Monday, December 17, 2018

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah - a review, and assessment


Armed conflicts around the world have many faces. From insurgent groups and terrorists, to veteran militants and professional combatants, over the years the presence of ongoing wars has left its mark on many generations. The most unfortunate aspect of which, however, is the use of child soldiers in estimated 14 countries around the globe. Currently, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) defines a child soldier as any child under the age of eighteen who takes part in any regular or irregular armed conflict. Previously, this definition only applied to children under the age of fifteen; however, this was amended in 2002. Children and adolescents who participate in armed conflicts, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, are not only exposed to severe violence, but also struggle later on in life once the armed conflict ends. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the author, a former child soldier himself, presents a haunting narrative chronicling his early adolescence years in Sierra Leone armed forces where he participated in the fight against rebel forces from the age of thirteen until the age of sixteen. His subsequent rehabilitation and reintegration into society was, perhaps, more difficult than the armed conflict itself.

At the age of twelve, Beah survived a rebel forces attack on a village he was visiting with his friends. Unable to connect with his family members, he, along with a group of other children, embarked on a foot journey across Sierra Leone towards the last remaining safe zone, staying at random villages along the way, where he exchanged labor for food. After several months of traveling marked by imminent peril, he learned that his family was safe at a nearby village, but by the time he arrived there, it was already under attack by the rebels, who executed everyone in sight. The boys, however, manage to escape and seek refuge at another village protected by the national army. Several days later, with the rebels approaching, the army general in charge made all able bodies to join the fight, and Beah, along with his friends, was no exception. Thus, at the age of thirteen, Beah became a child soldier. Already traumatized by the violence he had witnessed from the onset of the war, Beah had seen first-hand what the rebels did to civilians, and he saw the need to take up arms not only as a way to survive, but as a tool of revenge as well.

While initially apprehensive and disgusted by the atrocities he participated in, Beah quickly lost empathy and devalued human life. After losing several ‘friends’ during combat, what could have been perceived as PTSD was replaced by indifference and rage, aided by the seemingly endless supply of drugs provided by the army. In between attacks, he lived in a perpetual state of high, smoking marijuana, and sniffing cocaine mixed with gunpowder. The drugs not only numbed his senses and his humanity, they gave him the energy to keep fighting. Over the next three years, he became proficient in killing, and enjoyed executing prisoners of war as he eventually rose to the rank of Junior Lieutenant. In charge of a small unit of fellow soldiers, he organized food raids to nearby villages, and engaged in the same atrocities he despised in the rebels, effectively switching from being a victim of war to becoming the aggressor.

In 1996, in an intervention by UNICEF, Beah was removed from active army service at the age of sixteen, and sent to a rehabilitation center in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Surrounded by fellow child soldiers from both sides of the conflict, he engaged in frequent fights amidst the former enemies. Dealing with drug withdrawals, he shut himself off from the efforts of counselors and the medical staff at the center, longing to return to the frontlines. Through the tireless work of one nurse at the center, Esther, Beah finally accepted that the war was over for him, and started making progress towards rehabilitation. It was at that time that he began to have nightmares of the atrocities he committed. Esther, together with other staff members, helped him establish contact with a lost uncle, who agreed to adopt Beah upon his release. Once he was cleared, Beah moved in with the uncle and slowly reintegrated into society and civilian life. At the recommendation of the rehabilitation center’s director, Beah went for an interview at the United Nations building in Freetown, to apply for a speaking position at an upcoming conference on the plight of child soldiers held at the UN headquarters in New York. Once accepted, Beah had traveled to New York where he, along with other former child soldiers and children affected by wars, gave a speech detailing their experiences.

Upon his return to Sierra Leone, Beah enrolled in a secondary school to complete his education, which was cut short by the war. Not long after, however, the rebels and a rogue faction of the army invaded Freetown, and overthrew the government in a coup. Faced with the possibility of either becoming a soldier again, or being killed if he were to be recognized by any of his fellow child soldiers, Beah fled the country to Guinea, and eventually to the United States, where he had a contact from his earlier UN visit. Once in the United States, Beah continued to work with the UN and wrote his memoir, and started a charitable foundation aimed at helping children affected by war to reintegrate into society.

The content of the book applies to Human Development in multiple ways. When Beah witnessed the first attack and subsequently became on his own at the age of twelve, his cohort effectively changed from that of his family and friends, to the army, which affected his future interactions with civilians at the rehabilitation center whom he perceived as incapable of understanding his experiences. During his formative years, he was affected by several adverse childhood experiences, which made him more susceptible to drug use and violence later on in life, especially since he did not have the support ecosystem that would help him build up his ACEs resilience score. It also confirms Watson’s theory that kids can be taught to love or hate anything – in this case, Beah, influenced by his peers, adapted to love killing and violence. This was further exacerbated by operant conditioning of reward in the form of drugs, when he did his job as a soldier well. It also illustrates Erikson’s theory of Identity versus Role Confusion, when his role changed from that of a carefree child to a sole provider responsible for his own sustenance.  Piaget’s principles of accommodation and assimilation could also apply here, as Beah adjusted his standards of right and wrong as the conflict progressed.

Having taken part in atrocities, is it possible for an adolescent to develop into a healthy adult capable of leaving the psychological trauma behind? Beah’s first defense mechanisms to deal with his trauma were Dissociation and Displacement. During the war, he displaced his anger at the loss of his family towards both rebels and civilians alike, essentially targeting the weaker ones to ‘punish’ them for his loss. After the war ended, dissociation became clear, because he had lost track of time and events that had taken place during his years in combat. Because of his involvement in armed conflict, Beah would have struggled with his development of identity as well.

The first research article, The Guiltless Guilty: Trauma-Related Guilt and Psychopathology in Former Ugandan Child Soldiers (F. Klassen, S. Reissmann, C. Voss, J. Okello – Child Psychiatry Human Development 2015), shows a clear correlation between child soldier experiences and future psychological disorders, mainly PTSD and Major Depressive Disorders. Interestingly, it shows that the majority of former child soldiers (50.8%) see themselves as victims, while only a minority (19.1%) see themselves as perpetrators. A greater number of traumatic experiences as a self-identified perpetrator is associated with the feeling of guilt, which is a predictor for externalizing psychological problems and resulting in aggression, cruelty, law-breaking, property damage, and conflict with others. Self-identified victims, on the other hand, tend to internalize problems, which correlates with a greater occurrence of major depressive disorders. Applying these results to Beah’s case, it confirms his initial aggression at the rehabilitation center, followed by withdrawals from interactions as he began to internalize his trauma.

The second research article, When Combat Prevents PTSD Symptoms – results from a survey with former child soldiers in Northern Uganda (R. Weierstall, I. Schalinski, A. Crombach, T. Hecker, T. Elbert – BMC Psychiatry 2012) explores the link between increased exposure to traumatic events and lower occurrence of PTSD. The study found that there is a clear dose-effect correlation between organized violence, as carried out by child-soldier units, and an appetite for aggression. Appetitive Aggression, such as the enjoyment of a victim struggling, has been found to lower PTSD scores in perpetrators. This, applied to Beah’s case, confirms his transition once he started enjoying killing prisoners of war as he went from a victim to a person responsible for violence and, especially, his lack of PTSD. While this study was limited in its sample, I felt it was relevant and important to include here, because it aids in understanding Beah’s mental health.