A Long Way Gone- Entry #5

After finishing this book, I was struck by how it is both uplifting and discouraging. For the first two thirds of the memoir, Beah focuses on describing the horrors he was forced to endure in Sierra Leone. However, his escape to New York at the end of the book left me feeling hopeful, as if there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. His choice to end on this note truly says something about Beah's optimistic outlook on the war as a whole. The most interesting element of the end of the memoir was the last couple of pages. During these, Beah digresses into an African folk tale about a monkey who speaks to a hunter. The hunter, moments away from pulling his trigger and killing the monkey, is told by the animal, "'If you shoot me, your mother will die, if you don't, your father will die'" (217). After several paragraphs of discussion as to what his own decision would be if he were to be confronted with this predicament, Beah finally concludes in the last paragraph of the memoir, "I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament" (218). I took this ending as a call to action. Through this folk tale, Beah urges to the reader to do more than merely think about oneself. Despite the danger that may come in confronting terrorist groups such as the RUF, one must consider that the right decision is never one that is solely focuses on one's personal needs. In other words, yes, becoming involved in such a deeply violent issue may not be wonderful for a nation's foreign policy. We must realize though that we are not the only ones who have something to lose. Even if involvement in such an issue results in the initial loss of more lives, the long term benefits would far outweigh the short term costs.