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Experiences of a child soldier
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
As many as 300,000 children are fighting in an estimated 50 conflicts across the globe, according to human rights organizations. A former victim of one such conflict visited UB last week as a speaker in the 2007-08 Distinguished Speakers Series.
Ishmael Beah, now 26, says that while
his experiences as a child soldier are not easy to discuss, the
plight of other children has prompted him to speak out.
PHOTO:
ENID BLOCH
Ishmael Beah, author of the UB Reads selection "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier," spoke on Oct. 24 before a crowd of 6,000 in Alumni Arena—including 2,000 students from more than 60 high schools—about his experiences fighting as a child soldier in a civil war that killed an estimated 50,000 people in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
Those attending the Beah lecture also had the opportunity to visit a Civic Engagement Fair held in the concourse area of Alumni Arena. The fair offered participants an opportunity to investigate different opportunities to engage in humanitarian initiatives, activities, careers and studies.
Beah said the stories in his book "still are not easy to discuss," but he explained that the plight of other children across the globe urged him to speak out.
"I wanted to write the book so that people could come to this landscape," he said, "to see, hear, feel, smell and be a part of the experience to the point that they can understand that this war is affecting a human being rather than a civilian or African or Afghan or Sri Lankan. I wanted to pull down those walls that do not allow us to make that necessary human connection when there's no context as to how this violence spreads, destroys homes and disintegrates the lives of people."
Despite the romanticized notions of war he has encountered in the United States, Beah made it clear that in his view the sole purpose of war is "to kill or be killed."
"People can find interesting ways to justify or phrase it so it becomes something else, but the purpose is to kill people," he said. The children who fought in Sierra Leone were the same as the young people in the audience, he added, despite the violence they were forced to carry out.
"I wanted to change people's perceptions about child soldiers so people know this happens to children [with] the same human desires, needs and wants as anyone anywhere," said Beah, who credits the efforts of UNICEF workers and a patron in the U.S. for his own rehabilitation after the war. "Even though their lives have been severely touched by this violence, they can recover if given the proper care and support," he said of child soldiers. "They're not a lost generation as most people would like to believe."
Beah said his book also attempts to bring a greater sense of perspective to the conflict and people of Sierra Leone than the stories and images common in the U.S. news media. He pointed to a lack of coverage about Sierra Leone in The New York Times after his move to the United States in the summer of 1998 as a typical failure in reporting.
"When Sierra Leone became known in the media and in the international world, it became known because of the war—because of the violence," he added. "For a lot of people, there was a perception that Sierra Leone equaled civil war, amputation and madness. The violence was sensationalized to the point that it began to seem as though Sierra Leone had always had war and all of us who were there were only capable of violence."
Missing from the reports was a vision of his homeland before the conflict, he added, noting that Sierra Leone provided him with a strong early education, as well as a powerful sense of community, respect for elders and culture, including exposure to both the African oral tradition and Shakespeare.
A graduate of the United Nations International School in Manhattan and Oberlin College, Beah spoke about the important role of education in his life after escaping conflict in Sierra Leone.
"Most of the kids that survived this war, the only difference between myself and them was that I've been able to gain an education that exposed me and opened up my world to what I'm capable of," he said, pointing out that many children taken from combat become frustrated after rehabilitation because they're unable to reclaim a sense of purpose in life. "Getting an education was an empowerment that I received," he said.
Beah urged students to view education not only as a means to earn a good job, but as "a process of self-discovery about your place in the world and what you can do in the world and your community, your country and beyond."
A member of the advisory committee of the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, Beah cited a few ways in which the average person can help stop foreign nations from using children to wage wars. Besides taking the time to learn more about the problem from resources such as the Human Rights Watch and the UNICEF Web pages, Beah suggested volunteering or raising funds for local chapters of these groups.
He also urged audience members to support a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durban and Sam Brownback that would place limits on assistance to foreign nations employing children in warfare. The U.S. currently provides some form of military aid to nearly 10 countries using child soldiers, he said, citing research by Human Rights Watch.
"If you can push your senators or congressmen to support this bill, we'll be able to change some things," he said. "That's something you can do right now."
For the online petition supporting the Child Solider Prevention Act of 2007, click here.