A Long Way Gone Vs Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond vs. A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah’s autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determine – perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century. This book tells us how a young boy was forced to become a soldier to preserve his life and live to tell his story. Although Beah was from an under developed nation, he had the dreams and thoughts of any normal teenager from the west. It is heartbreaking to learn that such dreams of millions of children like Beah are crushed down and ripped apart by the institution of War. Ishmael Beah was 12 years old when the civil war in Sierra Leone entered his life, in 1993. When the rebels attacked
his village, Beah and a group of friends were walking to a town several miles away, where they were supposed to participate in a song and dance competition by performing to some of their favorite rap music. Like all teenagers, they hoped to become famous stars and remain deaf and aloof to the rumors of a war that nevertheless was casting on the roads by refugees who would cross the town, days and nights. Sierra Leone was a former British colony in West Africa, between Liberia and Guinea which suffered the post-independence riots of passage of corruption, unrest, military coups and gerrymandered elections. At first, Beah and his friends manage to stay together. Beah writes vividly of the boys’ various reactions to the stress and trauma of being separated from their families and thrust into a war they did not understand. One boy tells stories. One is completely silent. One fears that he was dying one piece at a time. Beah cannot sleep. He had horrible headaches. He does everything he can to avoid thinking about his parents and brothers, trying not to consider what might have happened to them. Eventually, Beah meets up with another group of boys who are running from the attacks, and he travels with them from village to village as they do all they can to prove to the untrusting strangers that they are not a threat. These terrified youngsters wandered aimlessly along jungle tracks, starving and desperate, harassed and suspected as they scrounged for food and tried to make sense of what was going on. Finally they reached the Atlantic Ocean, but, once again, fearful villagers sent them packing, and they were eventually recruited into the Sierra Leone Army as boy soldiers. Ishmael’s story is that of all children soldiers, forced into brutal rebel armed groups called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), fighting the governmental forces. The RUF under the commandment of Foday Sankoh took over the diamond mines in eastern Sierra Leone. The RUF applying terror tactics, destroys every village in its path and is merciless towards the populations, commits atrocities like (rape, mutilations, pillage, etc…) and exterminates those poor civilians who attempt to escape.
The soldiers give the boys guns and put them through intense military training. They force them to watch while they kill innocent villagers, and they praise the boys who step up and begin taking lives themselves. When Beah is initially horrified by what he sees and does, a soldier tells him “You will get used to it, everybody does eventually.” They also gave them as many drugs as they can consume like marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine etc. Between the drugs, the exhaustion, and the psychological impact of losing everything, he became a trained killer. Beah hardly ever slept. He no longer feels or thinks. He went on a two-year mind-bending killing spree, until he was rescued by some UNICEF fieldworkers and sent to rehabilitation center in Freetown. There, with counseling, care and attention, by a kindly nurse named Esther, Beah slowly returned to normality. He was sent to United Nations with the task of explaining what was going on with child soldier to the concerned international community. He then came to United States, graduating from high school and Oberlin College. And wrote an unbelievable book called “A Long Way Gone”. The movie Blood Diamond is very similar to this book; it is the story of Danny Archer an ex – mercenary from Zimbabwe, and Solomon Vandy a Mende fisherman. This movie is set against the backdrop of the chaos and civil war that developed in 1990s Sierra Leone. The film begins with an RUF raid of Solomon’s village. Several of the rebel fighters started firing into the crowd of fleeing villagers. The RUF was known for using child soldiers, kidnapped from their families and trained as killers. The RUF used an estimated 10,000 child soldiers to wage its violent war. During this raid Solomon’s son Dia get captured by the RUF. Later in the film he is shown at an RUF camp, being taught with a group of children his age to forget their families, and pledge their absolute loyalty to the RUF. They are trained to fire weapons, and to kill without shame. Soon Solomon get captured and forced to work in an RUF diamond mine. While working Solomon discovers a remarkably large and valuable pink diamond and buries it for safekeeping. During this time the Sierra Leone army launches a deadly air strike against the rebels and the survivors, including Solomon, and are arrested and brought to a jail in the capital. Danny Archer ends up in the same jail and learns about Solomon’s pink diamond. He arranges for Solomon's release, hoping to get the diamond for himself in return for helping Solomon to find his family. Archer then tracks down Maddy Bowen, an American journalist looking to do a story on blood diamonds, and promises to give her very useful information about the world's leading diamond corporation if she helps him find Solomon's family. With Maddy’s help, Archer and Solomon embark on a dangerous journey through rebel territory. Archer needs Solomon to find and recover the valuable pink diamond, but Solomon seek something for more precious his son.
After many violent twist and turns, Archer finally sides with Solomon against his boss. Solomon is reunited with his family, including his son, Maddy gets her story, but Archer dies. Maddy and Solomon travel to the Kimberley Conference in South Africa, where representatives from major diamond trading and producing countries have gathered to discuss solutions to the blood diamond problem and where Solomon will give eyewitness testimony. This was a real conference that convened in May of 2000 and led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which was implemented in 2003. Diamonds with a Kimberley Process Certificate are guaranteed to be
conflict-free.
This book and the movie Blood Diamond definitely opened my eyes to situations that are incredibly horrifying in Africa.
It is quite disturbing to see how the rest of the world will allow this awful situation to continue for these people in Africa. The movie was very similar to the book by Ishmael Beah. Beah life story in Sierra Leona was same as Solomon’s son Dia in the movie. They both were young and recruited in Sierra Leone Army as boy soldiers. They both for a while forgot everything about their families and became a killing machine. While Beah was rescued by the UNICEF fieldworkers, Dia was rescued by his father Solomon with the help of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio). Both the movie and the book talked about the Diamonds in Sierra Leona which were very famous. At the end Both Beah and Dia get to come to America and express their feeling against child soldiers and the Blood Diamond.
This book was one of the best books I have ever read. Beah writes with frankness and honesty about his experiences but also with other people in mind; his account of the healing process after the horrors he saw is remarkable. His book, especially relevant in today's world, should be in all high school, public, and academic
libraries.
In the end, Blood Diamond is bound to make you think. It is a hard to watch, well acted and politically charged Hollywood drama, yes. But above all things, it is a story about Africa and how the world continues to placate the violence by turning and looking away. Blood Diamond is as unyielding and unnerving as anything I have seen this year. You should absolutely see it. And once you have seen it, I assure you that you will think twice before purchasing diamonds in the future.