Ishmael Beah

I was at a speech last night by Ishmael Beah.  He was forced to be a child soldier during the civil war/revolution in Sierra Leone (West Africa).  He mentioned that oral tradition was very there and that his foster mom was a professional storyteller, so during Q&A, after talking about how this war and violence affected his life for 45 minutes, I asked him to share one of the stories.

Imagine a husband and wife telling this to their son.

So, son, you're out hunting one day, and you've brought your gun.  You're in the forest and looking through the trees, and you find a monkey who's eating a banana, or scratching his sides, whatever monkeys do.  So you think he looks like a good catch and you raise your gun to shoot him but then, he puts his hand up as if to say stop and he says, "Whoa whoa, hold your horses."  And, since a monkey spoke to you, you listen.

He says, "If you shoot me, your father will die.  If you don't shoot me, your mother will die."

[at this point, you turn to your son and ask] "Son, what would you do?"

Ishmael said that his response was always, "I would go to the bathroom!" (and maybe he would run to the bathroom).

Then he just started talking about the story, and he said, "Then when I was young, I didn't really understand the story, I was too young to understand what it was about.  But after I got older and I saw all these things and I was thinking about everything, I realized that the point is that there is no correct answer.  Once you've lifted the gun - once you've chosen violence - it doesn't matter what you do, someone is going to pay for it.  It's not that it's going to be your mom or that it's going to be your dad, it's that the choice is already made."

(I had gone back to my seat at that point, but he was still looking right at me, and I said thanks from my seat and he said "You're welcome" while looking right at me still.  It was pretty cool.)

Peace out.