By Marion Achard & Yann Dégruel & various; translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-236-6 (album HB/Digital edition)
It may be a wonderful world but modern Earth is far too often a terrible place, especially if you’re weak and powerless. The global scandal and shame of children forcibly co-opted into paramilitary and terrorist groups is not a new phenomenon. Throughout our history boys and girls have fought in adult wars. Comic books are full of them, but there’s two big differences: they all “volunteer” without being groomed by cruel, power-obsessed scum and THEY’RE NOT REAL.
So prevalent and pernicious was the practise of African and Asian militias, religious groups and other factions (even governments), that in 2000 the civilised world agreed to an Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in Armed Conflict. The OPAC accord restricts armed forces recruitment to adults of 18 years or over and has become known as the Straight 18 standard. It was a good start but hasn’t stopped ambitious war-criminals and monsters raiding villages for kids, who they drug, beat, starve and program; enslaving and constantly brutalising them to use as cannon fodder and shock troops in hope of securing their own evil ends.
Rather than concentrate on any specific case or example (there are so damned many) this stunning oversized full-colour hardback (216 x 279mm and also in digital format) synthesises many verified incidents into the dramatised testimony of Tamba Cisso: taken aged eight from his African village along with all of his young friends – and forced into a scavenging band of killers.
The specifics of the tragically documented events he participated in – and the unhappier fates of his fellow abductees – are revealed through his later testimony to an initially hostile crowd at a Commission for Truth and Reconciliation. Tamba’s account of everyday life as an indentured warrior for a jumped-up rebel warlord is no less harrowing for being one step removed from our own world’s actual atrocities…
Astutely examining the overall effect of mass kidnappings on generations of citizens, Young Adults author Marion Achard (Je veux un chat et des parents normaux, Pourquoi je suis devenu une fille) brings bitterness, barely harnessed anger, righteous indignation and potent empathy to an appalling subject. Tamba, l’enfant soldat is her first graphic novel – rendered with vivid virtuosity and great subtlety by artist/animator Yann Dégruel (Saba, Genz Gys Khan, Sans Famille).
Augmenting their visual narrative is Achard’s text essay Child Soldiers: describing what happens to these shunned victims of violence, resharing some extremely disturbing facts and figures, all augmented by features on Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and Professor Laure Borgomano’s (Department of Defense, NATO) breakdown of the purpose and functions of The UN High Commission for Refugees: UNHCR.
Compellingly engaging and boldly, beautifully illustrated, this is a chilling, sobering yet ultimately encouraging reading experience everyone with a stake in a less toxic future must seek out and share.
© 2018 Edition Delcourt. © 2019 NBM for the English translation.
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