According to Google, War is a state of armed conflict between different countries or groups within a nation or state. These armed conflicts are mostly caused by the government. During this time, the government can control you, the civilian, and you don’t even realize it. How may they control you, you may ask? By propaganda. War acknowledges the fact that there is a lot of propaganda used by the government to persuade the civilian’s point of view about a political cause, as shown in the texts A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah and “from An Ordinary Man” by Paul Rusesabagina.
Propaganda is used by the government to persuade the civilian’s point of view during war. “From An Ordinary Man” by Paul Rusesabagina reveals that “The parents of these people [Hutus] had been told over and
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The government is manipulating the Hutus to make sure they keep disputing and rioting against the Tutsis. By doing that, the government is making sure that the war doesn’t die down easily. If the government didn’t communicate the poisonous rhetoric to the people, the war could have possibly ended much earlier than expected. In conjunction with the first quote, Rusesabagina confirms the fact that the poisonous rhetoric said by the government does work on the civilians, by giving an example of Peter. “Peter was just a cool guy; so nice to children, very gentle, kind of a kidder but never mean with his humor. I saw him that morning wearing a military uniform and holding a machete dripping in blood” (Rusesabagina 82). Anyone can be influenced by propaganda in war, no one is safe. One minute, someone could be like Peter, kindhearted, sweet, gentle, and the next minute, that same person can be a violent, heartless machine. Just because of words. Words have a big impact on us humans. Furthermore, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, illustrates that