CHILDREN OF WAR
In the novel “One Day of Life”, author Manlio Argueta brings to light the deadly devastation of El Salvador during the late 1980s. During that time, the country of El Salvador was in a civil war, having the country’s government and military forces killing and eliminating all those who protested against it. Although most of the story is based on fictional characters, the pain and violence that was expressed throughout the novel is based upon the real suffering that occurred in El Salvador. Among those who suffered during this time are the children, who suffered the most out of all those that lived at that time. While children are thought of to be portrayed as innocent, the civil war has caused damage in what was left of their innocence. Because of the civil war, many children have witnessed and experienced horrific events that even most grown adults have never even seen or heard of. Not only has this war caused negative impacts to these youth physically, but this war has also created emotional and mental scars that these children will probably never outgrow. Argueta wrote this novel to share with the world the horrors that the people of El Salvador lived through, including those of children. He shows that even the innocence of children can be shattered through the violence and horrific actions of those around them. Not only that, but this pain and suffering once experienced as children has also resinated in the adult lives of these children as well. That is why the argument here is the idea that not only did the civil war create physical, mental, and emotional trauma on the children’s lives, but it also created future pains and sufferings that these children would soon have to encounter in their adult lives.
The violence and attacks against the children of El Salvador had more physical damage than anything else. One of the biggest ways children have been affected physically is through the torturing and the killing of many of these children. Throughout his novel, Manlio Argueta gave numerous examples of the physical abuse and torture that the children of El Salvador endured. Examples include when “they [the police] shot my [Maria Romelia] right hand” (Argueta, pg. 38), Maria Romelia and Adolfina witnessing “the policemen throw bombs into the bus...shooting at the people” (Argueta, pg. 39), and the brutal death of Arturo, Maria Romelia’s cousin (Argueta, pg.40-41). Unfortunately, the physical violence in the novel is nothing compared to what really happened during the war. One of the most horrific events during the war was the El Mozote massacre. According to many sources, “most of the 271 bodies that the group exhumed were shot multiple times at close range, and 195 of them were children younger than 12” (Urbina), reporting that “the children were then taken to the house of Alfredo Marquez and stabbed and shot to death” with “Major Caceres Cabrera reportedly killed the first baby by throwing it into the air and catching it on his bayonet” (The Massacre at El Mozote). Relating to the El Mozote massacre, another example of physical warfare trauma on the children is how generations and families were also physically separated and destroyed during the war. Throughout the novel, for example, Lupe is haunted by the death of her son, Justino, and how every time she thought about him, she had to remember to “forget this blood of my blood, even though I’d get a lump in my throat, even though I’d had to swallow my tears” (Argueta, pg.102). In other words, she had to constantly remind herself that Justino isn’t alive anymore. Another example in the novel is of Maria Romelia’s cousin Arturo, who was never found dead or alive, yet caused grief to his family (Argueta, pg. 40-41). Both cases give examples into the suffering of parents loosing their children during the war. Children were also physically forced to partake and participate in illegal activities that are against the norm of government laws. Many children joined rebel armies that fought against the corrupt government of El Salvador, using military style weapons and battle plans. An example of this can be found in the documentary “Maria’s Story”, in which the subject Maria leads the guerrillas to protect their ways of life against the government. In the film, most of her children, including Maria’s youngest daughter who, at that time, was only twelve years old, also join their mother in fighting against the corrupt armies of El Salvador (Maria’s Story). As adults, these children will not only have the memory of the physical violence they lived through, but they will also have the physical bruises and marks that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. All in all, the effects of physical abuse on children shows to be not only traumatic, but also deadly as well.
Mental problems and disorders also developed in children due to the war violence in El Salvador. One mental change as a result from the war is that some of the children were brainwashed by the Salvadorian army to support the government, resulting in them turning against the very people that they once knew. In El Salvador, most educated children were taught by those working for the corrupt, teaching them not only to kill and eliminate those that didn’t support the government, but also having them believe that there was nothing morally wrong in murdering them. In the novel “One Day of Life”, the character William proves to be an example of this “brainwash” process by the Salvadorian government. Because of the corrupt government, William, who Maria Pia once remembered “used to help carry things at the big store in Ilobasco”, now finds it okay to torture her husband Helio, emotionally abuse her children, and even attack her (Argueta, pg. 69-74). Children in El Salvador also grew up with the belief that the killings and war were an everyday occurrence, which is another issue caused by the war. In the novel, Lupe accounts this belief with the death of a local priest, stating that “we had become hardened, because no one grieved or cried - only “poor thing” said within and in anguish” (Argueta, pg.30). According to Pearn’s article “Children and war”, numerous studies of children in El Salvador, as well as other events such as the Holocaust, revealed that “the survivors of such terrifying experiences in childhood grow up to be more immune than their unexposed peers to the horrors of violence” (Pearn, Children and war). In other words, these children will grow up with the belief that the killings and murders they have witnessed are just normal everyday issues. Most notably, many children have developed numerous mental disorders due to the war, most with deadly aftermaths. While we usually associate war disorders with those in the army, many children have developed these disorders as well due to the wars. Probably the most traumatic of these disorders would be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. According to Affizal Ahmad’s article, “many children continued to have intrusive images, thoughts, and feelings few months after exposure to the events of the war, despite their attempts to remove the event from their memory and to avoid these reminders” (Ahmad). This can result into lifelong consequences in these children, including anxiety attacks, acts of rebellion, or even thoughts and acts of suicide. In all, the effects of the war have a direct result of the unstable aftermath of the children’s mental state.
The negative effects on the emotional states of the children in El Salvador are probably the most supported examples of the war that Manlio Argueta provides, especially in his novel “One Day of Life”. The loss of any emotion, for example, is one of the biggest ways that children had to adapt to the war settings at El Salvador. Because of the numerous deaths and killings in El Salvador, many Salvadorian children lost the need for sadness or any emotion in that matter, since it became a constant norm in their lifestyle. As Lupe says in the novel: “This is our life; we don’t know any other. That’s why they say we’re happy. I don’t know. In any event, that word “happy” doesn’t say anything to me. I don’t even know what it really means...It’s not that I get sad. It’s something I can’t explain” (Argueta, pg. 9). Because of this, children in El Salvador also had to learn to hide their emotions, which is another way emotion affected Salvadorian children during the war. Another way children were affected emotionally was that because of the civil war, any emotional signs of hope or trust in humanity were lost in the eyes of the Salvadorian children. Many of these children grew up believing “that violence is the basic relationship that characterizes humankind” (Pearn, Children and war). As a result, “the naïve trust of a child in such circumstances is all too often betrayed by those who determine the pace of the war” (Plunkett and Southall, War and Children). This means that the broken emotional trust between the children and authority figures can never be healed, due to the fact that most authority figures were the cause of their pain and suffering. Because of this, these children will grow up with the loss of humanity. The power of the war to drain what was left of humanity and hope for the world has been lost because of this war.
While most would agree that the civil war and the events that took place at that time had a great deal with the physical, mental, and emotional state of the children there, there are those who have counter arguments that the state of the Salvadorian children had no association with events of the war. A physical argument, for example, would be that children would one day learn to stand up for themselves against those in power. Mentally, children may learn to grow from the negative experiences from the war, which could be another counter argument. Finally, emotionally children can learn to express their emotions later on in life once leaving the war zone of El Salvador. All of these are good counterarguments against Argueta’s claim. However, it may take time and even years for these children to accept what happened to them. Some of them might not even fully recover from their unfortunate ordeal. “These impacts may be prolonged by exposures to further privations and violence in refugee situations.” and this may cause children to suffer loss of meaning in their construction of themselves in their world” (Santa Barbara) for the rest of their lives. This can cause many negative aftereffects in many adults that suffered these traumas during their childhood, including depression, addiction, or even suicide and death.
Manlio Argueta made many well-written arguments in “One Day of Life”, all pointing out major flaws against the government, the control of power, and the belief of humanity. The relationship between this novel and the argument about the children is no different. A child’s life is very delicate and impressionable. Any damage to it, whether it would be physical, mental, or emotional, may cause problems not only during that moment but later on in his or her future. For many of the children in El Salvador at this time, it was already too late. The stress and trauma of the war resulted in many horrific and violent deaths in the country, including the deaths of many young children living in El Salvador. But for those who survived these horrific ordeals, the pain is not over. While they may have grown up and moved on with their lives, the fact is that the pain and suffering that these children endured and witnessed still lingers on in them. This painful past may even live with them throughout their adult lives. However, for those who have lived and survived these tragic times, there is still hope. While these children may have suffered for most of their childhood, they have accepted these times of sadness and used them to help them grow for the greater good of their lives. They have applied these memories and used them to grow out of what was once a living nightmare into a painful memory to learn by. Either way, while the civil war in El Salvador created physical, mental, and emotional trauma for these children, it also created a way in which it can provide these children with closure with this once living painful past.
Work Cited:
Argueta, Manlio. One Day of Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. Print.
Pearn, John. "Children and war†." Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 39.3 (2003): 166-172.
Maria's Story. Dir. Pamela Cohen. Perf. Maria Serrano. Filmakers Library, 1990. Film.
Plunkett, Michael C B, and David P Southall. "War and children." Archives of Disease in Childhood - BMJ Journals . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2012. <http://adc.bmj.com/content/78/1/72.full>.
Urbina, Ian. "O.A.S. to Reopen Inquiry Into Massacre in El Salvador in 1981." The New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/international/americas/08salvador.html?_r=1&>.
The Massacre at El Mozote: The Need to Remember. Washington DC: Americas Watch, 1992. Print.
Ahmad, Affizal. "War and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children: A Review." Health and Environmental Journal 1.2 (2010): 73-79. Print.
Santa Barbara, Joanna. "Impact of War on Children and Imperative to End War." National Center for Biotechnology Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2080482/>.
Argueta, Manlio. One Day of Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. Print.
Pearn, John. "Children and war†." Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 39.3 (2003): 166-172.
Maria's Story. Dir. Pamela Cohen. Perf. Maria Serrano. Filmakers Library, 1990. Film.
Plunkett, Michael C B, and David P Southall. "War and children." Archives of Disease in Childhood - BMJ Journals . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2012. <http://adc.bmj.com/content/78/1/72.full>.
Urbina, Ian. "O.A.S. to Reopen Inquiry Into Massacre in El Salvador in 1981." The New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/international/americas/08salvador.html?_r=1&>.
The Massacre at El Mozote: The Need to Remember. Washington DC: Americas Watch, 1992. Print.
Ahmad, Affizal. "War and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children: A Review." Health and Environmental Journal 1.2 (2010): 73-79. Print.
Santa Barbara, Joanna. "Impact of War on Children and Imperative to End War." National Center for Biotechnology Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2080482/>.