Chapter 8 - Institutions of Reintegration

Summary

“THERE IS NO BAD BUSH TO THROW AWAY A BAD CHILD”: THE GUIDING IDEAL

We have a saying in the local language: ‘No bad bush no de fo trowe way bad pikin’… which means ‘There is no forest for a bad child.’ You know, the culture has… a spirit of acceptance, forgiveness, solidarity. So there is no place for a bad child. No matter how much you have done, they don't put you to… say for example to juvenile homes. We don't have juvenile homes here. So no matter how much you have done, they always take it to be a child. A child is a child.

William, NGO reintegration worker, Freetown, February 26, 2003 (interview)

Sierra Leoneans dug into their “treasure trove called custom” and found a national sustaining myth. “There is no bad bush to throw away a bad child” means that children will always be forgiven and someone – in the extended family or village – will always take them in. This communitarian ontology, which proponents contrast with Western individualism, extends beyond children. It holds that everybody belongs to a community, everyone can contribute to its welfare, and everyone has a valued place in it. This is the perfect ideal for a country needing enormous community capacity to forgive and reabsorb the displaced, the wounded and the guilty. And it directly addresses the first conciliatory need of peacetime after an intra-communal war: individualcommunity reconciliation.

Unsurprisingly, reintegration workers were passionate about this ‘African’ ontology that appeared early in my interviews and became a theme of inquiry. Does this ideal of community belonging and forgiveness reflect the reality of most Sierra Leoneans or is it a romantic and useful conciliatory ideal, similar to the concept of ubuntu in South Africa? If it did once reflect a reality, can a warstrained community still absorb so many troubled and needy people, as the ideal suggests? Government leaders, NCDDR and reintegration organizations hope that communities have that capacity. Selling this ideal to excombatants, war victims and the population is key to their reintegration strategy.

The reintegration workers I interviewed tended to stress three things: the need to provide excombatants with economically viable alternatives to fighting; the natural capacity of African cultures and communities to absorb all community members; and the desire of most traditional Sierra Leoneans to be amongst their own people.