PASS IT ON!_®

"Musicians and Children of War"
An Interview with Rashid Peters and Emile Toby

Conducted by Phil Hoose

From Pass It On! Issue #41 (Spring 2002)

Throughout the decade of the 1990s, the West African nation of Sierra Leone was embroiled in a Civil War so ghastly and brutal that it seems to have shocked even the human rights organizations that tried to monitor it. In 2000, Radio Netherlands described the abuses as "...among the most serious in modern day warfare. Many people in the provinces have known nothing but unimaginable brutality for the past nine years".

It was, basically, a battle over diamonds fought increasingly by children. Thousands of children were siezed, drugged, tortured, armed, and compelled to fight and kill by one faction or another. Rape was widespread. Two years after a fragile truce was declared between the government and the main rebel faction in 1999, thousands of traumatized children set off on foot to dislocation camps in Freetown, the capitol, where many still live. "Sometimes I'm just sitting and I start shouting," explained one sixteen-year-old veteran named Ibraham to an interviewer. "It feels like my head is blowing up. When that happens, even if you are my friend, I feeling like pulling my pistol out and shooting you."

Rashid Peters, seventeen, and Emile Toby, sixteen, are two of the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. War shattered their happy village lives, blew apart their families and made soldiers of them when they were adolescents. In a Freetown camp, they now try to hold their nightmares at bay while they struggle to fashion a future. They find that music and song are powerful tools. Emile is a drummer and Rashid, a keyboardist/singer/songwriter. Both grew up in villages with strong musical traditions. Rashid, in particular, uses songwriting to confront his demons. He shares them with youth around the world on the World Wide Web. 

I linked up with these boys through my association with the International Education and Resource Network (iEARN). iEARN is a worldwide online network that helps children KŠ12 and their teachers develop online, community-building projects. Through iEARN's Child Soldier Project, I became aware of a remarkable twenty-five-year-old teacher from Sierra Leone named Andrew Benson Greene who had set out to teach teenaged war veterans computer skills. He was funding this from his own shallow pocket, using broken-down computers at grubby computer cafes in Freetown. Andrew and I became online friends. When I asked if any of his students used music as part of their healing process, he quickly named Emile and Rashid. Both boys quickly expressed interest in CMN, and agreed to be interviewed for Pass it On! 

While Rashid and Emile were understandably reluctant to discuss the specific events of their wartime experiences, they were eager to discuss their family lives, their love of music, and the difficulty of their healing process. They also spoke of their hopes and of their determination to end the wartime victimization of children by adults. This interview, pieced together through a month-long series of online conversations spanning half the globe, made me realize, among many other things, just what a miracle the World Wide Web truly is. 

PIO!: Emile and Rashid, please tell us a little bit about what was life like before you were conscripted. 

Emile: I am a Mende by tribe, and we belong to the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone. I was born sixteen years ago in Mano Dase, a small village in the Moyamba District. My early schooling began at the Saint Francis Primary School in Bo, my country's second capital city. 

Rashid: I belong to the Mende ethnic group. I am part of a ruling family on my mother's side. My parents are religious and I was brought up within the Christian family. In my first years, I lived with my family in the Kenema Township. From childhood days I have been eating our staple food: rice with sauce. Even if I eat bread all day, I still eat some rice because without it I won't feel satisfied. My village was quiet as we were growing up. There was a single bicycle and we admired it as the cyclist proudly sped along the narrow footpath. I thought of having a bicycle and later dreamed of studying at high school and coming back to be a paramount chief in my village. We imagined the life of the city where there were big cars, buses, and airplanes. 

When I was a child, the thing I enjoyed most was when we children gathered together to play at night under the moonshine or at twilight, singing traditional songs of our great-grandparents, dancing, and telling nice and fearful stories about nature and the dead. 

PIO!: What are some of your earliest memories of music in your villages? 

Emile: My mother sang for me when I was a child because if she left me to go to the market, I would cry. So she put me behind her back, jumping little by little and singing me songs to keep me quiet until I fell asleep. I always liked playing drums, too, especially that which we call batta. My primary school teacher taught me how to play. I played it with both palms knocking hard on the flat surface of the leopard skin. It produced a strong sound that made young girls shake and dance and hug me. I also played another local instrument called kallay, which you hit with slim sticks. 

Rashid: My grandfather and grandmother often lulled me to sleep with songs of praise and warfare. Also, when praise-singers come to our village to applaud the work of my grandfather, who was our paramount chief, I also shared in the glory of these praises, for all the names of his offspring were mentioned. Music in my village helps to ease the burden of hard work on the farm. But there are more important times of music, such as during the season of harvest, or to amuse strangers who come to the village. We make music to celebrate quests or after successful traditional initiations, when a colorful crowd of girls and women dance to the rhythms of cowry shells. The flock of these young girls, initiates of the village, would dress in raffia skirts and uniformed brassieres made of palm fronds. They would be followed by a crowd of well-wishers. The fine voices of these initiates rose above the voice of the crowd and the drumming sound. 

I also learned songs of praise and songs of war, of bravery and of heroes, of losers in battle, and of lovers separating. There were songs in praise of motherhood sung by a child. The child calls upon God to bless his mother. We lavish these praises because mothers conceived us through pain and brought us children to the world. I learned to respect my mother, too, and praise her. The local artist nicknamed "Steady Bongo" sang the song in one of our local languages, Mende. 

PIO!: When were you first aware that trouble was coming? 

Emile: I was seven years old when the war broke out. I was at primary school in Bo. The first attack of the town made us believe the rumor that rebels had really entered the shores of the country. After repeated attacks, my father was shot and killed by rebels and my mother disappeared, although some people in our neighborhood said they saw her running away for cover. She left me, anyway. 

Rashid: In 1991, when the war broke out, I was boy of six years. It was rare to see a man in combat dress before then, and when we did he was not carrying a gun, so we did not think that soldiers were dangerous. We soon began to feel the sense of danger when armed troops began to hold secret meetings in our village. Kenema was a major target for the Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F) rebels. Our community was a place where local hunters bred and survived. My father was one of them. He was a religious man who took hunting both as a hobby and a way to survive. From a young age I followed him to track down and hunt animals for food. We caught squirrels, antelopes, and sometimes monkeys. When the war persisted, our village elders entrusted the defense of the land to the local hunters. At that time came two fierce rebel attacks. My father abandoned me, and my family was all scattered to unknown places. 

PIO!: How old were you when you became a soldier, and how did it happen? 

Rashid: I was twelve in 1997, when I began to show early muscles. I had learned hunting skills whilst tagging behind my father to the thick forest. One of the local leaders in our community hand-picked me together with two of my classmates when we returned from holidays. We were in support of the government, the people, and the local community. The government recruited us to flush out the rebel enemies. We young local hunters were called kamajors. We became spies for our people and took the risk of getting secrets on the enemy side. Our leaders told us that we should fight for our land and freedom. They told us the secrets of the village during our conscription in the thicket of the bush. We were told that these secrets must be kept strictly if we wanted to avoid the enemy's bullets when they attacked. For two years we were unable to go to school, just to get rid of the rebels. 

Emile: With my father dead and my mother gone, I had no better option than to accept service as a vigilante in support of the government forces that fought against the rebels. My conscription with other boys of my age was done in a place called Reservation close to where the army headquarters was. We stayed in an enclosed building undergoing physical and manly exercises, push-ups and squats, punching sandbags. We, of course, had free food that was cooked like porridge; and sometimes we went without it, when rebels ambushed the supply trucks on the way from Freetown. When the government forces that trained us heard about the possible attacks, we were quickly given rifles, taught to cock the gun, aim at and shoot a target. I learned this soon enough to prepare me for a fight against my enemies: the rebels who had killed my father. 

PIO!: What was war like? 

Emile: I kept in my heart a dual purpose for fighting. First, to avenge my father's death; then, to free my country and rescue my mother, whom people had rumored to be wandering around rebel territories, hiding from place to place, trying to survive. Even though I was not given drugs, I had the drug of revenge in me. I wanted to be in front of the fighting force. Finally, I had the opportunity and I made use of it. My thundering shout and my battle cry made the rebel enemies weak and gave courage to my companion child soldiers. Today, Bo town is free, Sierra Leone is in peace, and I am happy to be part of those who made it happen. We stood our ground, even when the adult soldiers who trained us changed sides to join the enemies and instead fight against the civilians and against the country. 

PIO!: Did the songs of your village childhood ever come back to you when you were out there alone? 

Rashid: Yes, the songs of my youth often came back to me. I sang some that I remembered and mumbled those that were less familiar. They gave me courage, but they did not help me recover in times that were tough because of the threats of guns and times of hungry stomach. 

PIO!: When the war ended, were you able to find your surviving parents? 

Rashid: After contributing to the defense of my village, I walked on bare feet to the city Freetown where it was rumored that my parents had escaped. I first stayed in a displaced community. My greatest concern was to see my parents and relatives. I was enrolled in a choir. I went to entertainment centers to play guitar and keyboard and sing for guests so that I could earn my livelihood. In the Christian communities in Freetown, music competitions were hosted. I entered such competitions and won fabulous prizes. Then in November 2001, I caught up with Andrew Greene, the iEARN coordinator in Sierra Leone, just after his return from Beijing, China. I had heard his name on the local radio FM 98.1. They said that he could help young people in Sierra Leone reach out to their peers by way of tele-education. Through the family tracing programs that Andrew and his iEARN colleagues were involved in, I was able to meet my parents at last. 

Emile: Yes, after six years, I finally met my mother again through the family tracing programs in which Andrew Greene was involved. I was interviewed at a displaced camp. I told my story and described my mother, naming the time and town where we separated. Much publicity was made on the local news and the radio. My photo was placed on the front page of the newspaper together with six other boys' in similar conditions. I was able to see my mother, but it was hard for her to recognize me because I had begun to grow a beard. 

PIO!: What are your lives like now? 

Rashid: I now live with my two sisters in a displaced community. The things I now love to do are reading and writing, and playing football. Most of all, I love working with computers. My connection with Andrew Greene and iEARN is really a turning point in my life. I will never forget his role in reuniting my family. Now he is teaching us ICT (information and communication technology) and internet skills. This will help me reach many young people around the world. 

But there are so many frustrations with the computers! We have no working computer of our own. When Andrew can afford our fare, he pays for a public bus that is very slow. We get off in the center of town and walk to a computer cafe, where we have to wait in a long line. The cafe owner allows people working in high offices and big NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to skip ahead in the line. When it's finally our time, the server is often down and we must keep refreshing it. The cafe owner will not refund our money because he says we managed to log in at first. It is so frustrating that we often want to give up, but Andrew won't let us. Then the internet fees go up and up and we find it hard to be in touch with other youths around the world. It just goes on and on. We need money for our own center. 

Emile: I currently attend the Technical Training Institute in Freetown. I am hoping to be an architect to rebuild the shattered homes in my war-ruined country. Since my years of enrollment in iEARN Sierra Leone, my assignment is as an outreach facilitator. I now have basic experience in ICT. 

My connection with Andrew has changed my life forever. I was lucky to be located at the displaced camp and have my mother traced back to me. My connection with iEARN has taught me many things about friendship. Through the internet, I connect with other youths throughout the world who care about us and sometimes write to us to sympathize with our situation. I meet many people whose faces I don't know, but I know their hearts as good people. But as a student, it is hard for me to go to the net because it is so expensive to go to the cafe. We pay more money to send or to receive e-mail from youth around the world than we have for food to eat. We need a lab of our own. 

PIO!: Is music still a big part of your life? 

Rashid: It is the only thing left with me that keeps me going. It helps me share my moments of agony and grief and loss at fighting aimlessly. Although it makes me remember, it also helps me heal my wounds. I write songs as a way to express my feelings. I play keyboard and guitar, and I perform my songs to people at concerts and as part of a religious group. Sometimes I receive prizes for my music; and I am fortunate, at times, that people can listen and appreciate what I sing. Some people seem sorry for me and other people don't seem to care whether I live or die. I have always loved to sing in choirs. 

Emile: I do not write songs, but I sing along with Rashid and other friends. I like traditional African music and sing with a bass voice. I still like to play the ebattai drum. When I went to secondary school (Saint Andrew's Secondary), in between years of service as a vigilante, I joined the dance troop and played batta. The dance troop won competitions that gave us support. Back then, I also joined in the choir of the Catholic Youths and sang Mende songs with a high-pitched voice; and the bass voice was a boost to some of the female voices. It was sometimes odd, I am afraid to confess. My skills began to die out in the war. 

PIO!: What are your hopes and dreams now? 

Rashid: I am determined to study hard and enter university and secure a good job. During the troubled years of war, I began to realize that when I reached the age of twenty, I would be way behind in my education due to the many years that had slipped by and been wasted in war. My chances are limited, and this affects my hopes. Andrew tells us one thing about funding, and then it just fades away and there is no positive result from the e-mails we listen to him read aloud to us. We are all frustrated. I want to continue my education to be a good citizen in my country and to later help others in less fortunate circumstances. I need to contact people who are willing to upgrade the lives of war-affected children through support and scholarship. Then, I can attain the next step. 

Emile: As I was growing up, I did not expect years of school and fun, because life was difficult for me when rebels killed my father. My mother was unable to pay my fees. I knew straight away that trouble was ahead of me. But still, even as I was growing up in my village, I wanted to be an engineer in the future. But I spent years as a vigilante that I could have spent in school. My hope, now, is to get sponsorship to finish my education and still to become an engineer. My next step is to continue to communicate when the support is available, and to contact friends, young and old, to help me make meaning out of my life. For reaching my dreams, I need support. I look forward to marrying and fatherhood. But my greatest hope and dream for now is to see the world be peaceful with respect for all lives on earth. 

PIO!: Do memories of war still come back to you? 

Emile: It is very hard for me to forget about the bad times of war. Sometimes I get nightmares. 

Rashid: Bad memories of war do come back to me; and forgetting about it is painfully gradual. 

PIO!: Would you fight again? 

Emile: I hope that no more attacks happen. I have seen enough fighting and I will run away for safety if attacks begin again in my country. We hope for peace, and no more fighting. 

PIO!: I'm sure you're aware that my country was recently attacked. The scale of the attacks is new to us. Many here are frightened and confused. Have you any thoughts for us? 

Emile: I tell you, fighting is bad and I want the young people in America not to support Bush in fighting. Instead, let them ask for peace even with enemies, and love in all the nations. America can get peace if they approach every country in the same way without any bias.

Rashid: I was really sorry for what happened in the U.S. during the terrorist attack. The U.S. has always been for us the symbol of freedom. Many people have run away from their countries to seek refuge and safety in the U.S. I, myself, have always dreamed of going to the U.S. after all that we went through. Now, I recommend that in order for the U.S. to attain peace, they must look for peaceful options first and extend hands of friendship to countries that are against their policies. The U.S. should also encourage more and more peace groups in the country to work for peace and spread the word in unity with others round the world. The U.S. must not act alone. To promote peace in the world, the U.S. must treat all nations equally, without fear or favor. 

PIO!: After all you've been through, do you still have hope for a peaceful world? 

Rashid: Yes, we still hold on to hopes of a peaceful world. Experience of war has taught us that peace is of more value to mankind than war. Having seen much fighting and killing, it is best to refrain from fighting. All I have to say is, war is not bravery. Achieving peace as young people is far better and takes far more courage than having to pick up a gun and fight.