Last weekend an article was written in the Australian claiming that Ishmael Beah may have gotten the dates and length of the time spent as a child soldier wrong. Supposedly, the attack that separated Ishmael from his family happened in 1995 and not in ’93 and he may have spent 2months fighting in the army instead of 2 years. It also means that he was 15years old and not 13 during the period in question. Someone posted a comment on my blog calling Ishmael a ‘fraud’ and several other individuals have made similar comments on the Global Voices Online discussion of A Long Way Gone.
Do I think he’s a fraud? Does it matter that it was 2months instead of 2 years? Would my perception of the book be different if I had read the story as having happened to a 15 year old boy in 1995 for 2months?
Ishmael Beah’s “A Long Way Gone” will now and always serve as a testimony of children caught the world over in civil conflicts; victims and perpetrators of violence. Ishmael will always be a hero for surviving his ordeal and living and learning to write about it. There are those who may feel as though they’ve been duped by Ishmael, his mother, and his publishers. But the question remains to be answered as to whether he intentionally misled his readers or if he simply got it all mixed up in the effort to remember and forget his past. I have met Ishmael, listened to him, talked to him and laughed with him and I believe every word of his story and I do not think that he would lie or mislead anyone intentionally
I wonder if Africans who have read the book (especially Sierra Leoneans) will feel as troubled by the question of dates as by others. Culturally, our relationship to time is different from western notions of time. This unique relationship to time affects the way we tell stories and the way we remember things. While Westerners are likely to refer to the year something happened and then the event, for us the focus is usually on the event itself. Time alone is not important….Events make time important. I am not saying that Ishmael or Africans for that matter do not understand or subscribe to established standards of time rather, that the focus for me is more so on what happened to Ishmael and how it happened.
Clearly, his publishers could have done more research to make sure that the dates in A Long Way Gone were in sync with public records of events in Sierra Leone. That information is easy to be culled as proven by the contributors/writers of the article in the Australian. Granted we do not know for certain if their sources are legitimate, and if they are enough to disprove Ishmael’s memory of the dates. Personally, I think that who ever and for what ever reason, some people do not want to believe that Ishmael Beah is capable of writing his book, being so articulate, after having experienced such an ordeal. The truth however, is that Ishmael is capable.
Why did the publishers not go through the trouble of finding out???....Maybe they thought, “another African memoir of war…Oh well, get it out soon as possible.”
Regardless of what you might think of this time controversy, the book is still amazingly brilliant. Ishmael Beah is a survivor and a great writer!
A part of me wishes his ordeal was just for two months….But then again “2 months” can also seem like two years when everyday is filled with brutality, isolation, loss, and violence.
ISHMAEL DEFENDS HIMSELF AGAINST RUMORS & ACCUSATIONS
14 comments:
"Culturally, our relationship to time is different from western notions of time."
I'm an African and I beg to differ and even if this were true, it has nothing to do with the veracity of his book.
Personally, I feel sorry for Beah and you have every right to defend him, but please don't play the cultural card. If indeed his story is dishonest, then it is dishonest.
PS - The West has already claimed Ishmael Beah and maybe this is the sad result.
I will never read your book because I lost my uncle the late PC S.M.Koker.I lost my brothers James and Joseph Koker.I lost my cousin Vandy Koker and my my childhood friend Late Lt.Abdul Kargbo.I will never forgive you .Why didn't kill your father and mum or the people who sent you do the evil thing.I don't want to think of the war.
You are not a hero.I prefer to read books about Kailondo,Ndawaa,Bai Bureh or Dr.Siaka Probyn Stevens,Sir Milton Margai,Sir Albert of Africa.They deserve a lot of praise.
The name BEAH,WEAH,is from Liberia.I don't think we have a name like that.Is he not from Lofa county?
Yeah like the others, I don't think much of this cad. Actually he makes my skin crawl the way he is still going around with this made up story, and the way he propagandises himself as a 'child.' The sooner he is fully exposed as a fraud and a charlatan the faster this story will be brought to closure, and the real work in re-habilitating child soldiers can be affirmed.
Unlike others, I read the book given to me as a Birthday present. I have since passed it on to a few friends. I was horrified by Beah's experiences and indeed whether it was for 2-months or 2-years, the truth of the matter as we all know, such sufferings happened to our young boys. Can we take this and move on for it never to happen again in our Sierra Leone. Beah should take his fortunate position and help to stop this catastrophe and work with others not so fortunate!
Isa Davies (UK)
I'm glad I stumbled upon your blog. I'm currently taking a case study course on the history of Sierra Leone, taught by Joseph Opala, who apparently has had a lot to do with the country (Google "Priscilla's Homecoming"). "A Long Way Gone" was on our reading list for the semester, and I literally just finished it and began doing some research. Regardless of whether or not each event is true, Beah went through some very difficult times as a child, and it shouldn't take horrid, vivid accounts of murder and specific dates to bring attention to this issue.
As an American, I've gone from only knowing of Sierra Leone from the Kanye West song to finding myself wanting to learn as much about the country as possible. Beah's book has only intensified my interest for the region, and I support him wholeheartedly.
Of course it matters if Beah spent two months as a child soldier rather than two years - or even if he spent any time at all. In two months he would barely have learned how to fight, and obviously all those combat accounts of his would be fictional.
Besides, it's not just a case of a couple of years. A 15 year old is a vastly different person than a 13 year old, and it may even be open to question whether he can be called a "child soldier". 15-16 year old boys were regularly conscripted in both World Wars. At 15, a boy's brain is qualitatively more developed than a 13-year-old kid's.
Everything else besides, if Beah is lying, by posing as a de facto spokesperson for child soldiers everywhere he is in effect standing guarantee for the veractity of their stories and their suffering. If he is lying, and the evidence is overwhelming that he is, then he is betraying them as well.
I should point out that the Child Soldier Coalition has disowned Beah and declared him an impostor.
Let’s take things step by step, and see how they stack up.
1. There is no doubt whatsoever that Ishmael Beah’s account of events is a whole two years out of time.
2. As a result of this, he cannot have been a soldier for more than two months rather than the two years he claims.
3. Two months isn’t even enough time for basic training; Beah cannot possibly have experienced the combat he reports.
4. Beah’s chronology is not the only other falsehood in the book; the claimed year long odyssey of wandering from Mattru Jong to Yele he claims could have been completed in one day because the two towns are 6 kilometres apart, not 450 kilometres as Beah claims and as an admittedly (by the man responsible for making it) false map in the book shows.
5. The fight Beah claims happened in the UNICEF refugee camp in Sierra Leone which killed six ex-child soldiers never took place.
6. Beah’s school records prove he was in school in 1993 and 1994, when he says he was a child soldier.
Even without the evident Hollywood character of the book, complete with redeeming white American angels, the entire account is provably false.
Now: does it matter that it is false? Here’s why it does:
First, dishonesty is dishonesty, and it becomes more so when one makes a career out of it, and a lot of money besides. The Beah Camp is all complicit in this; they are frauds now, if they weren’t all along. When the evidence is presented them that Beah is lying, and they choose to ignore that evidence, they are frauds.
Then, by presenting himself as a de facto spokesman for child soldiers worldwide (and far more than Kabba Williams, it is Beah who’s a recognised figure), our Ishmael is in effect hijacking their tales, whether such tales are from Congo or Cambodia, Sri Lanka or Sudan. Once his own transparently false tale is exposed, everyone’s tale becomes doubtful by taint of association. Unfair, but that’s how these things go.
Thirdly, by reinforcing the notions of Hollywoodised salvation of poor victimised blacks, Beah is hiding the truth of the situation, where thousands of child soldiers (and child sex slaves, whom Beah doesn’t mention) can never re-integrate into society and live lives of drug abuse, poverty and crime. All this is a crime against people who have no voice, whose voices the Beah Camp has stolen.
Fourth, Beah’s account trivialises the very real sufferings of genuine child soldiers. Since Beah crammed his fictional experiences with cliches of child soldiering (except, notably, sex slavery) and stole the experiences of a large number of other ex-child soldiers, he appears to have suffered much more than they did. If you believe what he said he suffered, you can’t have that much sympathy for someone who was “only” made to cook and clean and carry weapons for rebels or sent into human wave attacks, and you wonder why those people can’t re-integrate into society while Beah did such a wonderful job of it.
It’s time Beah, and his apologists, were forced to confront and admit his sins.
I know this is an old post- but I just read the book and wanted to leave my comment.
Memory is a very inaccurate thing. Just ask any police investigator or even your own parents who will confirm that many of your childhood memories were not exactly as you remember them.
If Ishmael has purposely made this stuff up- then shame on him.
However, if these are things as he honestly remembers them, then, even if inaccurate, (and here is where knowing the truth about 2 months vs. 2 years matters-the truth always matters)- his account is of value.
It would tell us that the child-soldier's perception of the horrors of war may be disproportionately augmented- perhaps by his emotional/mental immaturity- and in fact reveal that the mental trauma suffered by a child soldier is more intense than that of an adult, trained soldier. This revelation would help us to better understand the crime of recruiting children for war.
I'm a journalist and writer and a regular visitor to Sierra Leone.I really love the country and have made some fantastic friends there.
I just read Beah's book and have also just read a lot online about the truth or otherwie of his assertions.
Firstly, I believe that it's important that people share their experiences so that we can learn from them.
However, I've also come across a number of young, articulate Saloneans who tell apparently generic child soldier stories to an international media market hungry for shock and sensation. I'm aware of people who have used the 'child soldier' label to further their own interests and even find a way to a new life out of Salone.
Personally, I don't like to judge these people, though it has been my experience that many of their well rehearsed stories don't always add up.
The most important fact is that Sierra Leone recognises its past but moves on and reclaims its image as a beautiful, vibrant and culturally-rich country.
And whether Beah's story is true or not, I hope he uses the money and fame his stories have given him to improve the lives of others.
I don't get how people can just sit at their computer and say "oh well, 2 months not enough time to gain combat skills" when you know DAMN well that the people and children in that part of Africa had gone through HELL during that time. It don't matter if he spent 2 years or 2 months in that situation the point is that those children, including Mr.Beah, had their share of suffering that NO child should go through. I mean it's sick that they actually call him a fraud only because he might gotten some of his dates confused. If you wouldn't call a little girl who had gotten raped a fraud because she might have gotten that horrid date confused why do it to a former boy soldier? A 15 year old is still consider a child people.
I one hundred percent believe his story but even if he is lying think about the awareness he is bringing to the child soldier problem. How much more attention would a book by a child soldier get than a book by an author who did research? Come on now, even if he did lie he's still helping. And if he didn't well then, I don't think it makes him feel very good that so many people doubt him. Being called a liar never feels good, imagine people calling everything you have encountered in your life a lie. Right now I am doing a research essay on him because his story inspired me.
@Bill the Butcher: you have this pseudonym for a reason I believe.
Just my two cents as a human rights specialist: a 15 year old person is a child, as stated by many International Conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child that defines a child from 0 to 18 years old, now of course you have different developmental stage of a child, from early childhood to child to adolescent and youth but they all fall within the bigger umbrella of "children". So your specifications so as to what is a child based on the "brain development" is inaccurate and should I even say completely false, esp. when it comes to an involvement in armed conflicts.
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