One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [18]
Paul took an active interest in what would happen to him next. He expressed hope for himself if he could go to school, hope that he could have a good life, as a mechanic, he suggested, if he could get out of the center and go to study.
“There is always work for a mechanic here,” he said. “The roads are bad, cars are always broken.” He smiled because he had seen the car in which I pulled up, a busted up taxi that my translator (who was a cab driver too) borrowed to take me around. When I mentioned our car, he laughed and suggested to the translator that he let him fix it, even though he had not been trained as a mechanic yet.
I didn’t really know how to think of him at first, this little boy who was quick to laugh and smile, who had fought with one of the most brutal militias in the world, with some of the worst killers of the twentieth century, who called himself a soldier and denied that he could be afraid, and who desperately wanted to leave the life of war and go to school.
He had a lot of self-confidence, which I was inclined to call a defense mechanism against all the stresses he had experienced. As defense mechanisms go, it seemed a pretty reasonable one. He had learned not only that he could not rely on adults to have his best interests at heart—adults had abducted him, after all—he had learned that he could have power over adults when he was a soldier. He could take control of his own situation, for good or ill, and behave like an adult himself. Considering his regard for others at the time we talked, I hope he will continue to nurture the impulse towards kindness. It could easily go the other way. He had been trained to kill and told it was okay to do so. I have no way of knowing what happened to Paul—fighting in Bukavu has displaced many residents since we met. He could have been compelled to rejoin the militia, or targeted by another army. He could have stopped being thoughtful of other children, started getting in fights. I like to think he got what he wanted, the chance to go to school.
“I don’t like it here, in the center,” he said over and over. “I want to leave. I don’t have anything to say to you except that I want to leave here and to study.” I imagine he did not like the confines of the compound, nor the boredom and uncertainty of waiting for parents or other relatives to be found.
Paul was vulnerable for recruitment because he was physically developed enough to carry a gun and because he did not have the same rights or protections as an adult (though adults are also forced to join armies). He was recruited because he was a child, not in spite of being a child. When the soldiers told him he would be accused of helping them steal, to whom could he appeal? Adolescents are often mistrusted. Paul sensed his position was weak and the soldiers were in a position of strength, so he made what I see as a survival calculation: stick with the strength, go with the soldiers. Otherwise, become a victim, either of the soldiers or of your own community who will suspect you.
He could be filled up with political propaganda because he respected authority and understood what was expected of him. After escaping the army on his own, failed by adults who could neither protect him from the military nor get him out of it, he found himself in a center waiting for other adults to come to his aid. But I believe Paul is quite capable of helping himself, if his altruistic impulses can be encouraged and he can have access to the resources he needs to get an education. He has not given up on the world or on the adults around