Dog Eat Dog World Ishmael Beah Analysis

“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is a moving war story about the author, Ishmael Beah, and his life growing up in the african country. Sierra Leone is the setting during the civil war which spanned from March of 1991 to January of 2002. Ishmael provides a stance against child soldiers, and has stuck with that view ever since he was rehabilitated. This book presents strong first hand encounters and vivid war stories. This helps prove the argument that child soldiering is a cruel act, and by using rehabilitation, victims would be able to return to regular life.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is a memoir of his experiences as a soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa that had a civil war that lasted from 1991 till 2002. The war started when Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attempted to overthrow the Joseph momoh government. The war resulted in over 50,000 deaths. During the civil war, children as young as seven years old were recruited to serve in the army but they weren't really recruited at all, they were threatened to join or they would be killed or kidnapped.

First of all, child soldiers go to extremes for such little things like having to ask for thing to be given to them. In the book by Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, an actual child soldier who is now rehabilitated shared his experiences through the war in Sierra Leone. It says, “We placed a bucket over the cook’s head and pushed him around the kitchen until he burned his hand on a hot boiling pot and agreed to put more milk in our tea,” (Beah, 2007). This demonstrates how dangerous they can be to innocent people, even those that are trying to help. They hurt those no matter what, for their own desires and sometimes they just do this for their own entertainment.

For child war victims like Sourdi, who lived in a war zone until she was nine years old, it is a wonder if there can ever be an end to the war. The trauma that children endure in a war zone is enough to last a lifetime. Not only are they

Very few kids have birth certificates so it is hard to identify them as adult or child. (Getlleman 7) For most of these adolescents, war and fighting is all they know. They wake up every morning having to face death and bloodshed, never having the experience of school and playing. It is hard to think of a childhood where there was no playing or going to the park, but that is exactly what kids in certain places around the world do not receive. Kids in the United States are very privileged but yet are not thankful to live in such a wonderful country, where they receive freedom.

Children are impressionable so the violence and propaganda were able to turn children into trained

Ishmael has a flashback of his life in the war. In his dream he encounters a body wrapped in white bed sheets, and as he unwraps it he realizes it is his own face he is looking at. He then awakens, sweating and on the ground. He says, “I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories” (Beah 19). Even being in a different country cannot take away the hell that Ishmael has been through.

The Problem of Child Soldiers “Since 2010, there’s been a 34% rise in the number of children living in conflict-affected areas, plus a staggering 170% rise in the number of reported grave violations committed against children in conflict.”(“Child Soldiers: Childhood's End”). This quote relates to my thesis statement because it shows the percentage of child soldiers that are in danger at a very young age and the rate of children in danger is still on the rise. Child Soldiers are young children that are put into war zones and danger zones at a very young age and have no control over what is going on. In A Long Way Gone the children got brained wash but doing drugs and not knowing they were, and being killed at too young of age by also being introduced to violence at too young of an age.

Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able to take responsibility for their actions so they are targeted to be able to kill without punishment.

They have to worry about surviving. Boy soldiers live by the rule of “kill or be killed”. Without a childhood, they lack the basic understandings needed for a normal

How would you feel if you were recruited as a soldier during war? Since 2001, the participation of child soldiers has been reported in 21 on-going or recent armed conflicts in almost every region of the world. The importance of this is portrayed in Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone. The author believes that innocent kids should not be selected to fight as soldiers, lose their innocence killing people, witnessing violent scenes and suffer because of war.

There are thousands of child soldiers in the world today. These children are stripped from their homes and sent to fight with people twice their age. Many haven’t even had their 11th birthday yet. Although some people say that child soldiers should not be granted amnesty, evidence shows that these children do deserve amnesty, except in cases when the former soldiers show violent behavior after war because children are forced to commit acts of violence and are force addicted to illegal substances so they won’t want to leave.

An unhealthy obsession with guns, being drugged to make killings seem normal, and being undoubtedly loyal to commanders is only part of what a child soldier is. Child soldiers can be dangerous and make up many armies in war-torn countries. In much of the world, usually in unstable countries, when conflict breaks out, children can quickly be swept up and put on the front lines to fight. Children may carry ten-pound guns and use bullets twice the size of their fingers. Some children are old enough to understand what they are doing, and others have no idea.

Assignment page Video Where many children all over the world merrily and freely live under the protection of the law, for others, this is a distant reality, they live in a world where they’re battling poverty, stripped of their childhood and basic human rights are expunged, they’re the innocent victims of conflict, and war is made to seem their one and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. They are put into a situation where it’s to kill or be killed. The United Nations defines a child soldier as, “Any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Since the past 15 years, child soldiers are being used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their families and forced into becoming a child soldier, where living conditions are beyond imaginable.

Have you ever imagined growing up on a life of drugs, war, crime, and seeing things that many adults won’t dare to ever see? In many countries around the world, this is what many children have to deal with. There is an occurring issue of people across Africa and parts of Asia using children as soldiers in war. They act and take upon the roles of real combatants, causing the people of the public to act in different ways. It’s been well documented that these children have used guns and war tactics, and committed various illegal and illicit acts of violence.