ADEMOLA Adesola’s Representations of Child Soldiers in Contemporary African Narratives (Representations hence) is a brilliant exposition on the impact of portraying Africa as a war-torn continent. As the book advances, that portrait is drawn both by the novelist and by the critic. It explores connotations projected by these observers in a bid to capture the social situation of the society in question: Africa. In that approach, Adesola presents an eclectic form of evaluation predicated firmly on textual manifestations. A criticism on criticism, Representations is an impressive discussion. It is such that leaves the reader to formulate their own guided judgement on the portrait of childhood, innocence, war, and rehabilitation within the context of selected Africa’s ethnopolitical wars. It is thus not an overstated fact to say that buried in-between the pages are capsules to be unboxed, based on these divergent views of the writers whose works are exemplified.
Representations will serve as a unique synthesis of perspectives on child soldier narratives. In that respect, the key words of the title are laid bare for two fundamental reasons. One, it is so done to lay a foundation of a rallying argument and proposition that the author seeks to ground. What this means is that, as the reader transports from one chapter to another, they bear in mind the lens through which the submissions exemplified are to be perceived. This is a brilliant feat in a scholarly book. Why? It creates an engagement of both authorship and readership simultaneously in the textual exploration. Two, while the authorship creates the rhetoric, the readership does the satiric. Put simply, Adesola is able to make the reader the third party in the evaluation of the child soldier portrait: while the author provides the argument, the reader judges it. This in fact pulls a critical stance on how the book should be read. It should be an open-ended collection of points of view on the condition of the child as a victim and as an aggressor.
Further, Representations raises an array of questions on the position of the authors and their critics. The referenced texts open themselves to a kind of realism where the curious reader will be interested in verifying their claims by reading them. For context, Adesola compares the image Uzodinma Iweala creates in his Beast of No Nation with that which Chris Abani underscores in his Song for Night. Prevalent in that argument is the relativeness of both writers’ points of view. He then uses their novels as a data to analyse the propositions offered by critics on the texts. The answers the reader will seek are not in the sense of questionable depictions, but in that of credibility. Whether the novels enjoy credibility will be a matter of fact finding hinged on the realism the reader brings into them. The representations of child soldiering in the novels are therefore true to the extent that an average reader connects with the social experience of childhood available to them.
Another striking demonstration of éclat in Representations is the perception of heroism. Adesola argues strongly that if the child victim is treated as dehumanised, the child aggressor is none the better. This claim is substantiated with Emmanuel Dongala’s Johnny Mad Dog, another novel on the experience of the protagonist as a child soldier. Adesola shows that talent of analysing textual evidence beyond the tenets of fiction. By diving deep down into such a humanised form of child soldiering narrative, he is able to provide a missing link between innocence and [vicarious] experience. That missing link will, for the reader of the texts, be the context of the innocence or free will in which the protagonists are victims or aggressors respectively. By and large, the idea of soldiering and recruitment is left generally as a matter of satisfying the clamant urge of the conscience.
In that same vein, Representations creates an intelligible interaction with and/or investigation of the child’s environment. It should be noted that Adesola’s persuasion is a re-imagination of the novels cited – including Ahmadou Koroumah’s Allah Is Not Obliged. In that respect, this book juxtaposes the perception of the child in the texts and their evaluation by the scholar. It seeks to offer a fresh perspective on the social conditions and conditionings by which the critics propose their respective views. That is, the book suggests that certain factors coalesce into the worlds (beyond perspective, therefore) from which the novelists draw their inspiration. These worlds are profoundly personal. And they range from ethnic malice to political anxieties. These variations deepen the insight of the reader in relation to the existing evaluations in papers and agency interventions. Still, it is pertinent to note that Adesola neither investigates the texts for credibility nor questions their criticisms: he only impeccably makes his position clear on their viability. In spite of the arguments and the buttress given to them, the reader finds something inexhaustible still about the subject on the ground. In fact, it can be argued that Adesola’s judgement informs the reader’s judgement too.
Through the lens of this book, the reader also perceives the protagonists of the texts cited as prototypical figures. But beyond that, it is left to the reader to comprehend the definition of Africa. This is the juncture where the book directly pertains to social interference. Through Ademola Adesola’s discussion, there is a re-presentation of Africa as a war-torn zone. That is, beyond the wars and their ideology, there is the question of the individual. This is implicitly why the concept of child is explored even in the purview of toxic willfulness. As a debate on the escape into adulthood, Representations serves as the yet unbroached dialogue on the paradigms that lead to the recruitment of children into the military albeit in the context of war. It is also evident, from the foregoing discussions, that it will be stereotypical to judge the child’s predisposition and disposition to war based on victimhood. That is, the social construct of childhood becomes a relative and inadequate yardstick to measure the extent of psychological initiation into the logic of savagery.
There is yet another sense in which Ademola Adesola’s Representations is an exposé on Africa. Perhaps not entirely in the sense of the portrait painted by the pessimist; or not even in the sense of a satire–although that’s quite inextricable. But so in respect of distinguishing between ethnopolitical failures/disenchantment and a paramount colonial pessimism about a working and visionary Africa. If this is accurately perceived, then the representations of child soldiering in the narratives provided will come across as highly individualistic interpretations of the continent’s problem. This individuation derives its credibility from the gamut of human environment in which the child exists. Again, the reader comes to the question of whether the child can be said to be a victim through and through or an escapist into adulthood. Or, put succinctly, the reader examines the enlightenment of the child; their adaptation into a world they can only comprehend in the sense of freedom. Through Adesola’s Representations, that freedom becomes a matter of suspense.
Similarly, the bildungsroman cause of the narratives cited is not without implications. Chief among them is the fact of rendering them an exploration into the evolution of African society. What this means for the reader is that childhood innocence and/or wistfulness, as represented, project a roundabout alteration of the future with the abrupt urgency of war. It is in this sense that Adesola’s persuasion segues to the captioning of this situation in what is called “New Wars”. As will be discovered, this nomenclature is a divide between peoples. Representations does not only examine the representation of African children in conflict, but also critiques the algorithms about war in Africa – which is none the worse than any that has been embarked upon globally.
For any kind of reader, Representations is a peep into a feasible future for Africa. It suggests that Africa herself, through failed governance, makes it possible for political criticisms of child soldier narratives to subsist. It therefore means that the reader will find relevant information on how the book appeals to social expectations. Either by framing the possibility from the present political structure or instituting an active agency for revolution, the logic of war should be done away with. It is in this respect that the novels cited become satirical. It seeks the integration of all resources to dispel the anxiety of differences. That is, for Africa, this is a wakeup call. Whether the novels portray the child as a wilful soldier or as one compelled into the militia, none of it speaks of a glorious future for the continent. It is this in-house weakness of the continent that gives vent to her fashionable perception as a failed homeland. Africa must thus look towards sanitising the interiors of her own vulnerability.
To conclude, Adesola’s book is a tremendous work of insight. It is a mélange of essays to demonstrate that there is no one way to capture the psychosis of children in war conditions. That is, the definition of human behaviour at such critical times is quite subjective. This is so because there is a past that a parochial criticism can neither reconcile with nor ameliorate. It is also fascinating to see that Adesola adopts a methodical approach to making his position clear. Each chapter is a sequence that completes the juxtaposition drawn in the preceding chapter. This chain of discussion is an effective technique that makes the reader suspend their sentiments about exonerating Africa in the problem, in the grand scheme. In all, all the texts and criticisms cohere in the conclusion that, in war situations, children’s conscription into the militia either makes or mars the recruit. However, the situation remains largely personal: no war has a creditable logic. Furthermore, war is a cause in which the fighter may fulfill the urge of their cynicism. The representations therefore sculpted should be taken as the dimensional views on an unresolvable debate.