Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone is an autobiography written by Ishmael Beah, the book details his childhood throughout the Sierra Leon civil war. The book shows how you can turn an innocent child into a killing machine. We see both sides of the warring party do this with them drugging the children, turning them against the enemy with propaganda and threatening them with death. These are the factors that made a quarter of all the soldiers within this war under the age of eighteen. Both the RUF and the Sierra Leone Army threatened anyone who did comply with death. The RUF would often kill civilians to make an example for new recruits and to eliminate any family they once had “We are going to initiate all of you by killing these people in front of you” (Beah 34) doing so would allow them to control them more and eliminate any threat of them running away. The military would kick anyone out of their bases that would not join their ranks which would lead to them being shot by rebels “But you will not have rations or stay in this village…the rebels will kill anyone from this village” (Beah 106), this would leave the children with only on choice, to join that faction.

The brainwashing would be from constant propaganda preaching how their side is fighting for the good and the other being a group of non-humans butchering anyone in their path. The military would tell the children “The rebels are responsible for everything happening to you” (Beah 113). Later on in the book the rebel children are revealed to also undergo this brainwashing as one rants as the rehabilitation center “the army killed my family and destroyed my village, we fought for freedom” (Beah 134), this brainwashing would make the children and any other soldier want revenge for their dead families. When in fact both sides were known for killing families so it was a coin toss who actually did