Thursday, February 5, 2015

Long Way Gone

Ishmael Beah's autobiography of being an alleged child solider under the Seriea Leone government army was received controversy over its accuracy. One specifically sited case used by critics in the work is an alleged battle in some UNICEF camp between child soldiers described in the novel, resulting in 3-5 deaths and several serious injuries like one kid got his eye gorged out. Their is no records of such a clash in any of the UNICEF. Another incident is the attack on Beah's village by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) that he says took place in 1993. Apparently, he got the date for the attack on the villiage wrong, which it apparently took place in 1995. This appears to dislocate Beah's claim of being a solider for a few years. Critics argue that he should have only been fighting for a few months. However, he did accurately describe the RUF's atrocities such as its fighters practice of cutting open pregnant women, amputation of limbs, carving "RUF" on victims (etc.). To my personal opinion, Beah could have just been mistaken in some of his memories like the date of the village attack. He also could have sensationalized some of his experiences like the the fight in the UNICEF camp to sell his autobiography more. Fictional or not, it gives a great picture of the experience in the Sierra Leone Civil War.

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