A Long Way Gone

I recently finished "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier" by Ishmael Beah. It is about a twelve year old boy who lived in Sierra Leone during their civil war (early 90's). He was away from his village when the rebels attacked so he went on the run with his friends. He spent his time running from the rebels and searching for his family. Eventually he has to stop running. He is in a village occupied by the army when the rebels attack. His choice is to try to escape and meet certain death, or join the army and receive training to fight. He chooses the latter part at the tender age of 13. He is in the army for 3 more years before he is removed by UNICEF and put into a rehabilitation center for boy soldiers.

The book is quite hard to read in places, but I found I couldn't put it down. There is something about a personal account, no matter how horrifying, that demands to be read. The voice needs to be heard and listened to. There is so much of war around the world. So much of war that is not black and white. I wish it were. It is so easy for a government to assign that fate to a people when they are not the ones in the line of fire. It's so easy for me as I sit in my comfortable home to form opinions about what the world should be doing. When is a cause so great that a people will take up arms against their own? When does a mind become so twisted that the only way they think they can be heard is by burning a village and killing all the inhabitants?

Beah tells an interesting story at the end of the book. One of the old men in his village told him the story of a hunter and a monkey. The hunter went into the bush to kill a monkey. He finds one sitting comfortably in the branches. "The monkey didn't pay him much attention, not even when his footsteps on the dried leaves rose and fell as he neared. When he was close enough... he raised his rifle and aimed. Just when he was about to pull the triger, the monkey spoke: 'If you shoot me, your mother will die, and if you don't, your father will die.'" The question asked at the end was "What would you do if you were the hunter?"

Naturally there was no really good way to answer the question, especially when the parents were around. But Beah gives his answer:

"When I was seven I had an answer... I never discussed it with anyone for fear of how my mother would feel. I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament."

(By the way, Ishmael Beal is coming to USU to give a lecture. If any of you are interested I will get the details. I believe it's on the 23 of August.)