the eyes before they suddenly stopped in a frightful glance, as if caught by surprise” (Beah 125). This is just one example of how violent this war was. Although Kamara is affected by the war in an immense way, she seems to be indifferent towards it. After the tragedy of her hands being cut off, she just goes through the motions. She has her child, and it dies. Begging on the streets becomes her lifestyle. Also, she joins a theater troupe. All of this is going on as the war is, but she never goes into that or how it was affecting her personally. The imagery Beah uses to relay his experiences in the war is extremely effective, and he uses the same important detail in portraying the scenery and places he saw throughout his
During the 1900’s two deadly wars were raging on, the civil war in Sierra Leone and the genocide in Rwanda. The civil war in Sierra Leone began in March 1991, while the genocide began in 1994. Combined these two wars killed upward of 1,050,000 people, and affected the lives of all the people that lived there. The conflicts in Sierra Leone and Rwanda occurred for different major reasons, but many little aspects were similar. Politics and Ethnicity were the two main conflicts, but despite the different moments rebellions and the murder of innocent people occurred in both places.
In his memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah deals with his loss of innocence as he is forced to join the children army of Sierra Leone in the country's civil war after being conscripted to the army that once destroyed his town in order for Ishmael to survive. His memoir acts as a voice to show the many difficulties that the members of Sierra Leone's child army had to suffer through and their day to day struggle to survive in the worst of conditions. In order to escape the perils and trials of war, Ishmael loses his innocence as he transitions from a child who liked to rap with his friends to a cold blooded solider in the army during the civil war in Sierra Leone. Through his transition, Ishmael is forced to resort to the addiction of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and “brown-brown” just so that he, along with the other members of the child army can have the courage to be able to kill their fellow countrymen and slaughter entire towns who stand in their paths. In order to portray his struggles in the army, Ishmael uses the dramatic elements of memories explained using flashback, dialogue, and first-person narration in order to establish the theme of the memoir being how war causes for a child to lose its innocence. The transition shown in the memoir illustrates how the title of the novel, A Long Way Gone, was chosen because it demonstrates how he is a long way gone psychologically, emotionally, and physically, from the child that he was when the memoir begins to the soldier that he is forced to become.
The war in Sierra Leone lasted eleven years and resulted in mass murder, destruction, and mainly, loss of innocence. This war impacted nearly everyone in the country, however its specific damage on the children of Sierra Leone is a tragedy that haunts the victims to this day. The Rebels killed and tortured thousands of innocent people and destroyed villages throughout the country. Boys as young as twelve were forced to form an army and fight against the rebels. Ishmael Beah, a young boy living amongst this war, tells his story in the book A Long Way Gone. He explains the gory and disturbing details of his life as a boy soldier. As the young boys were brainwashed into killing, the women and young girls of the country were being raped,
In 1991, a detrimental civil war began in the small country of Sierra Leone, with the RUF taking charge, trying to overthrow Joseph Momoh, the current (2nd) president, and the republic in which he operated. His people viewed him as manipulatable and weak, being controlled by his notoriously corrupt advisors. The RUF continued on strike, warring against the police and other governmental forces. In 1992 they managed to overthrow him. For six years, the war continued, as the RUF wanted their democracy to be put into motion. In 1997, a new president was designated, and the war declared over. This did not satisfy the RUF, and an uproar began, dragging the war on for another four years.
...oss Laura Simms, a narrator and his forthcoming foster mom, and understands the significance of sharing his practice with the world in expectations of avoiding such terrors from happening to other youngsters and to other parts of the world. (chapter 20).Afterwards Ishmael revenues to Freetown, Sierra Leon, a rebellion by the RUF and the Soldierly outs the non-combatant government, and the warfare Ishmael has been escaping from catches up with him. After his uncle’s passing, Ishmael escapes Sierra Leon for nearby Guinea and finally makes his tactic to his different lifetime in the United States (chapter 21).
Clearly, the Sierra Leone army knows what strategies in order to recruit children into becoming soldiers through manipulations. For example, a long way gone, written by Ishmael Beah shows the process of a boy being manipulated into the Sierra Leone army, but the world has been corrupted for any years, and needless to say, enough is enough. Ishmael's decision have shown the importance of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and the ability to live life without manipulations and eventually reach the final goal a person
Child soldier is a worldwide issue, but it became most critical in the Africa. Child soldiers are any children under the age of 18 who are recruited by some rebel groups and used as fighters, cooks, messengers, human shields and suicide bombers, some of them even under the aged 10 when they are forced to serve. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically make obedient soldiers. Most of them are abducted or recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children feel that rebel groups become their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family members who have been killed by the war. Sometimes they even forced to commit atrocities against their own family (britjob p 4 ). The horrible and tragic fate of many unfortunate children is set on path of war murders and suffering, more nations should help to prevent these tragedies and to help stop the suffering of these poor, unfortunate an innocent children.
The lack of parenting during the civil war in Sierra Leone is a major cause that leads to the use of child soldiers during the war. The outbreak of the war in Sierra Leone caused everyone to run for their lives, leaving behind loved ones. Due to the sudden outbreak, many children were split apart from their parents leaving them abandoned. Wen the war began “fathers had come running from their workplaces, only to stand in front of their empty houses with no indication of where their families had gone. Mothers wept as they ran towards schools, rivers and water taps to look for their children. Children ran home to look for their parents who were wandering the streets in search of them. As the gunfire intensified, people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town” (Beah 9). Ishmael realizes that he will be alone without his family and begins to feel as if a part of his is lost. As for the separation of families, the children in Sierra Leone were forced to make their own sensible decisions in order to stay alive during that time. Young children who lost their families were brainwashed into believing that fighting in the war was the right thing to do. Correspondingly, the lack of parenting during this difficult...
War ravaged the land and tore people apart emotionally and physically. One recurrence that came about during the war was the raping and “ruining” of women. To be ruined meant that a woman was raped and/or tortured so severely that she would no longer be capable of having sex. In a culture that values the fertility of its women, this lead to the breakdown of many communities. A perfect example of this breakdown would be in the case of Salima and Fortune. Salima was taken into the bush and raped for 5 months and when she returned home her husband, Fortune, turned her away. This violence committed against Salima caused her to be forced from her community, and it also forced her to take up work at Mama Nadi’s. Here she has to endure a change of identity in order to do the work required of her and to come to terms with her past. At the end of the play, Salima dies and states the haunting words; “You will not fight your battles on my body anymore”(94). These last words sum up just how intrusive the war has become in the lives of everyone in its path and also represents a clear shift in Salima as an individual. Instead of the woman who just wanted her husband back at the end of the play, we are left to contemplate a
Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest of the country out of fear of the mutinous army that was out of control looting and killing.