Читать книгу Ugandan Children's Literature and Its Implications for Cultural and Global Learning in TEFL - Stephanie Schaidt - Страница 33

From 1987 to 2006, hostilities between the National Resistance Army (NRA), later Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), and Lord Resistance Army (LRA) caused terror and suffering in Northern Uganda. The LRA has been responsible for the abduction of thousands of civilians, mainly children, thousands of mutilations and killings. In addition, the NRA/UPDF has been accused of abducting and recruiting children in the army. Almost two million people lost their homes and have been displaced during this war. People were forced by the Ugandan government to live in crowded Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps with inadequate facilities, where again many people died of malnutrition and illness. What adds particular viciousness and callousness to this war, is the fact that it involved child soldiers (see Kobusingye, 2010; Tripp, 2010).

In the last few years, a growing number of films and literary texts on the issue of child soldiers in Africa were published in the West. Many of these publications approach the issue from a Western perspective, a fact that is viewed as problematic by various scholars. Rosen (2009, p. 111) points out that there are tendencies of seeing Africa with “Conradian eyes” in Western discourse about war:

The general Western discourse about war in Africa, whether precolonial, or postcolonial, has remained remarkably consistent since the middle of the nineteenth century. In this discourse, warfare in Africa – in contrast to warfare in the West – is invariably cast as irrational and meaningless.

Looking into “Northern” representations of African child-soldiers in films such as Lost Children (Ahadi and Stoltz) and Blood Diamond (Zwick), Martins (2011) criticises the oversimplification of African conflicts in those media. Furthermore, she looks at it as problematic that in Blood Diamond a white hero and an American journalist play an important role in saving a child soldier’s life whereas many of the Black people are portrayed as entirely evil. African authors and directors such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ahmadou Kourouma, Emmanuel Dongala and Newton I. Aduaka, “present a significantly more varied spectrum of approaches to the child-soldier issue” (ibid., p. 7), she argues. According to her, they give more background information and situate the narratives in their historical context. Martins concludes her comparative analysis of “Northern” and “Southern” representations of child soldiers in the following way:

The differences between child-soldier representations from the North and the South clearly show how a northern construction of Africa has replaced Africa and the Africans and made them non-existent on the other side of an invisible abyssal line. […] The representations from the South are more ambiguous and leave many questions unsolved. However, that in their wider variety and in their questioning of the neocolonial stance of western stereotyped constructions, they are proof of the existence of a counter-hegemonic discourse that must be taken into account. (ibid, p. 11)

There is a considerable body of fiction by Ugandan writers that deals with the issue of child soldiers and war, for example, No Hearts at Home (Oryema-Lalobo, 1999), “Strange Fruit” (Arac de Nyeko, 2005b), “Butterfly Dreams” (Lamwaka, 2010a). Many of the texts are written from a child’s perspective and focus on the experiences of child soldiers but most of them are addressed to an adult readership. Caine Prize winner Monica Arac de Nyeko (2005a) has written a novella for children which tells the story of the abduction of school children in Northern Uganda: Children of the Red Fields.

In my eyes, Children of the Red Fields provides a counter-discourse to the way the issue of child soldiers in Uganda is often portrayed in Western media (e.g. Lost Children or Kony 20121). Though the novella talks about the atrocities committed by the Lord Resistance Army, it does not give a one-sided view of the conflict. Unlike many Western representations, for example, it does not completely ignore the role the Ugandan government plays in the conflict. In the novella, the government soldiers are presented as incapable of protecting the students at school and as corrupt. Despite the fact that it does not explain the origins of the conflict in Northern Uganda, the novella, therefore, provides a glimpse into the very complex nature of the conflict.

Furthermore, the child soldier issue is not the only focus of the narrative. Though the backdrop of the story is the conflict in Northern Uganda, other topics are also addressed in the novella, for example young adult love, friendship and jealousy. It therefore portrays both the unimaginable as well as issues young people from all around the world may easily relate to, thus making it easier for these readers to empathise with the characters involved.

Monica Arac de Nyeko’s novella shows how children are affected by the war in Northern Uganda. Although they are victims who are completely and utterly at the rebels’ mercy, the young people in the novella are portrayed as very strong. Despite the horrible situation they find themselves in, they do not give up hope but still make plans for their future. Hence, they are portrayed as both powerless and powerful actors.