Ishmael Beah's Story Changed My View of The World Forever. Here's How.

 

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

I really enjoyed listening to Mr. Beah discuss the impact a story can have on someone's life. After enduring a childhood shaped by war, Mr. Beah dealt with much adversity as he tried integrating himself into the lifestyles of many others. Doing so included Mr. Beah being asked about his past report cards or childhood family photos in school. Mr. Beah, however, didn't have any of those things and even wrote a paper explaining why children like him didn't have the luxury to worry about things such as a report card.

Prior to Mr. Beah's talk, I had never really known of the stigma surrounding child-soldiers apart from other kids feeling appreciative of their circumstances. Society labels child soldiers as people who are raised to kill and, for that reason, unable to operate outside of war and violence. Based on his own experiences, Mr. Beah had remarked about how the opposite was true: Child soldiers had to be cunning, brave, and resilient in order to survive prolonged warfare.

As we rethink how society views war and treats ex-child soldiers, shouldn't we listen to the perspectives of the people who actually endured the war? The answer to the question may seem obvious, yet society loves to paint war as a black and white scenario to raise media attention and hook people worldwide into regional and, sometimes, global conflicts. Some many of us feel so invested in conflicts that we have no true understanding of because we aren't actually the ones enduring the difficulties of the conflict. We are simply spectators with audacious and ill informed judgment. Mr. Beah said it best: those war leaders aren't just innately violent as they too have families to look out for.

I really applaud Mr. Beah for his initiative in starting Narrative 4, which is an international organization that build empathy and cross-cultural competency through story exchanges. When people are able to tell their own stories, it eliminates the middle-man: biased media companies. I look forward to seeing students around the world train to be more compassionate human beings.