A novel in English. Thesis (A.B., Honors in English and American Literature and Language)--Harvard University, 2004. Thomas T. Hoopes Prize--Harvard University, 2004.

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... This study used Bronfenbrenner's (1994) Ecological System Theory [11] as the framework to discuss the identity of the trafficked child soldier in Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation [12].This theory involves five nests:(1) microsystem, the child's most close environment (parents, school, peers); (2) mesosystem, the continuing interacting between two or more members of microsystem as a relation between the parents and the school; (3) exosystem, the outside setting that has indirect influence a child as the influence of parents' workplace on the child; (4) macrosystem, the impact of norm, law and culture on the child; (5) chronosystem, the effect of the socio-historical situation and alterations over the life of on a child. Regrettably, mesosystem is not going to be discussed in this present research because there is no data that covers the relation between the members of microsystem based on Beasts of No Nation. ...

... A. The Identity of Agu before being Trafficked as a Child Soldier 1) Microsystem: The microsystem is the scope of direct experience for the person affected by the quantities of resources that have direct social contacts. Agu was influenced by his mother who always told him the history of conflict between human beings, she informed him how Cain killed Abel and how David killed Goliath [11]. These crimes could not be accepted by him as he was still below the age of ten years. ...

... For example, Children were taught how to dance since dancing was considered a symbol of manhood. Agu cited that "[i]f you are not learning, then nobody is thinking [sic] that you are man" (pp. 25 -26) [11]. Thus, he convinced the others of his masculinity to escape from the mock of men who degraded the actions of women. ...

... Another of these dystopian tales, Beasts of No Nation (Iweala 2005), which is crafted as a comic book nightmare allegory, tells of the forced recruitment of Agu, a child soldier. It follows Agu through his initiation into the most brutal forms of violence, including his participation in the gruesome murders of both captured soldiers and civilians, which are portrayed in graphic detail, his drug infused killing frenzies, and his routine rape and sodomization by the commander of his unit. ...

... Numerous examples such as Angola, Katanga/Shaba in Congo, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, Igbos and Hausas/Fulanis in Nigeria, southern natives and northern Arab populations in Sudan and other countries, etc., point to the omnipresence of this surviving monarchical and republican history of Africa in the contemporary epoch of ruling elites marked by the same old rivalries albeit re-fashioned by colonial contexts. Thus, in their different ways, writings like Saro Wiwa's (1994) Sozaboy, Iyayi's (1986) Heroes, Kourouma's (2000) Allah n'est pas obligé, Iweala's (2006) Beasts of No Nation, and Half of a Yellow Sun, all deal with the phenomenon of ethnic violence in postcolonial Africa and the unsettling dimension it has assumed in contemporary African societies. It can be argued, though, that colonial contact sharpened the scope and elite rule increased the severity and complexity of inter-ethnic and inter-regional conflicts. ...

  • Alfred Ndi

This paper argues that post-colonial theory in its classical usage is limited. However, when its premises are employed as a point of understanding, they can be very useful for comprehending the situation of contemporary developments in Africa. From this light, it contends that, after the fiftieth anniversary of Africa's independence, the continent's development could not really take off the ground because its anti-colonial strategy was prone to various susceptibilities. These included dependency on a new global order, a re-visitation of colonialism from the past, the dictatorship of ruling elites, the question of definition of development, misrepresentation, and the influence of power. It argues, nevertheless, that the continent is generating its own public narratives that are redefining the content of its development.

... My Luck presents the rape as traumatic for him rather than for his victim-whom he even imagines comforting him as "a boy lost" and undeserving of his fate ( [51], p. 65). Both Abani and Kourouma (and other child-solider novelists like Uzodinma Iweala [52] and Ken Saro-Wiwa [53] present their perpetrator narrators as objects of readers' sympathy. But in doing so they bring those readers' ethical responses into question, asking what exactly they are recognizing in a subject whose identity is predicated on the traumatic non-recognition of their own actions. ...

  • Hamish Dalley

Dominant theorizations of cultural trauma often appeal to the twinned notions of "recognition" and "solidarity", suggesting that by inviting readers to recognize distant suffering, trauma narratives enable forms of cross-cultural solidarity to emerge. This paper explores and critiques that argument with reference to postcolonial literature. It surveys four areas of postcolonial trauma, examining works that narrate traumatic experiences of the colonized, colonizers, perpetrators and proletarians. It explores how novelists locate traumatic affects in the body, and suggests that Frantz Fanon's model of racial trauma in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth remains essential for the interpretation of postcolonial texts, including those to which it is not usually applied. The analysis further reveals tensions between different texts' appeals for recognition, and suggests that these tensions problematize the claim that solidarity will emerge from sympathetic engagement with trauma victims. As such, the paper makes three key arguments: first, that trauma offers a productive ground for comparing postcolonial fiction; second, that comparison uncovers problems for theorists attempting to "decolonize" trauma studies; and third, that trauma theory needs to be supplemented with systemic material analyses of particular contexts if it is not to obfuscate what makes postcolonial traumas distinct.

  • Margaret R. Higonnet

Why, the war is for children. —Angelo Patri As the First "Total" War of the Twentieth century, World War I marked a turning point in the understanding of what Goya had called the disasters of war. The years 1914–18 witnessed a difficult struggle to recognize and defend civilian rights in wartime, rights that had primarily been defined as those of soldiers and prisoners of war, under the Taws and Customs of War on Tand, established at The Hague in 1899 and 1907. Wartime conditions that blurred lines between civilian and combatant unleashed violations of civilians' human rights that the conventions had not anticipated. The ensuing debate during the Great War exemplified the growing complexity of disputes about human rights. In particular, it revealed that competing claims of victimization could exacerbate reprisals in the confusion of combat. In a duel of countercharges, states published documentation carrying titles that denounced enemy indifference to the "law of nations," such as Die volkerrechtswidrige Fuhrung des belgischen Volkskriegs ("The Conduct of the Belgian People's War in Violation of the Taw of Nations" [1915]) and Rapports… en vue de constater les actes commis par l'ennemi en violation du droit des gens ("Reports … to Record Enemy Actions in Violation of the Taw of Nations" [1915]). A "war of words" raged, as well as a war of dumdum bullets that spread on impact, poison gas, and aerial bombardment—all instruments of war that had been explicitly banned by the conventions of the preceding years.

  • Amber M. Simmons

This article explores ways to utilize students' interest in fantasy literature to support critical literacy. Focusing on Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series (2008, 2009, 2010), the author addresses how elements of the trilogy relate to violent acts in our world, helping student understand that violence and brutality toward children is not fiction, but very real, and that they can play a role in its abolishment, just like Katniss, through social action projects. Issues such as hunger, forced labor, child soldiers, and the sex trade that appear in both the fictional series and our world are discussed, encouraging students to assess their world and advocate for change. Examples of social action projects that utilize multiple literacies are suggested as a way to inspire students take action in the community and to stand up to injustice and brutality in hopes of creating a better world and a better human race.

  • Asiatic

This essay examines the idea of an African literary canon through the creative works of African writers, their criticism by African literary scholars, and the validation of African aesthetic values. Based on the premise that literature is a cultural production, modern African literature expresses the socio-cultural, historical, and other experiences as well as the sensibility of its people. Literary works that focus on certain criteria of cultural acceptability, African-ness, or Africanity constitute modern African literature and its canon. Since modern African literature is still relatively young compared to Western literatures, there have been debates and controversies over what is truly African literature. It is in the context of the people's overall experience and the aesthetic considerations involved that canonisation will be discussed. Among these issues are the language of modern African literature and the current debate as to whether African writers in the West (North America and Europe) writing and publishing there are still African writers. Cultural identity and what constitutes what Abiola Irele describes as "the African imagination" will thus be the touchstones of any African literary canon. As a result of the postcolonial experience shared by many African and Asian societies, many of the issues relating to African literature and its canon will likely have parallel responses in modern Asian literary discourse.

  • Ogaga Okuyade Ogaga Okuyade

The storyteller takes what he tells from experience—his own or that reported by others. And in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his tale. The novelist has isolated himself. The birthplace of the novel is the solitary individual, who is no longer able to express himself by giving examples of his most important concerns, is himself uncounseled, and cannot counsel others. To write a novel means to carry the incommensurable to extremes in the representation of human life. In the midst of life's fullness, and through the representation of this fullness, the novel gives evidence of the profound perplexity of the living. Every generation of writers confronts the burning issues in its society and wrestles with them. It is my contention that the direction of any literature has more to do with the prevailing conditions of the writer's time and his or her individual response to them, brought about by the personal life of the writer. The contemporary African novel has to respond with ever-increasing flexibility to new and challenging circumstances in its effort to record and reflect on the African experience. From the late 1980s, most African countries began to experience dramatic transformations in their socio-political arrangements. These transformations were most visible at the level of the system of government employed by the rulers. Military dictators began launching endless transition programmes that brought most of them back to power. Others became autocratic in their bid to ensure their political metamorphoses from military dictators to democratic autocrats would not be contested. The Sani Abacha junta of Nigeria and Yowere Moseveni of Uganda easily come to mind here. Despite the revolutions in Egypt and Libya that removed Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gadafi, respectively, both nations are still in an anarchic state, particularly Egypt, a nation barely out of a state of emergency. Within the last three decades, ethnicity has become the major currency with which most African countries negotiate leadership via elections; the Kenyan, after the Moi administration, and the Nigerian examples are the most resonant. Although military interventions are no longer popular, there are still traces of coups in the continent, such as coup by ballot in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. In order to contain these incessant crises in the continent and forge an African continent with a common socio-political and economic destiny, the leaders and heads of government in Africa changed the label of the umbrella association which offered them a platform to constructively interrogate and negotiate the fate of the continent. This change from the Organization of African Unity to the African Union was geared towards facilitating and consolidating the gains of independence, which would in turn help readjust and redefine the functions of the union to meet contemporary demands of African countries and address global challenges as they affect the continent. In a more positive vein, Nelson Mandela, South Africa's foremost anti-apartheid nationalist, was released from prison, the apartheid regime crumbled, and Mandela assumed office as the first democratically elected president of the Republic of South Africa. Countries like Ghana, Liberia, and recently Mali have had success at the polls and in their economies. Apart from the ongoing political transformations, the continent continues to be shaped by violence, crisis, and attempted genocide. The aim of this special issue is to explore and evaluate through cultural analysis the new novel in Africa at this crucial juncture in African literary and political history, and more importantly, how the new African novelists respond to these political transformations and challenges. The novel in Africa is without doubt the most popular and inclusive of the genres. The reason for its popularity is understandable. The African novel has remained vigorous and articulate in its examination of the contemporary African situation. Its popularity is also due "to the essential features of the form itself as primarily embodying a story and interesting stories make good reading. But the writer in Africa does more than tell a story; he arouses in the reader a true sense of himself, evoking his past and linking it to...

  • Catarina Martins Catarina Martins

This article will comparatively examine representations of child-soldiers in literary and cinematographic works from the North and the South, using post-colonial theory in an attempt to ascertain which power politics might be at play in the dominant northern discoursive construction of the issue, and which the focuses of resistance within a counter-discourse coming from the South are. I will also consider the way in which the southern counter-discourse and its strategies are being incorporated into the hegemonic main narrative.

  • Mark A. Drumbl

The international community strives to eradicate the scourge of child soldiering. Mostly, though, these efforts replay the same narratives and circulate the same assumptions. This chapter, which takes a second look at these efforts, aspires to refresh law and policy so as to improve preventative, restorative, and remedial initiatives while also vivifying the dignity of youth. As a starting point, this chapter proposes that the dominant language used to characterise child soldiers—that of passive victimhood—be revisited so as to better recognise the potentiality of child soldiers to participate in and lead post-conflict reconstructive efforts. This chapter suggests a variety of reforms to the content and trajectory of law and policy in light of the complex, variegated realities of child soldiering. International lawyers and policymakers are predisposed to dissemble these complexities. Although understandable, this penchant ultimately is counterproductive. Along the way, this chapter also questions central tenets of contemporary humanitarianism, rethinks elements of international criminal justice, and aspires to embolden the rights of the child.

  • Biodun Jeyifo

In a radical departure from the orthodoxies of postcolonial African cultural and linguistic nationalism, the paper calls for acceptance of English as an African language with a central argument that insists that all languages widely used in Africa ought to be classified as either indigenous or non-indigenous. This argument rests on a vigorous critique of what the author identifies as the principle of absolute autochthony as the only determinant of which languages are African and which are not. As the most eloquent and influential proponent of this principle, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is the central focus of the paper with regard to both the positive and negative aspects of his ideas and positions on the language question in colonial and postcolonial Africa.

  • Nick Mdika Tembo Nick Mdika Tembo

In Child Soldier, China Keitetsi recounts her experiences as a child and a soldier during Yoweri Museveni's guerrilla war against then Ugandan president, Milton Obote. Drawing on key debates on literary representations of katabasis, this paper examines Keitetsi's portrait of adult betrayal and parental abuse of children at home, and as child soldiers. I argue that Child Soldier is a text that lends itself to a katabatic analysis, and that Keitetsi is a katabasist who frames her experiences as a child and a soldier "within the narrative structure of a descent into Hell and return" . I argue that "hellish" elements in the memoir are more than just incidental: they point to a world where tenderness and love have long given way to cruelty and cynicism, and where madness and violence and despair are the order of the day. I also draw on Sigmund Freud and Homi Bhabha's notions of the unhomely, to suggest that the memoir introduces interesting parallels between the unhomeliness in the home and that brought on by the civil war. Subconsciously, then, examining the memoir under the tropes of katabasis and the unhomely allows us to view her life as floating in-between the child she wishes she should have been and the abused and rejected young woman she becomes.

  • David Mastey

War names are a prominent feature in the child soldier narrative, a genre of literary writing mostly associated with Africa. They have several narratological functions; they act as unique identifiers, signal their statuses as combatants, and so on. Moreover, characters who use war names often reflect upon their significance as inspirational, aspirational, representative of how they want to be perceived by others and even a source of "hidden power" that improves their effectiveness as soldiers. The adoption of a war name is a complex process regulated by informal rules that yield diverse examples. And in some cases contextual information from within a narrative and the historical circumstances on which names are based provide a rich source of characterisation for characters who may otherwise serve limited roles in their respective texts. I examine this unique process to show that these names reveal much about the characters and the brutal conditions in which they operate.

  • Stephen David Stephen David

Genocide is often used to describe the Igbo experience during the Biafra/Nigeria civil war, particularly within secessionist discourse. This has become a potent tool in gathering support among the Igbo youths – who did not witness the war and consequently rely on "available" narratives of the war. The classification of the war as a genocide presents certain polemics, some are: the difficulty of casting Biafra as vulnerable and lacking in agency; the framing of the war suffering as a universal Igbo experience; the presentation of Biafra as ethnically homogeneous, and that Biafra stimulated linear solidarity from its inhabitants as a force for absolute good. Employing insights from literature, this study reads the dimensions of violence in selected literary narratives of Biafra against International Criminal Court's definition of genocide. It concludes that there were events that could be described as cases of war crimes narrated in the texts; but there was no intention to annihilate the Igbo. The texts narrate acts of brutality perpetrated by both belligerents. It finds also, that genocide was used as a tool for mobilizing support for the Biafran cause during the war. It was a propaganda tool to gain the attention of the world and to motivate a fight to the end.

  • Elizabeth Swanson Elizabeth Swanson

This article mines the history of rape jurisprudence to illuminate how the legal treatment of wartime rape informs long-standing gendered tropes that dominate its understanding on the ground as well as its representation in literary and cultural texts. The essay concludes by reading Congolese novelist Emmanuel Dongala's Johnny Mad Dog as a model for a dialogic literary imagination capable of revealing the fatal consequences of toxic masculinity as it informs not only the perpetration of rape in wartime, but also the possibility for either perpetrator or victim to achieve subjectivity free from the burdens of brutally constraining gender norms.

  • Eleni Coundouriotis Eleni Coundouriotis

This essay proposes a comparative reading of child soldier narratives from Africa, most of them novels, and argues that the recent texts (those published since the mid-1990s) exhibit a lesser engagement with history than the war novels from the colonial and immediate postcolonial periods. One reason for this loss of historicity lies in the way the human rights frame is applied to the child soldier identity and conditions his or her story. The earlier war novels were written in the context of resistance struggles that highlight the agency of the subject whereas the recent emphasis on the victim status of the child soldier seems to compromise his agency. Looking to narrative as a part of the therapeutic process of recovery, these recent texts contrast a past loss of agency that pertains to the time of the war with a future regaining of agency through recovery. This narrative pattern serves to individualize the child soldier and to shift attention away from social and political conditions that brought on his or her circumstances in the first place. The essay also pays attention to recent texts that critique this trend by framing their narratives as failed novels of education and hence tapping into an earlier tradition of African writing as a way of providing historical contextualization. Thus the works of Ahmadou Kourouma and Emmanuel Dongala demonstrate that the complexity of the historical, political, cultural, as well as individual circumstances of the child soldier requires the deployment of a less literal, more ironic, and even allegorical method of narrative representation.

Shattered: Stories of Children and War Jennifer Armstrong; Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis, Nicholas Stargardt; Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight

  • Werner

Werner; Shattered: Stories of Children and War, Ed. Jennifer Armstrong; Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis, Nicholas Stargardt; Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, Rachel Brett.