LEZIONE 21 - Letterature contemporanee ing 28/11

Child soldier – Song for night’s Presentation

Why children become soldiers?
-Abducted or manipulated into submission- a way to escape poverty- to defend communities or get
revenge
-Roles of child soldiers
Why military forces recruit children?
Pag 10  “Were not chosen for our manual dexterity …”

Ishmael Beah  “a long way gone” (memoire where he describes his experience as child soldier in
civil war Sierra Leone)  children= killing machines
-Girl soldiers  more inclined to become child soldiers because they are less suspected of carrying
out operations/ active participation in conflicts/support role/ they experience sexual abuse, these
girls are not reintegrated in society and rejected immediately unlike boys. Spivak ?

“I like to pretend that I

do it to ease the suffering of the mutilated but still undead foes, that my
bullet to their brain or knife across their throat is mercy; but the truth is,
deep down somewhere I enjoy it, revel in it almost. Not without cause of
course: they did kill my mother in front of me, but still, it is for me, not her,
this feeling, these acts. The downside of silence is that it makes selfdelusion
hard.”

-Rehabilitation centers  children surrounded by violence can integrate those structurers. They
enjoy violence bc they are surrounded. Here they undergo medical treatments, psychological
therapy, family placement, skill learning and education. Going back to school is the most imp part.

-Discourse on colonialism Césaire 

“I say that between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance that out of all the
colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all the colonial statutes that have been drawn
up. Out of all the memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries, there could not come a
single human value.”  this summarize the situation in Africa.  the phenomenon of child soldier
happened in the West too  Momčilo Gavrić WW1 was adopted by a division of the serbian
army. He was called the son of division. he faught with them and Calvin Leon Graham.
-The Hitler Youth case  Hitler youth movement  children were inrolled in army 
-Orwell and the Child Soldier  against child soldiers
Huge campaigns about children’s right in the 2000

Last time we talked the beginning of the text, the plot of the story, narrative forms and
narrative lines  we have 2:
-ML search for the platoon and its spiritual journey towards the other world which passes
thru memories and the necessity to go back to his life and think of what he did and how to
find other world, we talked about narrative voice and how Abani tries to provide a voice for
his boy soldier. How can we hear this voice? How can we hear the voice of a zombie half
dead soldier who has no vocal cords? That’s an effort. Abani is talking the challenge of
representation of the boys seriously he invents a strategy of communication between the boy
soldier and the reader as a kind of telepathic effort at hearing speaking and communicate.
The other one is the Sign language that we see at the beginning of each section of the book.

Today  question of time and space and on hybridity.

The Critique of Abani should pay attention to the question of purity, authenticity, sexuality
and gender for children and how Abani in interested in deconstructing these stereotypical
expectations about what sexuality is in a child. He’s effort is to Disentangle ML from
stereotypes and try to display thru his own narration what humanity is, even humanity of a
12 yo boy in war.
Sometimes we hear ML using a high educated language but that is also pointing to
narrative.
Necropolitics  the term means politics that deal with death. It started to be taken on in
critical thinking proposed by Mbembe  essay not compulsory reading  explored power
of death. It means the use of social and political power to dictate who some ppl may live and
who must die. It’s power that decides on life, it’s a power that inflicts death in many diff
ways on people and on society. Membe starts from Foucault who talks about biopower and
biopolitics in History of sexuality, he talks about the kind of power and politics that
supports life against these behaviors. Mbembe takes this idea of biopower and biopolitics
and turn it in necro power and necropolitics as part of what happens in the postcolonial
world when one of the huge inheritances is poverty, war and death as a result of
Colonialism.
This text is important when we read song for night because it is a nightmare of necropower,
We have the power to kill the other and that power comes after the nightmare of colonial
domination and during postcolonial conflicts, there are critics that say  “we should not
keep asking why does this happen, we should ask what is after necropolitics?” In SFN the
after is full of emotions, of modes of being that are not recognized in the landscape of power
and devastation. How ppl survive and move beyond the power to inflict death?
SFN invite us to think about this perspective and deal with.

Passage in which ML tells what he sees in the forest devastated, he is surprised by what he
sees. He sees the impact of war on ppl and environment, he sees that much of the gen who is
surviving the war they’re broken ppl, mutilated. How can you build the future with wrecks?
Not human beings, disfigured ppl is all he sees, ppl missing body parts, these ruined ppl are
holding on to life and hope, they want to survive the war.
What is the after of war and necropower? The after for ABANI includes an irrepressible
life force of childhood, children claim their future, the power of young girls disabled
without arms or legs, joining a new dance (they don’t have legs …)

“I remember a group I saw once. Children without arms or legs or both,

men with only half a face, women with shrapnel-chewed scars for breasts—
all of them holding onto life and hope with a fire that burned feverishly in
their eyes. If any light comes from this war, it will come from eyes such as
those. Someone had found a radio and it was tuned to a BBC World Service
broadcast of Congolese highlife (famous music from 60s 70s in Congo – a forcefull
dance). There were a bunch of disabled children
dancing in a circle. A young girl with one leg standing off to the side
leaning on a stick made fun of the dancers. Challenged to do better, she
laughed, threw the stick away, and jumped into the circle. She stood still for
a moment as though she was getting her bearings, and then she began to
move. Still balanced on one leg, her waist began a fierce gyration and her
upper body moved the opposite way. Then like a crazy heron, she began to
hop around, her waist and torso still shaking. She was an elemental force of
nature. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I have never seen anything like it
before or since—a small fire sprite shaking the world and reducing grown
war-hardened onlookers to tears.” I think of her and the fire I saw burning in the others
and I realize the fire burning in me is shame; shame and fear, and it drives me to get up and
proceed. I must find my platoon.

In this passage  image of the girls  post dramatic identity in the war. Life vs death 
we see the biopower of the surviving children that will produce death in the aftermath of the
war. Abani seems to imply here that the histories of trauma must shake the world as the girl
shakes off the trauma of her mutilated body. Those stories cannot be recovered and
normalized, you should take them for what they are, you should see them as stories of
transformation and transformation and becoming are two central issues in the way in which
Abani gives everyone a chance whether it’s ppl like these, queer, children…
You can always find a new dance for this ppl (dance of life) damage should not be
stigmatized.
Instead of being horrified by body damage, by sex damage, gendered damage, psychic
damage this new dance and politics will speak of hope. Hope is a central issue here, hope to
survive for the people who are not that damage.
Hope in song for nigh comes from LOVE, love against violence is a signature in Abani’s
text, he focuses on small acts of love allow ppl to stay or become human.
We have mother love- family love- love of the companion- erotic love, sex love, these are
part of life ML. there is an episode that concerns his relationship wioth sis grandfather is
lost in time, has trouble remembering of what his gf used to teach him, he remembers pieces
in which he remembers the cultural identity igbo ppl, he does remember despite the cesura
of war that there was a moment in which he could identify with ppl, a land a language, he
tries to remember his grandfather story.
One of these is the story of the lake of love.

The story of the lake  in this passage ML doesn’t understand why he should believe to his
story
Tell me more about the lake. Does it still exist?”
“Some say it always has, in some dimensional warp.”
“Because she has to be.”
“Tell me more about the lake. Does it still exist?”
“Some say it always has, in some dimensional warp.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Even if I had, you wouldn’t believe me and I wouldn’t tell you.”  there is this passing
on knowledge but not all the know bc in mythical knowledge there is always something that
you have to find on your own. This is why the gf doesn’t want to tell. The lake of luck/love
as the center of Igbo world is something that you have to look for.
“Does everyone know about the lake?” I asked.
“No.”
“Is it sacred?”
“Very. It is the repository of human souls who are yet to gain access into
the world: a source of great power for any dibia who enters there. Legend
says that the fish in the lake guard the souls, swallowed deep in their
bellies.”
The story of a mythical lake. The nature, the planet is the source of human life and the soul
of ppl  the Igbo tradition says that all is connected. We’re not superior to anything, we are
part of a larger life whether it is animal life or water life. That is the essential teaching that
ML has to recover before he can gain access to the other world. He has forgotten the links to
his family, to nature, to the planet. ML is remembering his teaching he has to deal with what
he has done and recover the sense of connection.

Why the fish?

“Because the ancestors are concerned with the living, angels with the
running of the universe, and neither elementals nor men can be trusted.
The ancestor take care of the living and run the universe.
“And this lake is real?”
“Very.”
“But it sounds like a tall tale.”
“It is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does. Everybody does. It is real because it is a tall tale. This
lake is the heart of our people. This lake is love. If you find it, and find the
pillar, you can climb it into the very heart of God,” he said.
Nobody does. Everybody does. It is real because it is a tall tale. This
lake is the heart of our people. This lake is love. If you find it, and find the
pillar, you can climb it into the very heart of God,” he said.
“Where is this lake, Grandfather?”
He tapped me on the breastbone.
“Here. It is at the center of you, because you are the world.”
“How will I find it?”
He taught me a song. We sang it over and over, together, for the rest of
the night until I couldn’t tell where his voice ended and mine began, and
where mine ended and the river began and where the river ended and my blood began.
But I have forgotten that song. The section end with something ML wasn’t able to do. I
wish I hadn’t because I think it would
bring me much comfort to sing it. Oh well, I think, eating the last of the
fish, wondering whose soul I can taste smoking down to my stomach, and if
anyone has eaten mine yet.”

So the song is a kind of magical song.

The soul has no sign  can u comment?  passing on of winsdom
SFN is an exemplary key of “spirit writing”  a writing that “re ancestorlizes the world.. “
this song he hears from his gf re anc the world.

The possibility of life behind necro politics depends on the ability to acknowledge an
expanded area of mediation, we didn’t come from nowhere, we come from someone and we
have ancerstors.
Humor, spirituality, horrible things are put togheter.
SPACE  Why am I looking for space and time in SFN?
Both categories can be confused, they are central to whatever narrative and critical reading
you could do of a novel.
SPACE = > as man and women and children the first thing we ask is how old are you?
Where you come from?
These are difficult question for ML
Where and time are a problem for ML. Categories of time and space become some kind of
questions. Time and space are loose coordinates you can guess where one thing is located
and in what time but u never sure. Abani makes sure we are confused because he uses a
different kind of narrative. ML is lost, it’s not surprising that the narrative reflects this kind
of being lost in time and space.
We see him thru forest, crossing rivers, battlefield the location is hazy ?
He’s skirting the other world of the ancestors, a non-nation specific place, what Abani says
where is this story set? It’s region specific West Africa. The author never mention the place
of the country the story takes place but we have things that connect the story to Biafra and
Nigeria war. The civil war started in 1967-1970. References to the Igbo, we know that is the
Biafra, Nigerian civil war, because of the clash between the Hausa and Igbo, we the legent
of the Igbo the grandfather tells that locates the story, there are racist jokes about the
Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa workers. There’s a reference to a place in the north called “Sabon
Gari” “The infidel quarter” the Hausa ppl are Muslim, the Igbo ppl are Cristian catholic.
The Igbo ppl living in the Hausa territory (no separate state) they were kept in a kind of
ghetto  infidel quarter. ML father has become a Muslim from a catholic family in the
north has a further hybridity within the story of ML and it tells us how having built his own
infidel mosque was the reason why he was killed by his own catholic neighbors in the
ghetto in his own Hausa country. Some things are historically located.

References to Lexus car and Star Wars  he’s also dislocating the story in the 1960s.
TIME  ML has a difficult relationship with time. Time slips away you don’t know how
many days since something happened, at the beginning of the text we have temporary
coordinates, 1st chapter --> silence is a steady hand palm flat

“What you hear is not my voice.

I have not spoken in three years: not since I left boot camp. It has been
three years of a senseless war, and though the reasons for it are clear, and
though we will continue to fight until we are ordered to stop—and probably
for a while after that—none of us can remember the hate that led us here.
We are simply fighting to survive the war. It is a strange place to be at
fifteen, bereft of hope and very nearly of your humanity. But that is where I
am nonetheless. I joined up at twelve. We all wanted to join then: to fight.
There was a clear enemy, and having lost loved ones to them, we all wanted
Revenge”
If you are anything like Ijeoma you will say that I sound too old for my
age. She always said that: said, because although her name in Igbo means
Good Life, she died young, a year ago, aged fourteen, her wiry frame torn
apart by an explosion”.

we have temporal markers here: “three years”, etc.. but we don’t know how to locate those
temporal markers. There are explanations of why he’s lost in time he ascribes this to his
muteness. ML measures time in different way.
Something tells us about time  symbolic presence in the text of what he calls my most
treasured possession (the watch). The watch  is broken. It was his father watch.
What happens when the father dies in a traditional Igbo family?
The father’s father becomes head of the family and that happened to ML.
His uncle let ML have the watch because it was broken not out of a gesture of love.
The value of the object is NOT that of keeping the time but is emotional and the time
ticking becomes irrelevant.

Danger is a deeper silence

“Time is standing still—literally. My watch, an old Timex that belonged to

my father, is fucked. Already broken when he died, it was the only thing of
his that my uncle let me inherit. The watch has one of those expanding
bracelets made of a metal that was painted gold once, and its face is a
mottled brown. Since I’ve had it, the second and hour hands have fallen off,
both nestling like tired armatures in the bottom of the cracked glass case.”