You Can Run, But Not Hide

Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier reinforces my feelings regarding how little we as a society value life. If our children are our future, and the elderly are our wisdom, then why are they so easily discarded? It truly makes me sad that with all our accomplishments we still have not learned to value the one thing that really matters, life.
We take all forms of life for granted? We over use the plant and all its resources, we kill with little remorse for the gift life truly is. Humanity (if you can call us that), is learning almost to late that we must appreciate and care for all living things. That we are all inter-connected, and OUR existence depends on the well being of everything around us.
Beal's journey cross country and then the world, highlights one important thing for me. That is, you can't outrun the ills of the world, that people can no longer chose to be unaware or, uninvolved. This should be evident by looking at the current financial crisis that we, and therefore the world is in.
Beah's story makes me uneasy. How does someone come back from the hell that he experienced? I admire him for this decision to leave rather than go back to being a soldier. I applaud Beah's understanding that if he returned to that life he would probably never regain his humanity. His leaving took a great deal of courage, and it gives me hope that we all can recover from the madness. That if we make the choice to do the right things, we like Beah can be saved.

My Inquiry Question?

Why is it we haven't yet learned that, WE GIVE LIFE, WE DO NOT CREATE IT?

Blogger Response #3

In the beginning of the book A Long Way Home Beah is a young preteen boy who respects his elders and loves his family. He is an average boy who lives his life playing soccer, listening to rap music and wanting to be like an American rap star. His life is much the same as any boys with laughter, dancing and the carefree fun of youth . A youth remembered with love and longing for a family he no longer had, "The sight of women preparing dinner always reminded me of the times I used to watch my mother cook. Boys weren't allowed in the kitchen, but she made an exception for me, saying, "You need to know how to cook something for your palampo life. "She would pause, give me a piece of dry fish, and then continue: "I want a grandchild. So don't be a palampo forever. "Tears would form in my eyes as I continued my stroll on the tiny gravel, roads in Mattru Jong. "
But the war had forced Beah to become more animal than boy. War had taken away his family, home, freedom and sense of right and wrong. The world that Beah knew had been washed away width blood and violence "Before the war a young man wouldn't have dared to talk to anyone older in such a rude manner. We grew up in a culture that demanded good behavior from everyone, and especially from the young. Young people were required to respect their elders and everyone in the community, "He had become something other than an innocent boy to survive. To "implement survival tactics" Beah would have to become what he feared and ran from, the very thing that had taken him away from his life.
The loss of innocence Beah experienced was largely due to the loss of control over his world, "Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything, " anyone who exists in that kind of environment becomes angry and violent.
But with the help of drugs and brainwashing, Beah, the lost wandering boy had become a drug addicted killing machine. He had replaced his home, and family with the love of killing and the soldiers of his unit. "We thought that we were part of the war until the end. The squad had been our family. " Beah and his friends had survived by giving themselves over to the war. This war that had taken even the food from their mouths and left them physical, spiritually, and emotionally starved.

ESCAPE

We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to.

This sentence from the book appears on the last page of chapter four. It comes after Ishmael his brother, and friends risk they're lives retruning to Mattru Jong. After walking miles, nearly getting killed by the rebels and almost losing his brother, the money they retrieved was useless.The uselessness was not limited to the money but the fact that the group was still living in the same place. That after seeing so much death and destruction being hungry and losing his family, they still believed it would all go away.

I have often wondered why we cann't let go. Why we cann't implement survival tactics. How we haven't learned that things are just things and life is what's important. There is an old saying "that as long as there is life, there is hope". Some people don't hope. We run around in circles not being able to save oursleves from what we own. Seeing danger and running back into a burning house to save pictures, or packing bags for a trip to the gas chamber. This situation is as old as time, just ask Lot's wife. No matter how little it is or how bad it was, it's still ours.


While reading A Long Way Gone I became frustrated with the people. Knowing what would happen and still not leaving or fighting. It's hard to understand especially for Americans, we have difficuity relating to war at home. None of us can remember being seperated from family. The closest we've come to homeland violence was 911 and hurricane Katrina. Many Americans wouldn't know how to escape or like Ishmael, where too.

Letting go moving into the unknown, is what this country is built on. We've forgotted how to move pass what we know, to make what may be better. We've forgotten that our antecessors did just that, escaped. some by choice, others like mine by force.