The Concept of Children and War - Essay Example

Children as Resources for Fighting in War Number and College November 11, Introduction The complexities of warare not only based on the battles and strategies which are implied in various regions. The outbreak of fighting also leads to several who are forced to fight because of the lack of resources and the need to change the outbreaks which are occurring. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, there are memoirs of being a child soldier in the war of Sierra Leone and the complexities which were related to this. The complexities which are intertwined with this and the individual difficulties which are encountered as a result show how the impact of children as soldiers changes the way in which wars are fought. The role of boy soldiers that are in a specific war are able to change the strategies used for fighting and alter the resources of each given side to imply new complexities within the war. This can be seen in the war of Vietnam, where boy soldiers fought against America to offer more resources to the opposing side. Book Summary In A Long Way Gone, there are descriptions that show how the complexities of war and of being a child and soldier intertwine. The narrator, Ishmael, builds this image up first by showing how the daily life in Sierra Leone allowed him to stay a boy and to enjoy life. The connection which is made with the character instantly allows the reader to understand daily life as well as the family structure and enjoyment which is associated with each area. However, there is an introduction to the possibilities of war and the small ways in which it began to create awareness in Ishmael’s life which shows the contrasting understanding of boyhood and the terrors of war. The effects begin by seeing refugees and the complexities and death that come from a battle which is fought by his village. “The two boys eventually begin to question the refugees from their village, and amidst the cries of women and children, an old woman tells them too much blood has been spilled where they are going and that even good spirits have fled the place” (Jong, 4). The immediate change from Ishmael walking to a talent show to seeing refugees from the war introduces the shocks of war as well as how the boys and villages were affected by what occurred. The shock of the refugees and what has occurred then leads to an introduction of the boys becoming a part of the war. The theme which is carried out by Ishmael is to show the brutality of the war as well as how it affects the children that become a part of it. As the details are recounted about the war, there are indications that show how those who were using children as soldiers didn’t understand the impact and didn’t care about the outcome and the effects that it carried. The mentality of soldiers that allowed the children to fight was to use them as resources, specifically so they could win the war against others, despite the bloodshed that was involved. “I saw myself holding an AK – 47 and walking through a coffee farm with a squad that consisted of many boys and a few adults. We were on our way to attack a small town that had ammunition and food…We opened fire until the last living being in the other group fell to the ground. We walked toward the dead bodies, giving each other high fives. The group had consisted of young boys like us, but we didn’t care about them” (19). This excerpt is one that recounts how the boys are fighting each other while the group leaders consist of adults. The main concept which is used is to have boys to fight the battles and for the adults to carry the strategies. The boys are able to provide resources to fight the wars and impact the results by changing the body count to see who can win the war from smaller battles that are fought. The way in which the children are looked at to fight the wars is then depicted with how this impacts each child psychologically. Ishmael details this by recounting several details of how the boys are trained to fight in the war, specifically so they can learn to survive as the war destroys the families and those around them. The children immediately become brainwashed into believing that they should kill to survive and to destroy what has destroyed their families and livelihood. The younger that the children are, the easier it is to create a learning process in which they believe that they should fight and kill both to survive and to stop what is occurring in the land. This training is one which becomes difficult to reverse and impacts the children psychologically into continuing to fight battles without fear. When Ishmael recounts details of joining the army, he shows aspects of how the psychological impact grows with the expectations of the adults. “ ‘ They have lost everything in them that makes them human. They do not deserve to live. That is why we must kill every single one of them. Think of it as destroying a greater evil. It is the highest service you can perform for your country” (108). Dialogues such as this show that the teaching of firing against the rebels and destroying the enemy become the main ideologies that are given to children during formative years, all which can impact them psychologically later. The psychological impact and being trained to fight in the war as a boy is one that Beah expands on by showing how the expected requirements change the attitudes of the boys. As the wars are forced to be fought, there is an impact that moves each of the boys through a learning process. At first, each is afraid; however, the situations which require brutality and force instantly lead them to understand survival by fighting and killing those around them. The impact is one which becomes so great that the boys have the capability of fighting more than adults because there is training into what is expected. More important, it becomes easier for the boys to force brutality and war with a greater impact because of the psychological expectations and the lack of boundaries or humanitarian teachings that create a difference between right and wrong. The brutality increases to killing children and mothers, raiding homes and destroying villages. To the adults, the boys become a vital force in learning to win the war. “We were taken to a nearby banana farm, where we practiced stabbing the banana tree with bayonets. ‘Visualize the banana tree as the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you’ the corporal screamed” (112). The description of the training and psychological association with war shows how there is a psychological shift from the boys who are forced to fight the war, specifically because they are taught mentally and emotionally how to fight and to kill. The training of brutality, psychological boundaries and the need to survive all combine to show how children become vital forces in killing enemies on the other side and in being trained into the belief that killing is the only way to survive and win. Beah’s description then allows one to see that using boys as soldiers offers more opportunity to defeat soldiers and win the wars in a given territory. The main themes that Beah describes in taking away boyhood, using children as resources for the war and offering a stronger psychological impact for training boy soldiers to fight then lead to the end themes of how the war affects every individual to the point where there is a belief that it is a part of life and the environment. The communities become impacted in the same manner as the boys that are taught to fight; however, there is a difference in the level of acceptance to the fighting. Since the boys are told to fight from earlier times, they are psychologically immune to the impact while those who are in the community move from fear to understanding the change in the environment. “For the first three weeks people were so afraid that they didn’t dare to leave their houses. But soon enough, everyone got used to the gunshots and madness” (207). The descriptions show how each individual is affected by the war, not only from the fear, but also with the acceptance that the killing is a way of life, which further leads into the ability to train boys as soldiers and to create resources which can be used for the war with acceptance by society. Role of Children Soldiers in War The descriptions of Beah through the war that was experienced in Sierra Leone are similar to other wars that have used the same strategy. The impact of children soldiers that are currently in wars are helping to redefine the meaning of war and are often used as resources in smaller militia armies in various regions of the globe. “Child soldiering is not uncommon. Worldwide, government armies, warlords, rebel groups, paramilitaries, and other militarized groups include an estimated 300,000 children defined under international law as people under 18 years of age” (Wessells, 2). The amount of children soldiers in the current military are used specifically as infantry resources that can easily be trained to fight in battle and which strengthen the capacities that are associated with fighting in the war. The resilience and attitudes which are created by early training can then be used to the benefit of those that are fighting in a war zone (Wessells, 3). The use of boy soldiers is also known to be used outside of national wars that conflict with other nations and are more likely to be apparent in Civil Wars where the militia of the government and other rebel groups can create a high level of acceptance toward what is occurring in the war. By doing this, the children are able to become vital resources that serve the purpose of the country and the opposing side while providing more individuals who can participate in the war and the winning of different locations. “The situation has worsened in recent years because civil wars and conflicts without clearly defined state actors have grown more prominent, and children suffer more in these irregular conflicts” (Honwana, 26). The conflict is one which is similar to Beah in showing that the conflict which arose was based out of his home territory in Sierra Leone and was based on fighting the civil areas and small attacks as a vital resource that could be trained. Later, the militia was able to continue to use the boys for resources specifically because the training became easy to those that were already in the war. The concept of using soldiers as resources in smaller Civil Wars also has an association with the psychological implications which Beah points out. This is dependent on the ability for the children to become associated with the ideologies of war and to develop this as a main component for the militia response to different conflicts. Children are more susceptible to understanding war and either accepting or rejecting the conflict which takes place. In several cultures, the training of children to belong to the military as a part of the natural upbringing is one which is used as a tactic, specifically because it enables stronger fighters. The psychological training becomes easier and those that are in the battle are stronger, specifically because cognitive and emotional reactions occur differently than in adults. “School life and its associated ideas of childhood were not necessarily incompatible with military ideas. As schooling began to dominate educational processes, there was a union of military and school cultures as schools… that culture itself began to be shaped by a military ethos” (Rosen, 7). The applied concept is one that shows there is an understanding that children who are trained into military combat naturally accept the horrors of war as a component of life and can be trained to fight in battles with more strength, dexterity and with a cognitive understanding of how to win the battles. Conclusion The concept of war and fighting is one that Beah shows in his memoir, Long Way Gone. The encounters of the civil war and fighting as a child show how this impacted his life psychologically, emotionally and mentally. Learning to fight and to win wars, building strength to the bloodshed and implying the personal reactions are all noted as a part of the details which are recounted in the book. More importantly, Beah is able to draw attention to the number of children who are fighting in Civil Wars as an expected proponent and strategy of differing sides. This is also noted in other forms of literature, all with children soldiers being a vital resource to the military. The ability to train children at a younger age and create a stronger psychological response to war time conflicts comes with more capacities from society to win wars and to have more available resources to defeat enemies in conflict. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Sarah Crichton Books: New York, 2007. Honwana, Alcinda. Child Soldiers in Africa. University of Pennsylvania Press: Pennsylvania, 2006. Rosen, David. Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism. Rutgers University Press: New York, 2005. Wessells, Michael. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Harvard Press: Boston, 2006. Outline I. Introduction a. Children are used in war because they become a resource to each side for winning battles. II. Long Way Gone summary a. Childhood life and being immune of the war – life before the outbreaks b. Being introduced to the war – brutality and the training of knowing how to kill c. Beah’s theme of how children are impacted psychologically by accepting war and killing as natural and a way of life d. Learning process – emotional and psychological progression of fear of killing to acceptance as a way of life and survival e. Natural acceptance from children is also noted in societies as warfare becomes a main proponent of those in a specific environment III. Role of Children Soldiers in War a. Children soldiers is accepted in several cultures because it strengthens military resources and numbers b. Civil Wars are the main territories in which children are taught to fought because of the nature of the war c. Psychological implications of children in war are based on the strength that children have as they are trained early and don’t have the same humanitarian responses as adult soldiers, making them stronger resources for war IV. Conclusion Read More