"Fight like Soldiers
Die like children "
Intro
In the documentary, Romeo Dallaire wanted to help finish child soldiery. Rwanda is a place where kids are/ forced to be soldiers and fight in wars. Dallaire was so eager to help those kids, he wanted them to live like children and not like adults.
Psychological view
If you look at the documentary from a psychological point of view there are a lot of facts that led those children become these angry soldiers instead of being innocent kids.
- everything the kids did was because of the genocide that happened. They had no other choice. The government didn't helped them in any way so they had to sacrifice their childhood to do become soldiers.
- Dallaire interview some of the kids and got to know about how some kids didn't wanted to live that way. They were forced to be what they became. Instead of playing and doing crazy things that kids do, Rwanda kids became these soldiers who had to protect their own home.
- The kids had mixed feeling they were angry, fierce but at the same time they were scared yet excited.
- Those boys aged 13-15 had guns and bullets instead of books and toys in their hands. They had no other choice. "there was nothing we could do by sating back, so why not fight" said one of the kids
- They had no food, no water, no fuel. People were rotting and dying, so some kids made a choice to fight.
- Konny- person who kidnapped over 30,000 kids. He traumatized these boys to first feel guilty by kiling thier own parents!
Sociological view
To find out a Sociological point of view we can compare Rwanda kids by the others.
- The genocide that happened forced kids to leave their childhood and become soldiers. Government didn't help them at all, people were dying and the only they to stand up was for those kids to leave their childhood and become serious soldiers. The kids didn't even knew how to hold a gun and they were forced to kill their enemies-those kids were terrified.
- Romeo Dallaire gathered with some of his other colleagues to help these kids. he interviewed them and some of their instructors. after the interview he was so confused by them. Some of the kids complained on being soldiers but some were so energetic and fierce about the power they had even though those boys were still kids. One of the instructor said they were "trigger-happy" because they had kids as soldiers, like not an adult would kill a kid soldier. He also said "as long as there is a war they won't stop recruiting kids" he didn't seemed ashamed at all.
Why wouldn't the government help Rwanda? Why were they unaware of what was going on? Most importantly why did the kids ended up as soldiers, weren't there were actual adults to take that place and fight?
Anthropological View
An anthropological way is to see what the cultures teaches the kids on what to do and what not to.
- it seemed like it was in their society to let kids become soldiers, they were okay with that.
- Konny, he kidnapped over 30,000 kids both girls and boys. Girls for sex and boys to become soldiers. his way of teaching was that he used to force kids to kill their own parents, now kids felt guilty of what they did, they didn't had any way to go back to what they had done. So now he let the kids believe he was there for them as a mentor and that they could trust him and that made kids to develop a strong link between him and the kids. He thought them how to use weapons properly how to kill someone. In reality he didn't really cared bout those kids, he thought that kids are easy to recruit.
Psychology best explains the event in the movie
i think the way psychologists find what happened, what was actually the reason that led the kids became soldiers explains everything. Looking at their past, the consequences they had to face and the facts that really made kids take this decision explains why they did that.
They had to face so many difficulties in surviving, people were rotting, were dying they didnt had any food nor water, no help from anywhere at all. These are all the things that led the society as a whole to take that stand.