Were they kids, or just not great at drawing?
The civil war in Liberia was notorious for its use of child soldiers. When Charles Taylor was fighting in the mid-90s he had a bodyguard unit called the SBU or “Small Boys Unit”. These were children who had been abducted or whose parents had died and who now came to see Taylor as their “Pappy”. As Taylor once said of the SBUs, “We arm them as a way of keeping them out of trouble.” It’s well known that young children make good fighters as they are small and fearless. They don’t have the responsibilities and knowledge of the world that might cause them to hesitate in killing or committing cruelty. Many of the rebel factions used children to fight, often supplying them with drugs.
Were these drawings done in buildings occupied by the artists?
The people who made these drawings weren’t really artists, they were often just fighters who had taken over a property in the town or village that they were currently living in. When a rebel group took over a place, they would have the license to kill, rape, and loot. This practice was widely accepted as a type of payment for their participation in the war since the fighters didn’t receive a salary as such. Many of them would come to a house and take it from whoever was living there. It became their house, and so they would write their names on it, and if they found some paint, they might start to cover it with images. |
