Child Soldiers: Perpetrators or Victims?

            "I will cut them.” Says Tanzi Bakenzi, 16. He is referring to the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel uprising that terrorizes civilians, burning houses and smashing skulls. Tanzi is what is known as a child soldier. Child soldiers are armed servicemen who are under 18, and are a widespread problem across the world. Found on every continent accept for Antarctica, child soldiers are boys and girls, their ages average at just under 13 with the youngest on record being a 5 year old boy. One of the many ethical dilemmas on the issue of child soldiers is: are child soldiers victims or perpetrators (a victim being a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action and a perpetrator being someone who willfully carries out a harmful action)? While some people may argue that child soldiers are perpetrators because they kill people and many choose to stay in fighting after a certain war ends, child soldiers are victims because they are manipulated into service and exploited while serving, as well as sustaining trauma that lasts for years.

              Many say that child soldiers are perpetrators of violence, but most of them never would have been involved in armies if not for the deceit and forcefulness of others. A large number of child soldiers were forcibly abducted or tricked into service, not by their own choice. In the article “Children at War” by P.W. Singer, a sixteen-year-old child soldier proves this point by saying, “the rebels came and attacked us. They killed my mother and father in front of my eyes. I was 10 years old and they took me with them.” The soldier did not have good judgment, as he had just seen his parents get murdered, and was not even asked to use it. Instead he was abducted. Ishmael Beah, although not abducted was tricked into joining up, according his video interview. Beah’s parents had died due to the war and he was on the run with a band of boys in the same situation. As he says “Naturally we thought if we went to a military base we would be protected… that was not the case.” Instead the militants told them they had to go into service. If Beah and ­­­­­­­­the anonymous soldier had not been deceived or forced to enlist, they would not have fought in their respective wars, proving they were victims.

                 After child soldiers have been forced into the army, the manipulation does not end. Child soldiers are victims because while in service they are exploited and brainwashed to be killers. Ishmael Beah attests to this in his video interview with Katy Couric when he says, “You have to do it {kill} to survive.” In order to be a perpetrator Beah would have had to kill others of his own free will, instead his life was threatened by his superiors unless he slaughtered others for them. Beah was a soldier in South America, but the manipulation of child soldiers who have nowhere to go and have to comply with their commander’s wishes exists across the world. In the article “Armed and Underage” by Jeffery Gettleman, in Iran “12-16 year old boys {were given} plastic ‘keys to heaven’ to hang around their necks as they cleaned battle fields.” This proves that child soldiers were victims as the army knew the children could and probably would die, and tricked them into thinking they would go to heaven if they fought for the Iranian army. Child soldiers were used in armies around the world, tricked and manipulated by forces above them, showing they were victims.

                   Child soldiers are exploited and deceived during their service, but their suffering does not end after they have left the army. Instead, underage soldiers are traumatized and battered by their deeds and experiences. A fact that supports this is stated in “Children at War” by PW Singer, “For the child soldiers, the impact of being plunged into war creates problems long after the end of actual combat. Many suffer long term trauma….” Singer, who wrote a book of the same title, is an expert on this topic. He states that due to his research, these children have been victimized and they are perhaps permanently scarred by their service.  Also in “Children at War,” Singer states “girl soldiers are often singled out for sexual abuse, even by their commanders and have a harder time integrating back into society.” These female soldiers are definitely victims of sexual abuse, but as soldiers they are also victims because they retain trauma and often have a hard time fitting back into society. Ishmael Beah says that it took him eight months recover from his time in the army and that it may take some soldiers even more time. There is no way these children were perpetrators as they have been so hurt by their service.

                  To conclude, child soldiers are not perpetrators, but victims of a terrible experience. They are deceived and forced into service in the first place, once in the army they are exploited and threatened to do deeds that some say they perpetrate, and they sustain long lasting trauma after the fighting is over. These children did not bring such a life upon themselves; they were victims of their countries’ crimes. And although Ishmael Beah and other soldiers have been rescued from the endless cycle of killing, drugs and madness, many remain. Unawares of the public, these children are still being victimized. So I challenge you to raise awareness and hold the real perpetrators accountable for the exploitation of these kids.

                     

Writing About On Writing

                     Right now I am reading the fascinating and highly accoladed book "On Writing" by acclaimed horror author extraordinaire Stephen King. Now this was an interesting book to read because I, personally have not read any of Stephen Kings 35 books or numerous short stories. Instead it was recommended to me on the pretense of being a book about writing, and a memoir of sorts combined into a stellar piece of literature that would enrich my own craft without having to know how King used his tips in his own work at all. So I picked it up curious, was it going to be one of those boring books that lectured own about grammar and the importance of showing and not telling in prose, despite my teachers assurance that it was entertaining? The book, to Ms. Cunningham's charging was not boring or in the least bit preaching about the importance of mechanics in novels or any other piece of writing Mr. King has created. In fact it didn't start off as a book about writing at all (at least not obviously). Which made it much easier to absorb and get into the many layers of knowledge being imparted unto me through the paper (an act that King later elaborates {see 4}). And I learned many gold nuggets of information that I related to and seemed extremely relevant to my point in my writing life:

1. Inspiration comes in many forms, do not refute any as being unworthy
                     Stephen King describes his muse as a " guy with  the cigar and the little wings" who has got a "bag of magic." He says that you have to descend to the muse's level and furnish his "apartment" for him, doing all of the so called "grunt work." But apparently, in the end its worth it because the stuff inside the little bag is life changing. He says that there is always something to dig up and turn into something actually worth writing, that inspiration comes in many forms. This spoke to me because I have a picky mind. I have so much trouble free writing because I shoot down ideas as they develop as being unworthy and boring. My notebooks are full of stories that take up one page and then abruptly drop off, turning from a historical fiction tale of a girl to a humorous biopic of a made up superhero or something simarly bizarre. But if you take King's word for law, then you have to realize that with work every single story can be turned into something interesting a worthwhile if you stick with it, dig deeper into it and find the good that made your muse hand it to you in the first place. King felt this way with one of his novels, Carrie, he says he threw it out after three pages but his wife convinced him it was good and he expanded it. It was his breakthrough novel.

2.Don't force your writing to be something its not
                   Often times, in school you are exposed to your peer's writing. It may be as an example of something to work towards or it may be an example of something not to do. Either way, it affects how you see your own work. For me, when I read other people's work thats REALLY good, I aspire to be like them, I try to write like them, to add in little mechanisms they use to make my own work better because they are the definition of better. It often happens, for me, with vocabulary. I force myself to find a more "advanced" word like solicitous instead of plain old friendly to make my writing seem better. However, Stephen King says that you shouldn't try to dress up your writing in fancy words or extra details, if you mean to say walk, say walk. He explains that for him, writing should flow, you shouldn't need to stop and say "is this a good enough word?" All in all, I interpreted this as, if its what flows from your fingers, don't over analyze or try to change it, because then it stops being yours.

3. Use what you see in everyday life as an inspiration for the fantastic
                 Stephen King is a master of horror, his books (according to those who read them) are terrifying gruesome and all together... horrific. But I'll bet you none of this stuff happened to him in real life. So where does King get his inspiration from? According to his book, all of it comes from building off of things that have happened to him in everyday life. For example, one story he wrote about a man who counterfeited trading stamps came from the image of his mother, tongue green from licking such stamps. King makes you know that writers, especially those who write fantasy or horror, should remember their childhoods, pay attention to their present and make sure that everything around them can be spun into something extraordinary. This was relevant to me because sometimes I lack the inspiration to write or draw or even dance. Reminding me that some episode as small as dropping a quarter into a subway grate and wondering where it went could be turned into a whole novel about money being fed into a machine that mints it for the government. A conspiracy book from an everyday incident. The world seems mundane at times, but comes alive when you appreciate what awesome material you have to work with.

4. Writing is telepathy
               Although this isn't a technique or a "gold nugget" of info that will help me write better stories, it made me appreciate writing more and art more in general. And with this added respect for the craft, I feel as though in some ways I will be able to do better work. Stephen King proves that writing is like telepathy, and also a bit like time travel in my opinion, he wrote this book in the late '90s yet he is putting thoughts into my brain all the way in 2012. When he describes a scene involving a red chair, a green apple and a white wall, I picture something thats pretty similar to what he probably imagined. Writing is timeless, as long as you can read information is traveling from a different time to you. It is also traveling from a different mind to yours, the definition of telepathy. Respecting this fact can make you understand more that the reader is only seeing what you see, the telepathy is only working, if you describe the scene or object in the appropriate way, it doesn't have to be lengthy but understand, King explains, that you are transporting an image.

               I started off unsure of whether I wanted to read this book, much less wanting to get so much information from it. But it was a blessing in disguise, this book is definitely improving how I write, but also giving me more respect and confidence in writing.

In other words, thank you Ms. Cunningham.

Indians are from India

            What do you think of when you hear the word "indian?" Do you think of intricately beaded moccasins and ponchos? Teepees and campfires and long feathered headdress? Or do you think of saris, swaths of fabric draped and folded around a women's body, bindis (dots of red on foreheads) and spicy curies? Although these descriptions are generalizing, most people's thoughts follow one of these two paths.
            The truth is, "Indians" are from India. They factually fit the second line of thought. So why is it that when I asked my sister, two of my friends and my aunt, most of them said that they first thought of the first description when thinking about the word "indian?"
           To fully develop this train of thought, we need to know a bit of historical information. When Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, he thought he had sailed around the world and was in India. That is why he labeled the Native Americans he saw and enslaved as "Indians." Although the term is factually wrong and even a little racist, people and text books use it to this day.
            Its the text books that I have a problem with. In school we are given The US History text books that take us from colonization to present day. Although they are supposed to teach us what happened before we were alive, these text books gloss over many of the gross and unpleasant pieces of America's history.
             When I read Howard Zinn's amazing and thought-provoking young adult non-fiction book, "A Young Peoples History of the United States" it opened up my eyes. I finally saw how my text book didn't give me all of the information about our world. For example, the text book talks about Christopher Columbus as a brave explorer, who did enslave some natives, but gave them work and paid them. The text book does not speak of the massive numbers of native who were killed, whole tribes driven to extinction as a result of Columbus' endless thirst for gold and other precious metals hidden in North America that Zinn's book does. Another example is slavery. Of course the text book does not justify slavery, but it never mentions some of the gorier details that were involved in it. One example, it was extremely common for female slaves to be raped and sometimes impregnated by their masters, who forced them to engage in sexual activities because they "owned" them. One of these men was none other than one of our "founding fathers," Thomas Jefferson. The textbook speaks of his ingenuity in penning the Constitution and his political role, but not the slave he impregnated.
                I think that it is wrong for text books to gloss over details that might not be deemed "age appropriate." History is supposed to be about facts, not half-truths that don't include all of the details. I would rather know about the bad in people as well as the good things that they contributed to America. Because, as proven with the word "indian," people take generalizations and factually wrong things they read in text books and remember them, and truth is lost.