Thoughts.

[corknut]

One of the books I'm reading right now is A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ismael Beah. Discounting the fictionalization claims-- I honestly haven't looked into them much, so I don't really have an opinion on how accurate or inaccurate Beah's account is-- it really makes me sad to see some of the things that reviewers (particularly at Amazon.com) are saying about him, and child soldiers in general.

"Beah should be despised, not "addressing the U.N." True, he may have "forgiven himself" in some feel-good workshop, but I for one haven't forgiven him. Look, if they gave him a Kalashnikov when he was 7 or 8 and bullied him into shooting up the town, that'd be one thing. But 15? That's old enough to know the difference between right and wrong in any culture. Murderer."

Even excluding the fact that he was thirteen when he was forcibly recruited, not fifteen, I just think it's really impossible to make a judgement like that when you've never been in the situation yourself. Imagine that you grew up in a war-torn country, and were given a gun, and essentially told that your choices are to kill or be killed. On top of that, your head is filled with horrible imagery of what the people you'll be fighting have done (or supposedly have done, depending on the situation), and you're told that that sort of thing happened to your parents and families, and that you need to avenge their deaths. Can you really and truly say that your response to that situation would be "No, killing is wrong; do whatever you want with me but I refuse to fight for you"? I can't, and I'm a serious, serious pacifist who is against the death penalty in any circumstance and can't imagine being able to kill somebody.

Comments

[usakeh.livejournal.com]

I read that book in one sitting; it's truly haunting. I didn't know that there were fictionalization claims. But I think that's par for the course.

Anyway, I agree with you completely.

Oh, and: I actually met the author! I worked for the Columbia University Bookstore, and we were doing an event in which he was speaking at the Columbia Law School. He seemed like a really terrific guy. He was really kind to everybody and actually spoke to the people whose books he was signing.

[banerry.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think with any memoir, especially one of this nature, there are going to be people questioning the veracity. Plus someone writing about their own life is pretty much by definition an unreliable narrator, so.

I'm jealous that you got to see him speak! I would have loved that. ;; When was it?

[usakeh.livejournal.com]

Actually, I didn't hear him speak, sadly. I was outside the auditorium waiting for it to be over, with all of the books. After the speech, he came out and signed books for the law students. That's when I met him. He was nice to me even though I was just the bookstore employee. (A lot of the authors for whom I worked events were dismissive, if not outright rude, to me.) This was several years ago, when the book had just come out, I think.

[banerry.livejournal.com]

Still, that's pretty cool! But that sucks about other authors being rude to the employees. Who do they arranged for them to speak? :\

[oilymoonmooncow.livejournal.com]

LOL just. People need to shut the fuck up. You can't know unless you've been there, and seen, and even then, if you're a foreigner going to hand out water bottles and play doctor, it's not the same.

Wow. Just. Bravo, bravo, Amazon.

[banerry.livejournal.com]

"You can't know unless you've been there, and seen, and even then, if you're a foreigner going to hand out water bottles and play doctor, it's not the same."

This this this forever.