We the Young Fighters

"We the Young Fighters is at once a history of a nation, a story of a war, and the saga of downtrodden young people and three pop culture superstars. The extraordinary narrative begins centuries ago, with the capture mainly of men by European slavers and the emergence of slave wives across the land that would become Sierra Leone. Soon after it became a colony, British overlords discovered diamonds and empowered Paramount Chiefs to help dig them up. Once in power, President Siaka Stevens took this setup and ran with it, creating a personal diamond empire, keeping the government feeble, managing a brutal state security force, and allowing exclusion and inequality to skyrocket. Stevens' violent, grasping style of rule, and his subjugation of the nation's youth, not only set the stage for devastating warfare. It also fueled a world where certain pop culture icons held magnetic power. In the 1970s, Bob Marley and other reggae musicians entranced alienated youth. Many sought become 'conscious' of underlying realities by mixing reggae music with heavy marijuana use, Rastafarian ideas and political critique. During the 1980s, movies featuring John Rambo, the ex-Green Beret, mesmerized youngsters in diamond mines, villages and cities. The music and style of rap megastar Tupac Shakur entered Sierra Leone in the 1990s, enthralling male youth. The world that Marley, Rambo and Tupac collectively described configured life as perversely and cruelly structured, where those in the right are blamed while the powerful exploit and attack them. Sierra Leone's civil war (1991-2002) featured terror tactics, child soldiering and persistent drug use, infused throughout with popular culture. Bob Marley's messages captivated Foday Sankoh and his Revolutionary United Front, as well as fighters on the government side. Across the arc of war, Marley and marijuana were rebel mainstays. Rambo movies became military training films. "Tupac tactics" arose as a punishing approach to personalized warfare. Rebels frequently wore tshirts featuring Marley or Tupac, Rastafarian dreadlocks and bandannas that Rambo and Tupac made famous. Once the war expired, Marley's "Get Up Stand Up" transformed from a war cry to a reminder to believe in yourself while Tupac fans turned to his messages about pride and dignity. Accessibly written and thoroughly researched, We the Young Fighters describes how Tupac, Rambo and, especially, Marley wove their way into the conflict fabric of Sierra Leone, from the pre-war landscape dominated by chiefs, politicians and emasculated youth; across a war featuring terror, drugs, diamonds, young soldiers and citizen resilience; and into a post-war era spotlighting the quiet endurance of young people. The book ends by extracting lessons from Sierra Leone that promise to improve current approaches to governance, youth alienation and terror groups globally"--