Western media and war children’
May 12, 2008 1 Comment
The Village Voice, following the lead of two Australian journalists, subjecting the memories of Ismael Beah, the former teenage child soldier, who was forcefully conscripted into a violent civil war in Sierra Leone and then wrote about (excerpted here), to the kind of scrutiny reserved for James Frey, war mongers and war criminals. I am still trying to figure out what the point of all that “investigation” was. Now the Village Voice, probably trying to make up for its rudeness, treats another former child soldier — this time the Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal — with some courtesy. See an interview by a reporter for the weekly with Jal, who has a new record, here.
For those of you who are researching the topic of child soldiers, you might also be interested in taking a look at a lecture I recently presented (feedback would be most appreciated). You can find the lecture online at:
http://www.adamwozniak.com/blog/2008/06/20/child-soldiers-lecture-presented-by-adam-wozniak/