The Lost Boys Of Sudan Analysis

1600 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of education as an important social institution

Introduction
The ‘Lost boys of Sudan' is a common name given to more than 20000 boys of Dinka and Nuer tribal groups. The research narrates the struggle of refugees, the need for conflict resolution and various political concepts. The ‘lost boys' refer to three young boys who fled from their country, Sudan, during the civil war and sought refuge in other countries. Their story depicts violent events that occurred during the second civil war in Sudan. The war mainly affected the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups of Southern Sudan (Ajak, 2006).
This research paper will provide a detailed comparison of views between a typical American and the lost boys of Sudan, towards some political concepts. The concepts include; (1) war, (2) role of women, (3) the purpose of government, (4) the role of interest groups and international organizations, and (5) education.
War
The lost boys of Sudan view war as bad luck, since they have no control over violence in their region. The lost boys did not choose to be born within these two groups, and are not willing to participate in violent activities, in their environment. The boys are not supportive of the war, and it is from this reason that they are fleeing away from their home country to avoid recruitment into militia groups (Ajak, 2006). Therefore, war causes separation of family members and disintegration of ethnic groups. People lose their ethnic identities during instances of war as they seek refuge in new environments. According to the boys, war leads to premature death, fear, hunger, disability, violence, displacement and diseases. War exposes people to more harm than during peaceful periods (Ajak, 2006). The lost boys feel that war is a threat to their lives and schooling. It is a tradition for...

... middle of paper ...

...ts in the struggle to save their lives in the war torn Sudan. The determined boys travel thousands of miles where they face starvation, wild animals, thirst, invasions and diseases. In their tough journey to Kenyan refugee camps, they lose their friends, relatives and property along the way. Once in the camps the political nature of Kenya is evident where instead of the boys getting solace in the camps they are faced by bigger problems of lack of food, medical care and poor housing. The paper explores the comparison between various political concepts as viewed by typical Americans and the lost boys. The concepts used include the purpose of government, role of interest groups and international organization, war, role of women and education. These aspects are discussed to depict the diverse perspective that exists between the American people and the lost boys of Sudan.

Show More
Related

  • Ishmael Beah's Recovery

    786 Words  | 2 Pages

    This psychological memoir is written from the eyes of Ishmael Beah and it describes his life through the war and through his recovery. War is one of the most horrific things that could ever happen to anyone. Unwilling young boy soldiers to innocent mothers and children are all affected. In most instances the media or government does not show the horrific parts of war, instead they focus on the good things that happen to make the people happy and not cause political issues. In his book A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah dispels the romanticism around war through the loss of childhood innocence, the long road of emotional recovery and the mental and physical affects of war.

    Read More

  • Jon D. Holtzman's Nuer Conflicts

    1457 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Nuer journeys, Nuer lives : Sudanese refugees in Minnesota by Jon D. Holtzman, it is about the Nuer, people who are a Nilotic ethnic group and originated near the Nile river. The book explains the migration of the Nuer to the United States through the case study- Nuer of Sudan. This is one of the most popular case studies in anthropology that shows the Nuer’s traditional life. The book binds together the Nuer with new developments coming from the immigration of many other Nuer that came to the U.S. in the 1990s as refugees, usually from civil war in southern Sudan. Sudan has many war conflicts and always constantly in war because of religion, political, and social differences. The Nuer are always in conflicts which lead to the loss of

    Read More

  • Analysis of Acts of Faith by Phillip Caputo

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this novel, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world try to bring aid into an area of Sudan so dangerous that the UN will not enter it. The main characters are Douglas Braithwaite, an American aviator who flies medical supplies and food to Southern Sudan; Fitzhugh Martin, a former professional soccer player who hopes relief work will give his directionless life a purpose; Wesley Dare, a cynical, pragmatic pilot hiding his true loving persona; Quinette Hardin, an Iowan Christian who goes to Africa to spread her faith and ends up liberating slaves from Arab raiders and falling in love with a Sudanese rebel commander; and the head antagonist, Ibrahim Idris Nur-el-Din, an Arab warlord whose obsessive quest for a concubine makes him wonder if the Muslim holy war against Sudan's southern blacks is right.

    Read More

  • Mark Bixler's The Lost Boys of Sudan

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since 1983, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudanese government have been at war within the southern region of Sudan. This brutal conflict has ravaged the country claiming hundreds of lives and exiling a vast number of the southern Sudanese people. Most of these outcasts were young men aging between five and twelve years of age who returned home from tending cattle to see their village being attacked and their fellow villagers being killed by government militias . These boys fled, not knowing what they would encounter on the journey to escape the violence in their own country. Hungry, frightened, and weak from their long and hellish journey, the boys reached refugee camps outside of Sudan. Even though many young men were killed on their journeys to and from refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, many remained at these camps for numerous years. While in the camps, they heard news of an opportunity to travel to the United States for hope and a promise of a better life. In Mark Bixler’s The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of The Refugee Experience, Bixler depicts the story of these young men or Lost Boys’ and their determination to receive an education that would not only transform their lives but also the lives of their kinsmen.

    Read More

  • A Long Walk To Water

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Lost Boys of Sudan was about 17,000 boys. Some of the boys died of starvation hunger, dehydration or by getting eaten by animals during the journey to a place of safety. Although this may seem like a made-up story. it wasn’t. It was all real to salva, a lost boy in Sudan who survived the journey. This young boy (Salva) endured long walks to camps across the country, becoming a leader and making a positive impact on water in sudan which was a consistent struggle in Sudan. This boy has been written about in a book called “A Long Walk To Water” By Linda Sue Park. Salva’s life wasn’t easy as we read in the book. Salva has lived and survived with these survival factors: Hope, Persistent and Bravery.

    Read More

  • The House On Mango Street Case Study Essay

    1967 Words  | 4 Pages

    The consequences of Sierra Leone civil war are children like Ishmael and his friends “by pass villages by walking through the nearby bushes” (Beach 37). By hiding behind bushes and sneaking by villages that is how they “would be safe and avoid causing chaos” (Beah 37). This civil war consequences were having people not only to be living in fear but fear of being caught or be in a village that gets under attack. Another consequence was losing loved ones, friends, and neighbors. But the final consequence was turning children and teenagers into child soldiers. (word count

    Read More

  • Impact of War and Violence on Children in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Garbarino recognizes, the effects of war and such violence is something that sticks with a child and remains constant in their everyday lives. The experiences that children face involving war in their communities and countries are traumatic and long lasting. It not only alters their childhood perspectives, but it also changes their reactions to violence over time. Sadly, children are beginning to play more of a major role in wars in both the...

    Read More

  • Resilience in Northern Kenya: A Village's Struggle

    2204 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Northern Kenya a small village of Sudanese refugees have made a makeshift village, which has served as their permanent housing for the past twenty years. This village displays the kind of poverty that is predictably featured in Time Magazine on a semi-regular basis: mud walls are adorned by straw roofs, ribs can be easily counted on shirtless bodies, flour is a resource precious enough to be rationed, and a formidable desert can be seen in all directions. What do you see when you look at this village? Do you see a primitive society, struggling to survive in a world that has long made struggling for survival antiquated, do you see the cost of western colonialism, do you see a people deprived of the dignity of humanity, do you just

    Read More

  • God Grew Tired Of Us Essay

    576 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1992, the conflict of the Sudanese Civil War resulted in the mass migration of thousands of Sudanese boys. This huge group of children were without adult supervision and care, and they travelled a total of one thousand miles through the Sahara desert. Many of them died of starvation and exposure during their journey. They were given the name the Lost Boys.

    Read More

  • God Grew Tired Of Us Analysis

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film God Grew Tired of Us is a documentary about the journey of a couple of Sudanese “lost boys” to their new lives in the United States. The film is divided in two parts. The first one gives the historical background of what led to the boys’ situation at the time the documentary was being filmed and what their lifestyle at Kakuma camp looks like. It starts by recounting the events that led up to the Second Sudanese Civil War of 1983. The conflict was fought along ethno religious lines between the Muslim North and the non-Muslim South. By 1983, 27,000 people, including the lost boys, from the South were forced to flee as the Sudanese government, held in the hands by northerners, announced that all men in south should be killed regardless of age. After a short stay in an Ethiopian refugee camp, the boys finally arrived to Kakuma refugee

    Read More

  • The Lost Boys And The Lost Boys

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Sudanese Civil War lasted approximately twenty years and destroyed whole villages along with the lives of entire families. “They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky” tells the true story of the Sudanese civil war and the Lost Boys swallowed up by gunfire and hatred. The Lost Boys was the ‘nickname’ given to the thousands of children that were orphaned or relocated during the bloody Sudanese civil war. The Lost Boys includes Benson Deng, Alepho Deng, and Benjamin Ajak who wrote the novel provides their opinions and understandings of several political concepts. These political concepts have multiple views by the Sudanese people. When brought to comparison by the American culture the perspectives are not that different.

    Read More

  • Child Soldiers in Africa

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    Child soldier is a worldwide issue, but it became most critical in the Africa. Child soldiers are any children under the age of 18 who are recruited by some rebel groups and used as fighters, cooks, messengers, human shields and suicide bombers, some of them even under the aged 10 when they are forced to serve. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically make obedient soldiers. Most of them are abducted or recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children feel that rebel groups become their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family members who have been killed by the war. Sometimes they even forced to commit atrocities against their own family (britjob p 4 ). The horrible and tragic fate of many unfortunate children is set on path of war murders and suffering, more nations should help to prevent these tragedies and to help stop the suffering of these poor, unfortunate an innocent children.

    Read More

  • Child Soldiers

    2240 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults” (“Child Soldiers” 1). This quotation by Olara Otunnu explains that children are forced into becoming weapons of war. Children under 18 years old are being recruited into the army because of poverty issues, multiple economic problems, and the qualities of children, however, many organizations are trying to implement ways to stop the human rights violation.

    Read More

  • Salva Kiir's Speech 'Former Nelson Mandelas'

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tadesse, Debay. Post-independence South Sudan: the challenges ahead. ISPI-ISTITUTO PER GU STUDI DI POLITICA INTERNAZIONALE. February 2012.no.46.

    Read More

  • The Effect of War in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.

    Read More

More about The Lost Boys Of Sudan Analysis

Open Document