Peeling away the Face of Civil War
The conflict in Sierra Leone began in March 1991 when armed combatants crossed the border from Liberia into the South-Eastern part of the country. Histories project that the initial attack was the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), or members of the Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front (RUF), whichever the reality of these narratives, the attackers killed under the guise of the RUF with the military and material support of the NPFL. This civil war is extremely complex amongst the horrific simplicity of mass murder. Tracking political alliances is slippery while attempting to understand their military and economic agenda is even more confusing. Throughout the violent changing of political hands the population suffered. Child soldiers raged in aggressive throngs, mutilating civilians, murdering and plundering. Drugged and manipulated from RUF forces, the landscape of Sierra Leone was a murderous playground, bloodied and wreaking in corruption.
This chaos was the fabric of the 1990s until UNAMSIL (United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone). Formed following the October 1999 United Nations Security Council resolution to field a peace keeping mission in Sierra Leone in response to the signing of the Lome Peace accord on 7 July 1999, resulted in the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers to the civil war zone. There was not straight victory, that is unrealistic, instead, these peacekeepers, which surmounted to 17,500, led a grueling disarmament process that concluded the 10 year civil war in January of 2002. Over 27,000 (pro government) CDF forces and 18,000 RUF/AFRC had turned in their weapons which were burned ceremoniously in Makeni. Of these ex-combatants, most were children.
Saidu M. Koroma, a young man from Yele Town, Gbonkolenken lived close to Makeni, he was one such youth that endured and survived this war.
Musical Roots
Saidu M. Koroma lives in a rural chiefdom in the North Western interior of Sierra Leone. He is a secondary school student who attends S.D.A Secondary School in the center of Yele. He is musical with strong aspirations to overcome his troubled experiences during the civil war that raged throughout Sierra Leone on the brink of the 21st century. While interviewing him I watched his hands, not always his eyes, because it was too painful to know his story from his eyes. His hands were bent, unnaturally angled, which I knew from observance were because someone had broken them. I did not ask further about his life during the war, only let him speak and share with comfort. His war story is not mine to own and exploit through the access of the internet, instead, he will tell you in his music, because then, his story will belong to him.
An Ambitious Man in a Landscape of Despair
Saidu M. Koroma immediately drew my attention at the Guest House in Yele. The 19 year old caretaker was lost in a book entitled “The Millionaire Mind.” I knew immediately that Saidu was driven and an undeniably hard-worker. It did not take long for the conversation to drift towards music and the meaning of music in Saidu’s life. A dedicated musician, Saidu takes music very seriously. “I love music so much,” he expressed. His goal is to become an international rapper, and he has many powerful stories to tell.
Saidu's War Story
Saidu survived the civil war as a child. The atrocities that he lived through have left deep scars, but Saidu is taking a stance by telling his own story through music. When asked what the relationship between music and war was, Saidu craftily replied, “War is a weapon that strikes you, you must strike back with music, not violence.” The war is now settled, and as Saidu specifies, “let us be artists.” Along with his two lifelong friends –Abraham S. Karagba and Doda Koroma- these determined young men plan to put Sierra Leone on the international music circuit.
Telling their stories in Temne, English and Krio, Saidu and his friends represent a substantial voice of Sierra Leonean society. Their messages are powerful, the forum even more so. They are not only linguistically gifted, but are more than skilled instrumentally as well. Employing the harmonies of drum and guitar, Saidu and his friends tackle the rough memories of war.
Life for Youth in the 21st Century
In terms of the art of music Saidu has some very powerful messages for the youth of the 21st century. Saidu is very vocal about equality and the movement to become “one world. " To view the populations of this world from the perspective of a "global village." In his view, humans must love each other and not let differences create deep rifts between cultures. Instead differences must be embraced, and this can peacefully be done through music. “Music is the most common culture, especially in Sierra Leone.” Saidu loves to express his culture, but he wants youth all over the world to understand the need for understanding and equality. “They must know my story,” and he will tell it with honesty and conviction.
A personality of virtue and a mind of a leader, Saidu will do great things for the people of Sierra Leone, simply through the persuasion and passions of music. He will shake the shadows from their minds and fill them with hope and inspiration because youth have much weight in the affairs of his country, in every country, and instead of picking up arms drugged and vengeful, the youth will now sing and call others to the frontier of a peaceful humanity.
