Africa's Children

Children flock to cameras with smiling faces and uninhibited fascination as western photo journalists rummage their way through refugee camps. These smiling faces give hope to citizens of war torn countries that someday their people will prosper. In our western minds, we have blanket associations regarding the inherent innocence of children. We believe the very definition of "child" to be synonymous with "sheltered," "protected," "carefree" and "valuable." If anything, children of African countries such as Rwanda, the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Cote d'Ivoire who have all seen major conflict within the last 10 years, survive in three categories completely disassociated from the above western synonyms of childhood. There are (1) the privileged, (2) the scarred and (3) the corrupted.

(1) Considered privileged are those granted US citizenships as their birth right or those able to escape the conflict without being caught up in the deluge of refugees frantically jumping borders. In the case of citizenship, the child born in the US bears the role of family savior from a very young age. They have little to rejoice in and will never forget that they are first and foremost African, but their birth within the borders of a powerful country at least ensures their family's survival. In regards to remaining in Africa but avoiding a traumatic plight, families are usually tied to powerful leaders (corrupt or otherwise) within bordering countries and are flown out as a reaffirmation of that tie.

(2) The scarred children of Africa are so many and so tragic. They sit and watch family members die and endure torture in the most grotesque of situations. They lose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends. No one sits down with them to explain the meaning of death, no one dares offer a reason why people kill one another for they themselves cannot understand and nor are they taught that death and destruction is not supposed to be a common occurrence. They are sponges upon which everything around them is poured and they live with a deep sense of helplessness. However, the scarred, unlike the corrupted, are able to somehow maintain their innocence and overcome their hardship. A large portion of these can be found in refugee camps.

(3) Deeply disturbing is that insurgents and corrupt dictators use children to fight their battles. They recruit orphaned boys (usually this means that the regime has killed the child's family and abducted the boy for soldering or the girl to serve as a "rebel wife"), force them to partake in drug use, ensure their addiction which further ensures their dependency on the regime. This cycle starts from as early as 7 years old. By the age of 10 the children are expected to fight in the front lines using AK-47s. They are purposely used at the forefront of battle so as not to waste the more valuable adult soldiers who hide behind the inevitably mowed down children.

Angelina Jolie recently adopted a baby daughter from Ethiopia. Many, I'm sure, wonder why and if such an endeavor is meaningful. I assure you, to that one child, such an action is enormously important. We cannot weigh the value of people in numbers. If you have the ability to save only one, then you have done exponetially more for humanity than you could imagine. We must learn to value even just one person as deeply sacred and deserving of love, hope, peace and a prosperous life. I hope that Zahara will cling to her ancestry and the rich ancient culture of her people even as she is to live in the throws of an uber-industrialized nation. Until we can view others as valuable, no matter how many children rush to cameras with smiling faces, we will never see them. We will only see the conflict that has categorized them.