Students say they feel inspired by author’s hardships
CU students said they found inspiration Tuesday night as they filled Macky Auditorium to hear the story of former child soldier Ishmael Beah.
Macky Auditorium was packed as hundreds of CU students and Boulder community members left the Colorado caucuses to hear the 27-year-old former child soldier talk about his experiences in war and his new book “A Long Way Gone.”
Beah said he was dragged into war in his home country of Sierra Leone at the age of 13. He fought for three years before UNICEF rescued him when he was 16. After spending time in a rehabilitation center, Beah came to the U.S., later graduating from Oberlin College with a degree in political science.
Many students said they felt inspired by what Beah had to say.
“This is something that I really want to do something about,” said Courtney Siegle, a sophomore majoring in international affairs. “It’s really hard for me to hear about these things and not be able to do something about it.”
“A Long Way Gone” is Beah’s memoir of life before, during and after his time spent at war. During his speech on Tuesday, he said he wrote the book because he felt he had a responsibility to put a human face on the story.
Beah said when he first came to the U.S., most of the people he talked to didn’t even know Sierra Leone was a country, much less anything about its ongoing civil war. When the country’s turmoil finally began to make news in 1998, he said the media painted a picture of a country that had always been at war.
Beah said he wanted his book to show there was a Sierra Leone before the war and that there will be a Sierra Leone after the war. Beah said the recovery process is long and difficult, but ultimately people can come out of these kinds of devastating situations.
Placing emphasis on children forced to be soldiers, Beah spoke about people’s ability to recover their humanity and rekindle their human spirit. He read passages from his book depicting scenes of violence he encountered in war and spoke about the difficult process it takes to be able to live with taking another person’s life.
Beah said he published his book so his audience would remember that people are not born evil. He also said he wanted to write his book so that people will know the possibility of recovery exists, and that there is an urgent need to remove children from war zones like those in Sierra Leone.
“Human beings are naturally good,” Beah said.
Beah also spoke about the importance of education, saying that graduating from high school and college were some of the few times he has cried since the war.
“Education is one of the things that changed my life,” Beah said.
Emphasizing the value of education, Beah said he wants people to appreciate the opportunities they have and to think of education as a way to discover their humanity and expose themselves to the world and the different cultures within it.
“[What he said about education] was one of the best things of the evening,” said Chris Yonushewski, a freshman majoring in business.
Yonushewski also said he appreciated Beah’s emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge rather than the simple act of just going to school.
Other students said they felt inspired and compelled to take action after hearing of the hardships Beah faced.
“[His experience] is something that will compel people to do something instead of just sitting idly by while situations similar to his go on all over the world,” said Evan Woock, a senior majoring in marketing.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Kaely Moore at kaely.moore@colorado.edu.
