Talk:Ishmael Beah

fictionalized version of Ishmael Beah
A fictionalized version of Ishmael Beah, named Apollo Bukenya, was the focus of a storyline on the May 15, 2007 episode of Veronica Mars. RahadyanS 13:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Information
I read a lot of him! If you have questions, I´ll try to answer you!


 * Tough to ask questions of you if you don't sign your posts. :) Wilybadger 23:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

In the article that claims Ishmael Beah was 15 years old when his village attacked, they identify Mohamed as Ishmael's brother. Mohamed is not his brother, Junior was his brother. Don't read that article, it is not accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cjunior22 (talk • contribs) 19:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC) People are often known by two names, and Junior sounds like a nickname. In Muslim families, boys are often named Mohammad, but known by other names. - anarkali

Question? Who is WILSON? It just says Wilson's Sierra Leone contacts? thanks! Ponee007 (talk) 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ponee007

This sentence is kinda vague

"He fought in the war, and after the war he continued to fight."

It's from the intro section and I think it confuses the timeline of his life...or at least I was confused by the statement.

bluecucumber 21:04 13 April 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluecucumber (talk • contribs) 02:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Need More Organization
I just really think that we need to split up the article into various sections, i.e. How He Got To New York, Activites in US, Personal Life, rather than having this humongous contiguous block of text that says markedly little and has next to no chronological significance. Elakhna 21:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversy section
The last 4 paragraphs of the Controversy section (everything after reference #13) are unsourced and sound like original research. As I recall, the rebuttals from Beah and his publishers that appeared in The Australian make some of those same points, but those 4 paragraphs go way beyond that.

The Australian controversy
I have retitled the section on the dispute with The Australian, since the "credibility issue" seems to have no other source. I have also trimmed out some of The Australian's follow-up; as usual with a newspaper, they have committed themselves to an agenda and will now have a vested interest in trying to prove themselves right (human nature, actually). We need to use secondary sources as much as possible and avoid repeating he-said-she-said from the original primary sources. There should be coverage of this in the literary press and perhaps in the news periodicals that we can use. The subject's publisher has registered disquiet with the weight we give The Australian's account here. WP:BLP applies, of course, but so does ordinary common sense: we should always be somewhat skeptical of campaigns run by a single newspaper and should look elsewhere for coverage of the incidents described, just in case the paper has got it badly wrong, as they have been known to do. A spirit of obvious extreme fairness is what makes us look best, so please let's not get carried away with enthusiasm for the story. Thanks. Guy (Help!) 21:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Guy - The credibility controversy was initiated by the Australian's investigation but is not confined to it. Slate published a lengthy article about it, as did the prominent British writer Bryan Appleyard (in the Sunday Times). However, it is appropriate that the Australian be prominently referenced for this particular section, since they are the ones to have conducted the most extensive on-the-ground research. - Rosabibi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.45.211 (talk) 13:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Very little text got removed, the balance tells the story adequately. Wikipedia is not a tabloid. Guy (Help!) 23:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I added the to the criticism section, and I am tempted to cut out portions. 203.129.45.211 was inaccurate. Slate and other media sources published articles detailing the fight between Beah and the Australian. Now that it's been two years, I think it's time to give this section less prominence as no new material that I've been able to find has arisen. Daskos99 (talk) 04:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate deletion
While much of the material on Beah (from both supporters and otherwise) has been speculative, the material just deleted - apparently after complaints from Beah's publisher - was referenced to an established newspaper. That doesn't make it true but it was also placed in the context of being an ongoing controversy. I am also puzzled by the criticism that the entry is overly reliant on primary sources - an over-reliance on secondary sources is problematic but an over-reliance on primary sources is not. There is no shortage of secondary sources (Slate, the Village Voice, an the Sunday times have all had lengthy features) but I don't really see the point of drawing on them extensively when they don't add much in the way of primary data (although they have re-checked some of the sources cited by both the Australian and Beah's publisher).

I understand that Beah's publisher is unhappy with the entry, but that is to be expected and should not in itself be cause for deletion. Their problem is with the Australian and the other publications that are reporting on this issue (Village Voice had a lengthy feature just the other day) - Wikipedia should present all the relevant data, and the deleted material is certainly relevant. The entry is certainly far from perfect, but the answer to that is to add further information, not to delete past info. As to the reference to anonymous edits - I wasn't logged in when I restored the entry last night, but that wasn't a conscious attempt at anonymity - it was just late I had forgotten my password - remembered after a good night's sleep. Most of my contributions were not anonymous. Anyway, I don't see the problem with anonymity on a referenced entry.

There has been speculation on some blogs that Beah's Wikipedia entry has been altered at the instigation of his publisher. See for example http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/has-wikipedia-been-hijacked-by-ishmael-beahs-pr-machine-the-online-encyclopedia-abandons-neutrality-and-regurgitates-the-young-author%E2%80%99s-view-by-editorializing-that-%E2%80%98it-is-important/ (note that the author of this blog has been quoted on the issue of Beah in the Village Voice). I have left comments saying that I don't think this is so (and to date, I don't think it has been so). But I think it would be a great shame if relevant, referenced material were to be deleted at the instigation of the publisher, who has a clear vested interest. If there are legal issues, they are with the Australian and other media sources - Wikipedia is currently summarising material from elsewhere, with references, at a point where no legal action against those sources is underway.


 * Speculation on blogs is useless. This has caused complaints to the foundation, extremely good sourcing is required, and that means secondary sourcing, not blow-by-blow reporting from the original newspaper reports. Guy (Help!) 23:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not citing the blogs as evidence. I'm just saying that there is already speculation of interference from Beah's publisher (which to date I don't believe has been true) and I would hate that to actually happen. The line about the Australian retracting claims about beah's parentage is inaccurate. It could be read as suggesting that the Australian claimed that Beah's parents were not the people he said they were, which he never said. And the Australian did not make claims of any kind about Beah's parentage. At the start of their investigation, they were following up a well-intentioned hope by an Australian mining engineer that Beah's father (unknown to him) might have survived. The Australian found that his was not the case - the man in question was a distant relative. They never reported that Beah's father was alive, so there was no claim made. It is not a claim to investigate a possibility in good faith, so long as you don't go to print. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosabibi (talk • contribs) 23:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Not relevant. This is a living individual, and caution is demanded.  Please read WP:BLP. Guy (Help!) 23:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I have read the guidelines. I think actually that the entry is as it now stands is defamatory of the Australian's journalists, since it accuses them of making claims that they never in fact made. They investigated - that isn't the same thing. All journalists investigate possibilities that turn out not to be so - it is only a claim when you go to print. The current Wikipedia entry is effectively accusing the Australian's staff of highly unethical conduct. "Wikipedia is not a tabloid" - for the record, neither is the Australian. The deleted material includes one of the most central issues at stake - Beah's description of a battle at a UNICEF rehabilitation camp. The Australian, Unicef, local journalists and relief workers have all said that they have no record of any such incident, and that even in the violence of war, an incident of that kind in a camp run by an international agency would be big news. In fact, I had most recently gone to Beah's page in order to add the Village Voice material http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0812,boy_soldier,381308,1.html - their blog includes an update saying basically that UNICEF has no records of the battles but likes the book in general - but got distracted by this issue. However, I'm holding off including this material for the moment rather than risk being seen as engaging in edit wars. At the very least, the reference to this particular crucial incident should be restored or rewritten. And again, the story has been reported very, very widely elsewhere and it is not simply a dispute with one particular newspaper. There has been extensive coverage in other media outlets, and academic experts on children and war (while not having firsthand knowledge of Beah) have also weighed in - see the Village Voice article. If it was ever just a "dispute with the Australian", it is certainly not so any more, with so many other voices weighing in.--Rosabibi (talk) 02:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you now. I think, as it happens, that the Australian have painted themselves into a corner.  Regardless, we do not engage in blow-by-blow accounts of disputes between a newspaper and an individual.  Secondary sources, no blogs.  Guy (Help!) 10:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Guy, despite your own advice, it doesn't sound as though you are taking a neutral stance on this issue. I also note that you have not removed the line about the Australian retracting claims about Beah's parentage - this line is factually inaccurate by any reading. As has been reported by several other outlets than the Australian, the Australian came to this story while investigating a hope by a mining engineer that Beah's father might have survived. A good faith investigation is not a claim. Although Beah's statement uses the word "claim", it is more clear in the context of the statement than it is in the Wikipedia entry that he is not referring to "claims" that went to print. And the wikipedia entry is also ambiguous in that it does not state the nature of the "claims about parentage" which would imply to a reader unfamiliar with the case that there was some issue as to who Beah's parents actually were.

In all the recent coverage of the Beah issue, in a range of publications, and in quotes from academics in the field, there is a strong sense that his memoir is unlikely to be the literal truth (whether or not Beah is aware of this, given a background of trauma and drug addiction). There is debate over how much that matters - whether the book's role in drawing attention to child soldiering is of such importance that the literal truth doesn't matter. It is not simply a dispute with one newspaper, even if one newspaper initiated the story and reported on it extensively (and since you have included your "as it happens" - my own "as it happens" is that I think a few of their stories on this topic were of marginal importance - following up on minor sideshows in the United States - but that is not relevant to the central questions in this case).

I did not suggest linking to independent blogs as a source. I have mentioned extensive secondary coverage in newspapers other than the Australian. My first mention of blogs was with regard to online discussion of the Wikipedia entry itself. My other mention of blogs was the Village Voice blog. This is not a blog in the usual sense of the word - this particular blog report is an update by a very well-recognised publication of their earlier story. UNICEF's response (to the issue of whether Beah's account of a battle within one of their camps) presumably did not arrive early enough to be included in their original story. Or perhaps UNICEF contacted them in response to their earlier story - in any case, a response by a United Nations agency as reported by a well-established media outlet is a weighty piece of data. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.45.211 (talk) 15:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no dog in this fight. Guy (Help!) 15:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Article split
I'm going to nominate this entry to be split into two separate articles. I think "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" should be on a separate page than the entry for Ishmael Beah. The book has garnered enough praise and notability to merit a separate article. 64.80.233.194 (talk) 21:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

is this book really well received?
Afger reading "a long way gone" I was completely underwhelmed! It is the most uninspiring written paper I have read in years. I dare not call it a book. It is more like a third graders account of his vague childhood with someone obviously helping him by inserting intelligent lines in the most awkward and inappropriate places throughout the poorly written essay. How it has won any acclaim is not only disturbing but really depressing to the average reader. Isn't someone going to point out all the rambling unrelated digression of this piece, or are we going to simply feel sorry for this poor black misfortunate youth who needs to be deceived into thinking he has any grasp of what good storytelling or writing truly involves? This was obviously a collaboration and a poorly done piece of work even with the totally out of context half way intelligent phrases scattered throughout this debacle. Shame on those of you who have recognized it in any way as a work of art! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim monk (talk • contribs) 16:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * First of all, a Wikipedia talk page is not a forum for discussing the subject. Anyway, I read the Brazilian portuguese version of this book (I don't believe it makes a difference to the quality of the story), and for me, this is just another book, with another story. A sad, real story. I mean, the book was written by a young man who had no adolescence, you couldn't expect him to tell a brillant story. We should focus on his biography, not on his skills as a writer. What really made me answer your post was the line "Shame on those of you who have recognized it in any way as a work of art!". Who are you to state what is art and what is not? C'mon man, this is the 21st century, and as long as you don't live in China, North Korea, Iran, etc, you are free to like whatever you want to. For me, Emocore music is a crap, but it's still music just as rock, hip-hop and samba. Peace, Victor Lopes (talk) 04:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * To Jim Monk: I wonder about the kind of individual who would read such a heart-breaking human story but decides to focus on the artistic and literary skills of the boy writer who suffered the tragedy. Or did you mistake "A Long Way Gone" as a work of fiction? Ishmael Beah may or may not have gotten editorial help in writing his memoir, but that is not the point. The fact that he could put this sad, sad story together (even with literary and chronological defects) is a tribute to his great triumph over his childhood travails. That's just one reason the book is well-received.


 * Remember also that not only did Beah miss out on critical early education, but he spent most of that time experiencing tragedies that most adults are incapable of enduring. English is not even his first language. The praise for his work therefore is not based on excellent prose; accolades are based on his survival of great tragedies at such an early age, and his ability to live to tell the story.


 * And finally, it is highly suspect why it was necessary for Jim Monk to say "poor black misfortunate (sic) youth". Did Jim see "black" instead of a human tragedy? Please consider context when next you decide to critique literary work. Merlin1935 (talk) 02:45, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Picture
Let's use another picture. Cheers!

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