Victimcy as social navigation: FRom The Toolbox Of Liberian Child Soldiers

Abstract

Child soldiers receive quite extensive attention in the Western world. In our media they are commonly portrayed with qualities which children ought not to have and as products of societies with qualities that societies ought not to have. From each African conflict zone (and commonly from elsewhere in the world as well) there are popular books written by journalists or researchers on this topic and there will be books written by child soldiers themselves, like Ismael Beah’s acclaimed A Long Way Gone(2007), from the West African country Sierra Leone. There are films with child soldiers, such as the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Blood Diamond’ (Zwick, 2006), also from Sierra Leone, or of a more independent character such as the 2008 movie ‘Johnny Mad Dog’ (Sauvaire, 2008) with a direct child soldier focus. The latter film is equally played in West Africa but in Liberia, with former combatants as actors. It shows according to the Guardianfilm reviewer Bradshaw that:.