Gabriel Graves
Ms. De la Serna
CIS class
September 4, 2014
A Long Way Gone: Ethics
In all types of cultures; whether it be third world countries, urban cities, or communist
states there are limits(ethics) that most people know to obey or to agree on. In the novel
“A Long Way Gone” , you see the real life situations that people in the 1990’s of west
central African had to endure. The narrator who is the main character of the book Ismael,
is from a small village in Sierre Leone where the principals and ethics matter. They are
raised to be honest and truthful to one another with kind words as well as acts of
kindness. Ethical communicators are so common in this book, I think the best example
though is Ismael is quite the responsible pre teen. I think the most unethical thing I read
in the book was that there were no boundaries of the rebels towards the innocent civilians
who were ambushed, looted, beaten, and raped.
Throughout this book, you can clearly see that Ismael does not forget exactly what his
parents use to tell him or his older brother. He was responsible with his friends Kaloko,
Khalilou, Jumah, Musa, Saidu, Kanei and etc… they outlasted multiple armies that tried
to take people captive or deadly animals. However, when they were all tested and split
apart Ismael had to learn to survive by himself. He put his faith in his responsibility to
communicate with people to survive even though he hated most people for destroying
what he loved most. His family. The problem with Ismael though was not that he was a
good person, because he was always good hearted. The problem was when society forced
him to change for the worst for several long periods at a time. An example would be
when he became taught to do heavy doses of drugs, then to go out in war to kill the
opposition.
This book is a story of how someone in the lowest of lows can go out to achieve
greatness. That does not mean however, that there was no evil ethics that were shown in
the entirety of the book. The rebels who overtook all the cities or villages in Sierre Leone
were corrupt, evil people with no filters whatsoever. They never showed honesty since
they lied to all the citizens who they took over. No respect were ever shown, since they
stole, raped, burned down villages, and made child soldiers. This gave a lot of families
grief because the men were gone(killed), woman were violated, and the children were
helped/forced to become part of something they did not want to be included in. The West
African “Freedom Fighters” never truly cared about the lives and sanctity of the everyday
people in Sierre Leone, which fits the bill in having poor skills or ethical
communications.
Ethics are so important to the society we live in today. No matter where you’re from,
people have outlines of what are ethical & unethical communications are. In the novel we
see that Ismael has a lot of good ethical ways to communicate with people such as
responsibility. However, he is tempted and corrupted. He begins to enjoy the unethical
side that the rebels were teaching him to treat people and hence the book shows the two
different views on ethics.