A Long Way Gone

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Zulkifli, Justin P.4 10/22/07 The Perspective Of A Boy Soldier Africa is a country torn by civil wars that have long been ignored. Many filmmakers, reporters and other authors have attempted to grasp the intensity of the civil wars but spoil them with frivolous embellishments. Unfortunately, they diminish the bloody massacre for what the war really is presenting the mass populace with a less accurate account of the terrible bloodshed. The Democratic Republic of the Congo makes up less than a quarter of Africa and has 1,200 people die daily with a total of more than 3.9 million dead since 1998. These numbers do not include the 1.3 million displaced Africans and more than 40,000 rapes that are increasing with each passing breath. Ishmael Beah, an African who was once a part of one of the many civil wars inside Africa has a perspective of war that no other, author or producer has ever been able to reproduce in the way Ishmael Beah has done. With the creation of his memoir “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has told the world about the cruelties and injustices committed upon boy soldiers. The attributes that Ishmael Beah uses in his memoir “A Long Way Gone” are simple. The personal bond that Ishmael creates between himself and the audience makes Ishmael a profound and unique storyteller. The seemingly innocent African has had his innocence and humanity stripped by the effects of war. Ishmael Beah has been inside the turmoil of war as a soldier. A soldier trained and manipulated to kill without remorse. A soldier addicted to the only thing that keeps him sane, drugs. A soldier who has killed a countless number of innocent lives. But Ishmael is also a soldier who has been rehabilitated, to become a scarred man who will forever be haunted by his past. Ishmael’s first hand experience of the bloody war makes his perspective

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