Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
dark
fast-paced
'A Long Way Gone' by Ishmael Beah describes the horrific wars of Sierra Leone from the point of view of himself when a boy soldier. The wars began for the author after his home village was attacked when he was twelve years old. The wars went on and on. For him, he had a brief lull from the fighting for a year when he turned sixteen, during which time he endured a partial deprogramming and the pain of withdrawal from many drugs, but then the wars began again. He was a refugee once again at age seventeen.
The book is non-fiction. Ismael hides few details. It is a graphic autobiography. Dead bodies were a common sight to the author even before he became a child soldier of Africa while on the run from soldier attacks.
At age thirteen Ishmael was starving, having lived for a year by running from village to village in the forest away from the brutal soldiers. He was with a group of children who had all lost their families. Villagers were terrified of roaming children because many of the murderous soldiers were children too, led by military men. So the traveling group of frightened boys stole and hid wherever they could, trying to avoid the rebels and the government soldiers, sleeping often in the forest. But the starving weakened them, the terror wore them down, and they all were grieving, plus, hello, they were children. They didn’t know what the wars were about since most of them had been only in village secondary schools, living with loving parents when the wars started.
When Ishmael finally was captured by government soldiers, he became a ‘willing’ soldier at age thirteen, soon killing his first victim by cutting the throat of a rebel in a government boot camp of sorts for child beginners at soldiering. If one of them failed to kill, it was a bullet in the brain immediately, killed in front of the other children. He eventually was killing defenseless babies, children, women and men, but since he was high on drugs 24/7, going without sleep for days, eating irregularly, it was meaningless to him. He attacked civilian villages for food and engaged rebel soldiers in combat, suffering bullet wounds skimming his body all over. Blood and bleeding was a constant. It was nothing to him. He and the other boys laughed at how funny people died and had brutality contests of the worst death. He and his fellow soldiers were fourteen years old, seemingly completely psychotic and mentally ill, under the influence of PTSD and drugs.
He was originally raised in a very small village of simple farmers, miners and traders, surrounded by forests and a river, with other small villages nearby (actually, miles apart - people walked a lot, sometimes hitching a ride with the occasional vehicle). They were without steady electricity except that of generators, with some modern conveniences such as radio and tape players, and occasional movies and music videos shown in nearby towns in foreigners’ quarters. Ishmael lived with his father and stepmother, with visits to his mother, and a grandmother also in a nearby village. Everybody knew everybody. They had celebrations, parties, fun nights of storytelling. Ishmael had many school friends near his age, all boys. They played at games, talent shows of dancing and singing. There were feasts of rice and fish soup.
They had begun to hear about a war that was happening, but not near them. Occasionally they met refugees, haunted and starving, passing through, warning them to leave.
But one day in 1993 when Ishmael had gone to Mattru Jong, a town sixteen miles away from his home for a talent show and dance practice with other boys, rebels attacked his village. The soldiers burned his village and killed or chased away all of the people.
After his village was attacked by soldiers, Ishmael was separated from his family. The rebel soldiers went from village to village, killing and burning. He ran and hid in the forest. Eventually he found a brother and four other boys. They did not know if any adults or their other brothers and sisters in their family had lived. Traveling from place to place, stopping wherever to sleep - beneath trees, near villages which were too nervous to accept them or they snuck onto the verandas of nervous strangers, who were fearful of their intentions, to sleep, leaving before dawn.
Eventually, the boys were caught at one of the soldier checkpoints which terrorized all who had to pass. Soldiers beat, robbed and shot civilians who were escaping rebel and government raids on their home villages. But they took the children with them unless they were too little. Too little meant younger than eight years old. Ishmael was thirteen.
I remember the news stories about these civil wars of Sierra Leone when they were happening. To us Americans, the descriptions of these continuous coups one after another, instigated by military factions in this part of Africa, apparently based on tribal affiliations and led by uneducated psychopathic military sergeants, fought by indoctrinated and drug-stupefied child soldiers from 8 to 15 years old, was freakish and bizarre. Stories of hands being cut off every man in a village as a normal war tactic of these soldiers with machetes sounded beyond insane. This was a real-life dystopia of madness beyond American comprehension. It still is.
‘A Long Way Gone’ sheds insight on how boy soldiers were created and molded into Junior Terminators (but real ones who could easily die). Beah does not describe politics of the wars or why they happened at all. No wonder. These wars, still sporadically erupting here and there in uneasy and impoverished Sierra Leone, are beyond all sanity and reason.
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone:
“Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002)”
“...in total 1,270 primary schools were destroyed.”
In October 1990, owing to mounting pressure from both within and outside the country for political and economic reform, president Momoh set up a constitutional review commission to assess the 1978 one-party constitution. Based on the commission's recommendations a constitution re-establishing a multi-party system was approved by the exclusive APC Parliament by a 60% majority vote, becoming effective on 1 October 1991. There was great suspicion that president Momoh was not serious about his promise of political reform, as APC rule continued to be increasingly marked by abuses of power.
The brutal civil war that was going on in neighbouring Liberia played a significant role in the outbreak of fighting in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor – then leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia – reportedly helped form the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of former Sierra Leonean army corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh, an ethnic Temne from Tonkolili District in Northern Sierra Leone. Sankoh was a British trained former army corporal who had also undergone guerrilla training in Libya. Taylor's aim was for the RUF to attack the bases of Nigerian dominated peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone who were opposed to his rebel movement in Liberia.
On 29 April 1992, a group of young soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army, led by seven army officers — Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Captain Valentine Strasser, Sergeant Solomon Musa, Captain Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Julius Maada Bio and Captain Komba Kambo—launched a military coup that sent president Momoh into exile in Guinea, and the young soldiers established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), with 25-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser as its chairman and Head of State of the country.
Sergeant Solomon Musa, a childhood friend of Strasser, became the deputy chairman and deputy leader of the NPRC junta government. Strasser became the world's youngest Head of State when he seized power just three days after his 25th birthday. The NPRC junta established the National Supreme Council of State as the military highest command and final authority in all matters, and was exclusively made up of the highest ranking NPRC soldiers, included Strasser himself and the original soldiers who toppled president Momoh.
One of the highest ranking soldiers of the NPRC Junta, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, a trusted ally of Strasser, was assassinated, allegedly by Major S.I.M. Turay, a key loyalist of ousted president Momoh. A heavily armed military manhunt took place across the country to find Lieutenant Sandy's killer. However, the main suspect, Major S.I.M Turay, went into hiding and fled the country to Guinea, fearing for his life. Dozens of soldiers loyal to the ousted president Momoh were arrested, including Colonel Kahota M. Dumbuya and Major Yayah Turay. Lieutenant Sandy was given a state funeral and his funeral prayers service at the cathedral church in Freetown was attended by many high-ranking soldiers of the NPRC junta, including Strasser himself and NPRC deputy leader Sergeant Solomon Musa.
The NPRC Junta immediately suspended the constitution, banned all political parties, limited freedom of speech and freedom of the press and enacted a rule-by-decree policy, in which soldiers were granted unlimited powers of administrative detention without charge or trial, and challenges against such detentions in court were precluded.
The NPRC Junta maintained relations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and strengthened support for Sierra Leone-based ECOMOG troops fighting in Liberia. On 28 December 1992, an alleged coup attempt against the NPRC government of Strasser, aimed at freeing the detained Colonel Yahya Kanu, Colonel Kahota M.S. Dumbuya and former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, was foiled. Several Junior army officers led by Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura were identified as being behind the coup plot. The coup plot led to the firing squad execution of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army including Colonel Kahota M Dumbuya, Major Yayah Kanu and Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura. Several prominent members of the Momoh government who had been in detention at the Pa Demba Road prison, including former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, were also executed.
On 5 July 1994 the deputy NPRC leader Sergeant Solomon Musa, who was very popular with the general population, particularly in Freetown, was arrested and sent into exile after he was accused of planning a coup to topple Strasser, an accusation Sergeant Musa denied. Strasser replaced Musa as deputy NPRC chairman with Captain Julius Maada Bio, who was instantly promoted by Strasser to Brigadier.
The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh-led APC government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, and by 1994 they held much of the diamond-rich Eastern Province and were at the edge of Freetown. In response, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone's borders, and cleared the RUF from the Kono diamond-producing areas of Sierra Leone.
With Strasser's two most senior NPRC allies and commanders Lieutenant Sahr Sandy and Lieutenant Solomon Musa no longer around to defend him, Strasser's leadership within the NPRC Supreme Council of State was not considered much stronger. On 16 January 1996, after about four years in power, Strasser was arrested in a palace coup at the Defence Headquarters in Freetown by his fellow NPRC soldiers. Strasser was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, Guinea.
In his first public broadcast to the nation following the 1996 coup, Brigadier Bio stated that his support for returning Sierra Leone to a democratically elected civilian government and his commitment to ending the civil war were his motivations for the coup. Promises of a return to civilian rule were fulfilled by Bio, who handed power over to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), after the conclusion of elections in early 1996. President Kabbah took power with a great promise of ending the civil war. President Kabbah opened dialogue with the RUF and invited RUF leader Foday Sankoh for peace negotiations.
On 25 May 1997, seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone army led by Corporal Tamba Gborie, loyal to the detained Major General Johnny Paul Koroma, launched a military coup which sent President Kabbah into exile in Guinea and they established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Corporal Gborie quickly went to the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Services headquarters in New England, Freetown to announce the coup to a shocked nation and to alert all soldiers across the country to report for guard duty. The soldiers immediately released Koroma from prison and installed him as their chairman and Head of State.
Koroma suspended the constitution, banned demonstrations, shut down all private radio stations in the country and invited the RUF to join the new junta government, with its leader Foday Sankoh as the Vice-Chairman of the new AFRC-RUF coalition junta government. Within days, Freetown was overwhelmed by the presence of the RUF combatants who came to the city in thousands. The Kamajors, a group of traditional fighters mostly from the Mende ethnic group under the command of deputy Defence Minister Samuel Hinga Norman, remained loyal to President Kabbah and defended the Southern part of Sierra Leone from the soldiers.”
And on and on....
The book is non-fiction. Ismael hides few details. It is a graphic autobiography. Dead bodies were a common sight to the author even before he became a child soldier of Africa while on the run from soldier attacks.
At age thirteen Ishmael was starving, having lived for a year by running from village to village in the forest away from the brutal soldiers. He was with a group of children who had all lost their families. Villagers were terrified of roaming children because many of the murderous soldiers were children too, led by military men. So the traveling group of frightened boys stole and hid wherever they could, trying to avoid the rebels and the government soldiers, sleeping often in the forest. But the starving weakened them, the terror wore them down, and they all were grieving, plus, hello, they were children. They didn’t know what the wars were about since most of them had been only in village secondary schools, living with loving parents when the wars started.
When Ishmael finally was captured by government soldiers, he became a ‘willing’ soldier at age thirteen, soon killing his first victim by cutting the throat of a rebel in a government boot camp of sorts for child beginners at soldiering. If one of them failed to kill, it was a bullet in the brain immediately, killed in front of the other children. He eventually was killing defenseless babies, children, women and men, but since he was high on drugs 24/7, going without sleep for days, eating irregularly, it was meaningless to him. He attacked civilian villages for food and engaged rebel soldiers in combat, suffering bullet wounds skimming his body all over. Blood and bleeding was a constant. It was nothing to him. He and the other boys laughed at how funny people died and had brutality contests of the worst death. He and his fellow soldiers were fourteen years old, seemingly completely psychotic and mentally ill, under the influence of PTSD and drugs.
He was originally raised in a very small village of simple farmers, miners and traders, surrounded by forests and a river, with other small villages nearby (actually, miles apart - people walked a lot, sometimes hitching a ride with the occasional vehicle). They were without steady electricity except that of generators, with some modern conveniences such as radio and tape players, and occasional movies and music videos shown in nearby towns in foreigners’ quarters. Ishmael lived with his father and stepmother, with visits to his mother, and a grandmother also in a nearby village. Everybody knew everybody. They had celebrations, parties, fun nights of storytelling. Ishmael had many school friends near his age, all boys. They played at games, talent shows of dancing and singing. There were feasts of rice and fish soup.
They had begun to hear about a war that was happening, but not near them. Occasionally they met refugees, haunted and starving, passing through, warning them to leave.
But one day in 1993 when Ishmael had gone to Mattru Jong, a town sixteen miles away from his home for a talent show and dance practice with other boys, rebels attacked his village. The soldiers burned his village and killed or chased away all of the people.
After his village was attacked by soldiers, Ishmael was separated from his family. The rebel soldiers went from village to village, killing and burning. He ran and hid in the forest. Eventually he found a brother and four other boys. They did not know if any adults or their other brothers and sisters in their family had lived. Traveling from place to place, stopping wherever to sleep - beneath trees, near villages which were too nervous to accept them or they snuck onto the verandas of nervous strangers, who were fearful of their intentions, to sleep, leaving before dawn.
Eventually, the boys were caught at one of the soldier checkpoints which terrorized all who had to pass. Soldiers beat, robbed and shot civilians who were escaping rebel and government raids on their home villages. But they took the children with them unless they were too little. Too little meant younger than eight years old. Ishmael was thirteen.
I remember the news stories about these civil wars of Sierra Leone when they were happening. To us Americans, the descriptions of these continuous coups one after another, instigated by military factions in this part of Africa, apparently based on tribal affiliations and led by uneducated psychopathic military sergeants, fought by indoctrinated and drug-stupefied child soldiers from 8 to 15 years old, was freakish and bizarre. Stories of hands being cut off every man in a village as a normal war tactic of these soldiers with machetes sounded beyond insane. This was a real-life dystopia of madness beyond American comprehension. It still is.
‘A Long Way Gone’ sheds insight on how boy soldiers were created and molded into Junior Terminators (but real ones who could easily die). Beah does not describe politics of the wars or why they happened at all. No wonder. These wars, still sporadically erupting here and there in uneasy and impoverished Sierra Leone, are beyond all sanity and reason.
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone:
“Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002)”
“...in total 1,270 primary schools were destroyed.”
In October 1990, owing to mounting pressure from both within and outside the country for political and economic reform, president Momoh set up a constitutional review commission to assess the 1978 one-party constitution. Based on the commission's recommendations a constitution re-establishing a multi-party system was approved by the exclusive APC Parliament by a 60% majority vote, becoming effective on 1 October 1991. There was great suspicion that president Momoh was not serious about his promise of political reform, as APC rule continued to be increasingly marked by abuses of power.
The brutal civil war that was going on in neighbouring Liberia played a significant role in the outbreak of fighting in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor – then leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia – reportedly helped form the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of former Sierra Leonean army corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh, an ethnic Temne from Tonkolili District in Northern Sierra Leone. Sankoh was a British trained former army corporal who had also undergone guerrilla training in Libya. Taylor's aim was for the RUF to attack the bases of Nigerian dominated peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone who were opposed to his rebel movement in Liberia.
On 29 April 1992, a group of young soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army, led by seven army officers — Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Captain Valentine Strasser, Sergeant Solomon Musa, Captain Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Julius Maada Bio and Captain Komba Kambo—launched a military coup that sent president Momoh into exile in Guinea, and the young soldiers established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), with 25-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser as its chairman and Head of State of the country.
Sergeant Solomon Musa, a childhood friend of Strasser, became the deputy chairman and deputy leader of the NPRC junta government. Strasser became the world's youngest Head of State when he seized power just three days after his 25th birthday. The NPRC junta established the National Supreme Council of State as the military highest command and final authority in all matters, and was exclusively made up of the highest ranking NPRC soldiers, included Strasser himself and the original soldiers who toppled president Momoh.
One of the highest ranking soldiers of the NPRC Junta, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, a trusted ally of Strasser, was assassinated, allegedly by Major S.I.M. Turay, a key loyalist of ousted president Momoh. A heavily armed military manhunt took place across the country to find Lieutenant Sandy's killer. However, the main suspect, Major S.I.M Turay, went into hiding and fled the country to Guinea, fearing for his life. Dozens of soldiers loyal to the ousted president Momoh were arrested, including Colonel Kahota M. Dumbuya and Major Yayah Turay. Lieutenant Sandy was given a state funeral and his funeral prayers service at the cathedral church in Freetown was attended by many high-ranking soldiers of the NPRC junta, including Strasser himself and NPRC deputy leader Sergeant Solomon Musa.
The NPRC Junta immediately suspended the constitution, banned all political parties, limited freedom of speech and freedom of the press and enacted a rule-by-decree policy, in which soldiers were granted unlimited powers of administrative detention without charge or trial, and challenges against such detentions in court were precluded.
The NPRC Junta maintained relations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and strengthened support for Sierra Leone-based ECOMOG troops fighting in Liberia. On 28 December 1992, an alleged coup attempt against the NPRC government of Strasser, aimed at freeing the detained Colonel Yahya Kanu, Colonel Kahota M.S. Dumbuya and former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, was foiled. Several Junior army officers led by Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura were identified as being behind the coup plot. The coup plot led to the firing squad execution of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army including Colonel Kahota M Dumbuya, Major Yayah Kanu and Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura. Several prominent members of the Momoh government who had been in detention at the Pa Demba Road prison, including former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, were also executed.
On 5 July 1994 the deputy NPRC leader Sergeant Solomon Musa, who was very popular with the general population, particularly in Freetown, was arrested and sent into exile after he was accused of planning a coup to topple Strasser, an accusation Sergeant Musa denied. Strasser replaced Musa as deputy NPRC chairman with Captain Julius Maada Bio, who was instantly promoted by Strasser to Brigadier.
The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh-led APC government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, and by 1994 they held much of the diamond-rich Eastern Province and were at the edge of Freetown. In response, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone's borders, and cleared the RUF from the Kono diamond-producing areas of Sierra Leone.
With Strasser's two most senior NPRC allies and commanders Lieutenant Sahr Sandy and Lieutenant Solomon Musa no longer around to defend him, Strasser's leadership within the NPRC Supreme Council of State was not considered much stronger. On 16 January 1996, after about four years in power, Strasser was arrested in a palace coup at the Defence Headquarters in Freetown by his fellow NPRC soldiers. Strasser was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, Guinea.
In his first public broadcast to the nation following the 1996 coup, Brigadier Bio stated that his support for returning Sierra Leone to a democratically elected civilian government and his commitment to ending the civil war were his motivations for the coup. Promises of a return to civilian rule were fulfilled by Bio, who handed power over to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), after the conclusion of elections in early 1996. President Kabbah took power with a great promise of ending the civil war. President Kabbah opened dialogue with the RUF and invited RUF leader Foday Sankoh for peace negotiations.
On 25 May 1997, seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone army led by Corporal Tamba Gborie, loyal to the detained Major General Johnny Paul Koroma, launched a military coup which sent President Kabbah into exile in Guinea and they established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Corporal Gborie quickly went to the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Services headquarters in New England, Freetown to announce the coup to a shocked nation and to alert all soldiers across the country to report for guard duty. The soldiers immediately released Koroma from prison and installed him as their chairman and Head of State.
Koroma suspended the constitution, banned demonstrations, shut down all private radio stations in the country and invited the RUF to join the new junta government, with its leader Foday Sankoh as the Vice-Chairman of the new AFRC-RUF coalition junta government. Within days, Freetown was overwhelmed by the presence of the RUF combatants who came to the city in thousands. The Kamajors, a group of traditional fighters mostly from the Mende ethnic group under the command of deputy Defence Minister Samuel Hinga Norman, remained loyal to President Kabbah and defended the Southern part of Sierra Leone from the soldiers.”
And on and on....
This is Ishmael Beah's story of what war is like for a child; he is the child. A dozen years later, after he's moved to the US and graduated from college, he revisits his life as a child-soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war.
Ishmael's account of growing up in Sierra Leone is heartbreaking. His tales of hiding, war, killing, drugs, despair, and recovery are clear yet difficult to accept.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
tense
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
Definitely a story that needs to be told but it read more like a description.
http://divagaciones-de-una-poulain.blogspot.mx/2016/03/a-long-way-gone-ishamel-beah-resena.html
Quiero contarles algo sobre Sierra Leona. La mayoría habrá oído del país porque es un país africano en donde hubo una guerra muy sangrienta en donde peleaban niños armados con AK-47s hasta arriba de drogas, comandados por gente que les decía que era la única manera de vengar a sus familias o a sus muertos. O la mayoría sabrá que existe un país que se llama Sierra Leona porque allí hay diamantes. O ni eso. La verdad es que solemos englobar a Africa como un sólo país casi siempre, o a sus habitantes como un sólo tipo de personas.
Sierra Leona es un país relativamente joven. Obtuvo su independencia en 1961, como muchos otros países africanos. En 1992, después de años de inestabilidad política y descontento de los tenme, que no veían con buenos ojos a los criollos en el gobierno, hubo un golpe de estado y empezó la guerra. El Frente Unido Revolucionario, compuesto principalmente por personas de los grupos étnicos de los temnés, se levantó en armas y todo el país entró en caos. Ishamel Beah cuenta la historia, pero no se detiene mucho en ella porque después de todo la guerra es la guerra, dan igual los motivos que hayan llegado a ella. La gente muere, se cometen atrocidades y, si hablamos de África especialmente, los niños acaban cargando armas y luchando como soldados.
Ese fue el destino de Ishamel Beah, también. Tira de sus recuerdos y escribe. Recuerda lo que vio y como lo vio. Recuerda el miedo de la gente, a su familia, de la que se vio separado. A su hermano, con el que sobrevivió bastante tiempo hasta que los rebeldes los obligaron a separarse. Los amigos que encontró mientras estuvo solo y que después se unieron con él a las fuerzas rebeldes. Los muertos ocurren página tras página sin que Ishmael pueda ponerles nombre, pero si les pone cara y sufrimiento. Las muertes se vuelven algo personal en el libro porque sabes que ocurrieron en alguna parte de verdad y alguien las guardó para siempre en sus recuerdos sin poder olvidarlas para poder vertirlas en este libro.
Ishmael habló en un congreso de la ONU sobre los niños soldados y cómo no eran un caso perdido. Se usó de ejemplo para demostrar que podían ser rehabilitados. En su libro se puede notar la frustración que sintió (quizá aun siente) cuando en todas las aldeas le daban la espalda solo por ser un niño. Como no importaba que no tuviera un arma en las manos, de todos modos lo consideraban peligroso. No sé él, pero para mí eso sólo me llevó a pensar que, poco a poco, sin darle opciones, lo empujaron hasta las fueras rebeldes que se aprovecharon de la desaparición de su familia y de su hermano para asegurarle que podría vengarlos y lo convirtieron en un soldado. La historia es desgarradora. Va desde que la guerra tocó personalmente a la puerta de su casa hasta su huída de Sierra Leona, cuando la guerra volvió a estallar después de que él hubiera dejado un centro de rehabilitación. Decidió que era suficiente cuando vio morir a su tío y supo que no podía quedarse allí o iba a morir.
La estructura del libro cambia conforme el libro avanza. Ishmael Beah empieza a contar la historia cronologicamente, como la recuerda. Nos adelanta algunas cosas y algunas escenas, pero la historia va cronológica más o menos hasta su tiempo como niño soldado, donde parece que hace un salto abrupto y va intercalando las escenas como las va recordando. Es el tiempo más confuso, quizá porque abusó de las drogas para poder soportar la guerra, la pelea y sobreponerse a lo que estaba haciendo y lo que los demás estaban haciendo. A long way gone es un libro difícil precisamente porque sabes qué es una historia real y que los que van a sufrir no son los que empezaron la guerra. Ellos estaban hasta arriba y probablemente sólo murieron hasta el final o fueron enjuiciados (aunque después del segundo conflicto a algunos se les garantizó el perdón); los que más sufrieron la guerra fueron los campesinos, los pobres, las mujeres, los niños.
Este es, al final del día, un libro necesario. Porque por más que nos hablen de los conflictos africanos y lo mucho que sufren los niños en las filas de los ejércitos, nunca sabremos exactamente lo que significa ser un niño soldado. Ishamel Beah sí lo sabe. Él estuvo allí y consiguió escapar. Definitivamente recomiendo el libro porque, libros como este, hay pocos.
Quiero contarles algo sobre Sierra Leona. La mayoría habrá oído del país porque es un país africano en donde hubo una guerra muy sangrienta en donde peleaban niños armados con AK-47s hasta arriba de drogas, comandados por gente que les decía que era la única manera de vengar a sus familias o a sus muertos. O la mayoría sabrá que existe un país que se llama Sierra Leona porque allí hay diamantes. O ni eso. La verdad es que solemos englobar a Africa como un sólo país casi siempre, o a sus habitantes como un sólo tipo de personas.
Sierra Leona es un país relativamente joven. Obtuvo su independencia en 1961, como muchos otros países africanos. En 1992, después de años de inestabilidad política y descontento de los tenme, que no veían con buenos ojos a los criollos en el gobierno, hubo un golpe de estado y empezó la guerra. El Frente Unido Revolucionario, compuesto principalmente por personas de los grupos étnicos de los temnés, se levantó en armas y todo el país entró en caos. Ishamel Beah cuenta la historia, pero no se detiene mucho en ella porque después de todo la guerra es la guerra, dan igual los motivos que hayan llegado a ella. La gente muere, se cometen atrocidades y, si hablamos de África especialmente, los niños acaban cargando armas y luchando como soldados.
Ese fue el destino de Ishamel Beah, también. Tira de sus recuerdos y escribe. Recuerda lo que vio y como lo vio. Recuerda el miedo de la gente, a su familia, de la que se vio separado. A su hermano, con el que sobrevivió bastante tiempo hasta que los rebeldes los obligaron a separarse. Los amigos que encontró mientras estuvo solo y que después se unieron con él a las fuerzas rebeldes. Los muertos ocurren página tras página sin que Ishmael pueda ponerles nombre, pero si les pone cara y sufrimiento. Las muertes se vuelven algo personal en el libro porque sabes que ocurrieron en alguna parte de verdad y alguien las guardó para siempre en sus recuerdos sin poder olvidarlas para poder vertirlas en este libro.
Ishmael habló en un congreso de la ONU sobre los niños soldados y cómo no eran un caso perdido. Se usó de ejemplo para demostrar que podían ser rehabilitados. En su libro se puede notar la frustración que sintió (quizá aun siente) cuando en todas las aldeas le daban la espalda solo por ser un niño. Como no importaba que no tuviera un arma en las manos, de todos modos lo consideraban peligroso. No sé él, pero para mí eso sólo me llevó a pensar que, poco a poco, sin darle opciones, lo empujaron hasta las fueras rebeldes que se aprovecharon de la desaparición de su familia y de su hermano para asegurarle que podría vengarlos y lo convirtieron en un soldado. La historia es desgarradora. Va desde que la guerra tocó personalmente a la puerta de su casa hasta su huída de Sierra Leona, cuando la guerra volvió a estallar después de que él hubiera dejado un centro de rehabilitación. Decidió que era suficiente cuando vio morir a su tío y supo que no podía quedarse allí o iba a morir.
La estructura del libro cambia conforme el libro avanza. Ishmael Beah empieza a contar la historia cronologicamente, como la recuerda. Nos adelanta algunas cosas y algunas escenas, pero la historia va cronológica más o menos hasta su tiempo como niño soldado, donde parece que hace un salto abrupto y va intercalando las escenas como las va recordando. Es el tiempo más confuso, quizá porque abusó de las drogas para poder soportar la guerra, la pelea y sobreponerse a lo que estaba haciendo y lo que los demás estaban haciendo. A long way gone es un libro difícil precisamente porque sabes qué es una historia real y que los que van a sufrir no son los que empezaron la guerra. Ellos estaban hasta arriba y probablemente sólo murieron hasta el final o fueron enjuiciados (aunque después del segundo conflicto a algunos se les garantizó el perdón); los que más sufrieron la guerra fueron los campesinos, los pobres, las mujeres, los niños.
Este es, al final del día, un libro necesario. Porque por más que nos hablen de los conflictos africanos y lo mucho que sufren los niños en las filas de los ejércitos, nunca sabremos exactamente lo que significa ser un niño soldado. Ishamel Beah sí lo sabe. Él estuvo allí y consiguió escapar. Definitivamente recomiendo el libro porque, libros como este, hay pocos.