When Rain Clouds Gather Chapter 3 Summary

CHAPTER III
“A LONG WAY GONE” ANALYSIS
After a long and dramatic journey, the period of relative peace found in a village protected by the Sierra Leone army didn’t last that long for Ishmael Beah and his friends. One day the Lieutenant in charge of village protection announced “In the forest, there are men waiting to destroy all of our life […]. Some of you are here because they have killed your parents or families […] we need strong men and boys to help us fight these guys […]. This is your time to revenge the death of your families and to make sure more children do not lose their families” (Beah, 2007 pp 106-107). In this ‘recruitment call statement’ are evident a number of crucial references to the theories analysed in Chapter I. As seen
The lieutenant bases his message on a strong identification “us vs them”. A social comparison between the army and the rebels based on stereotypes underlining the negative element of the other to promote prejudice, and to induce, as analyzed in Chapter I, to polarization. Besides this reinforcement of attitude, as emerged in the analysis of “A class divided” experiment (PBS, 1985), in the Lieutenant speech there is the presence of moral justification for violent actions based on the attribution of errors and blaming the victim in the first place: “They have lost everything that makes them human. They do not deserve to live. This is why we must kill every single one of them. Think of it as destroying a great evil”. Another element that also worked in combination with the other, are patriotic values, as seen a common practice in military training, which also has an importance here: “It is the highest service you can perform for your country”. The speech, as set up, had indeed a strong effect on Ishmael, who without any other option, traumatized for violence he had witnessed, and in danger in case of exit from
The basic steps, as analyzed in literature, have been the same. Starting with the re-socialization initiated, with the isolation of the group from the village and civilians. De-individuation and de-personalization, as noted in Chapter I, happen through the elimination of the old life belongings to move in direction of the 'homogenization' through uniforms: “I took off my old pants, which contained the rap cassettes. As I was putting my new army shorts, a soldier took my old pants and threw them into a blazing fire that had been set to burn our old belongings” (Beah, 2007 p. 109). As saw above, the anonymity subdues one’s individuality to a group identity: “All of the boys wore army shorts and green T-Shirts” (Beah, 2007 p. 115). Also, in this case, a strong message of membership is given in contrast with the other group, paving the way to violence. “The Corporal handed us green head ties and said: “If you see anyone without a head tie of this color or a helmet like mine, shoot him” (Beah, 2007 p. 115). The training itself has been very basic and brief. The children were firstly asked to run around a building, then taught how to crawl in the bushes. Finally “we learned to fire our guns, aiming at plywood boards mounted in the branches of tiny trees” (Beah, 2007 p. 112). A lot more has been done in a psychological term. A sense of patriotism in social identity recognition, was used