From a Culture of Revenge to the Culture of Forgiveness

By Christina Feller, published in the May 2009 Munjoy Hill Observer newspaper, Portland, Maine
Ismael Beah was only 11 when he became homeless from the violence of civil war and 13 when he was abducted and forced into the life of a child soldier in Sierra Leone, West Africa. After two years of experiencing unspeakable violence and the horror of daily killing, Ismael began the long road to recovery and rehabilitation. In his celebrated, national bestseller A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ismael takes the reader through his journey from a safe and happy childhood to the evils of a time when “nature itself was afraid”.
Ismael Baeh was the 2009 Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture Speaker on Genocide and Human Rights at USM’s Abromson Community Education Center on April 14, 2009. He was introduced by Dr. Abraham J. Peck who leads the USM Academic Council for Religion, Genocide and Human Rights. Before the lecture began, leaders from a range of communities that have experienced genocide lit candles in remembrance of the generations that have been affected by these events.
Ismael explained how in such a short time because of a complete breakdown in society caused by the war between the government and the rebel forces, “adults could be killed by children. Adults feared the children deeply. There was no trust. Children were no longer children—they were killers.” The children did not want to kill, but were forced to kill or die themselves. Eventually, Ismael was rehabilitated through the auspices of the United Nations and came to live in New York, graduate from Oberlin College and became an advocate for what he calls the culture of forgiveness.
Ismael spoke of hope as a form of strength. “We have the capacity to lose it (our humanity) and to regain it. The war dehumanized everyone. We did it to ourselves. But I can tell you that how I felt during and afterwards, I believe you can transform into violence and then recover.” When he was in the rehabilitation center, he began to have hope again that he could have a good life and recover from the horrors he experienced. His recovery could not happen until he was able to undue all the damage that had been done to him—that took more than eight months. He entered the rehab center with a sense of indifference because he did not know what was happening. He left with a sense of hope for his future and for that of his country.
In a culture of forgiveness, Ismael noted, you must be willing to let go of revenge, be willing to restore relationships, and be willing to sit down and talk with those you once hated.
After Ismael spoke, Libby Hoffman, Director of Catalysts for Peace, spoke about their project in Sierra Leone bringing the aggrieved and the former aggressors together under the name Fambol Tok, or Family Talk, to restore healthy relationships through the process of forgiveness. She showed a short film which was heart wrenching at times when accusers and the guilty moved through the process of identifying the victims, hearing their stories, respecting their pain, bringing the guilty forward, affirming their wrongdoing, making the apology and requesting forgiveness, and, finally, the bestowing of forgiveness by the victim. In the film, the process appeared to work. In real life, Ismael showed us that it does indeed work and he is living proof that the goodness of humanity can overpower the evils of war even for children.
To buy the book A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, go to www.alongwaygone.com or www.fsgbooks.com. ISBN-13:978-0-374-53126-3.
Christina Feller is a writer and culturalist, celebrating cultures around the world through stories and photos. Her current work in progress is The Russia Crew —Memoirs from the Field, the retelling of the adventures of a group of American women in Russia during the October rebellion in Moscow in 1993.