Blog Post Five- Family and Freedom

Family is a very important aspect of life. In my A.P Psychology class here at Seaholm, We are learning about the importance of attachment, comfort, and trust. A lack of affection from a protective figure as a child can be brutally damaging to you emotionally and mentally later in life. Harry Harlow took new born monkeys and locked them up in a cage, alone. They had no interaction with other monkeys. Harlow put two food dispenser in the cage with them, one was just wire, and the other one was dressed to resemble a mother monkey. The baby monkeys always went to the mother monkey and would always hug her and hang around her. When the monkeys were introduced to a new scene with scary noises and unfamiliar objects, the baby monkeys sprinted straight into their food dispensing fake mother, in search of comfort. This alone gave them the confidence to now explore the new scene. The mother figure didn't have to bat an eyelash or even exhale to give these baby monkeys comfort. Ishmael Beah is a baby monkey who was taken away from the comfort of a normal life and thrown into the world without any trace of a support system. Beah, and other kids in his situation, jump at the opportunity to have that comfort.  They do not need to know a thing about this person previously to find comfort in their human characteristics. His squad became his family because he need human connection. His gun became his provider and protector because he did not have the mother and father figures that normal children had and needed to provide for and protect himself. And as a survival instinct (like children running to their parents for protection) he had to kill other human beings so he, himself, wouldn't be killed.

Freedom is a very broad, yet very precise word. Freedom is "exemption from external control" (dictionary.com). Uganda, as a country, is not under any "control" but it's own so yes, technically Uganda is free. But freedom is also "the power to determine action without restraint" (dictionary.com). Beah is far from determining his own actions. Most Ugandian kids are at the complete mercy of either the L.R.A or the Ugandian government's army. But looking at freedom through a broad scope, they are free to do whatever they want, they will just be killed because of it. And that is not freedom. The United States of America prides itself on freedom. America is one of the only countries where its citizens are as truly free as any citizens really can be. Of course we don't have many freedoms, we have as much freedom as we can be given without complete chaos erupting.