Carving a Livelihood in Post-conflict Sierra Leone: The Benefits of Bike Riding

Having laid out the complexities of the postwar era, particularly the juxtaposition of opportunities and challenges brought forth by Bigmanity social arrangements, we can now explore the ways former child soldiers have sought to carve out new livelihoods in a context of persistent insecurity and uncertainty.

6.1 Post-conflict Survival and Livelihoods

As previously noted, bike riding has provided former child soldiers with an important avenue through which to access resources. As many participants remarked, the industry has played a central role in meeting their economic and survival needs:

I can feed and take care for myself. [...] [I became involved in riding] due to lack of employment and that I couldn't further my studies. In short, it was a faster means of getting money. (Bo rider)

At least, through bike riding I've been able to pay my school fees... I pay my bills... and my sister in fact stays with me and I give her Le 5000 everyday. (Bo rider)

After the war, bike riding was the only fast means of having money for us ex-combatants. (Makeni rider)

It is plenty. Just after the war, I slept with four or five others on a single bed and also ate a basin of food with the same number. But now...I go home and ask for my own food and sleep with my wife on a bed just for us. (Makeni rider)

In other cases, participants shared how the industry has enhanced their ability to care for loved ones and family members:

I say thanks to God now because I can solve my mother's, girlfriend's, young sisters' and my own problems.

I even help my two younger brothers and a brother-in-law with their school fees [...] I pay a house rent of Le 15000 every month through earnings from the bike and my life is OK with it. (Makeni rider)

Creating and engaging in this economic venture has afforded former child soldiers the chance to carve out viable livelihoods (Cubitt 2012). As these partic­ipants reported:

Also, as a bike rider, my life is well managed as compared to my life just after the war.

(Makeni rider)

I decided riding so that I would not be a thief and a criminal and to solve my problems and my family's. (Makeni rider)

My standard of living has improved as compared to the time that I was not riding. At first, I gambled and did a lot of bad things and dubious acts. We were thieves but since bike riding started, it has put a stop to all that. (Bo rider)

By paving avenues through which former child soldiers can contribute to family well-being and economic development, participation in the industry has instilled a sense of hope, pride, and societal connectedness in many riders. Furthermore, by engaging in an activity that benefits the urban populace, former child soldiers are challenging the unjust and socially constructed characteristics that have been accorded to them, including being idle and dangerous:

Well, [the public] thinks of me positively and seeing me riding tells them that I don't idle around and that I've a family to take care of. (Bo rider)

I'm not a ‘Big Man' in life as at yet, but through bike riding I'm at least a member of the society. (Makeni rider)

Yes, people always comment that this guy was around languishing before but he is now riding and is better off. On the street, people express that the Police should stop disturbing us because bike riding has so much engaged the youths and theft and criminality has drastically reduced within communities.

If I was jobless, even my family would despise me. But since I ride and can earn a bit of money, they respect me. I also help people in the community as recent as last night, a neighbor knocked on my window to help her take her child to the hospital. So, people know I'm a rider and they do come to me to help with problems within my reach. (Makeni rider)

The industry has thus been crucial in the reconstruction of former child soldiers' postwar identities (Denov 2012). In a similar vein, the above narratives shed light on the ways the endeavor has bridged the combatant-civilian divide, particularly by fostering a more favorable and respected notion of former child soldiers' place and role in the post-conflict era among the wider public. By “merging people with different histories and trajectories,” the industry has “[contributed] to what is often called reintegration” (Burge 2011, p. 70).

6.2 Protection and Solidarity

Through bike riding, former child soldiers have successfully converged to develop supportive and caring communities. During the war, many of these youth lost all ties to their families, communities, and other social networks as a result of being recruited into different armed groups. Although the public's perception of them has shifted to varying extents, former child soldiers continue to face a great deal of stigma given the atrocities they perpetrated during the war (Search for Common Ground 2006). Accordingly, they are left with few opportunities for social support. However, through their prolonged involvement in the war, former child soldiers have developed a set of shared norms and values, namely, solidarity, competition, as well as the desire for power and status (Leff 2008). In light of the similarities between their past experiences and current struggles, it is not surprising to witness former child soldiers coming together in the creation of “new” postwar communi­ties. As Utas (2005) remarks:

To have participated in the war, as opposed to not having done so, was clearly seen as a ‘touchstone of fraternity'.

Many participants alluded to the advantages of creating and attaching them­selves to a network whose members often shared wartime experiences. Maintaining old and forging new ties with former child soldiers was cited as a way to access social support by the participants:

[One good thing about riding is that] you meet and make new friends. (Bo rider)

Well [the association does] help riders who are involved in accidents with their medical costs and they also contribute to family members when a rider dies. Solidarity exists between us. They also loan bikes to members. (Bo rider)

We are close friends and we do everything in common. All the bike riders are ex-combatants. (Kenema rider)

Joining together in a “community of sameness,” in the context of the motorbike industry, was not only a strategy former child soldiers employed to seek social support but also likely an attempt to protect themselves from the social phenome­non of stigma. Participants shared their and their peers' experiences of discrimina­tion and retribution on account of the stigma attached to their identities as former child soldiers and as urban young men:

Yes, they usually say ‘let this boy to go, they are rebels.’ [...] It is really painful sometimes.... (Bo rider)

While my friend was riding, somebody cut him off suddenly which led him to hit a pedestrian. However, bystanders as usual, insulted and even beat him up saying that he is an ex-combatant. (Bo rider)

They sometimes called us ‘rebels’ and it is done in the open. (Bo rider)

Yes, most of our friends ride roughly which makes bystanders or passengers tell us that we are rebels. And so, we are rough and we don’t care. Even when accident happens, they blame us.... (Bo rider)

Just going into riding early, we were seen as dirty and reckless people by the community. We had no respect because [they said] we put passengers’ lives at risk when they board our bikes.

These statements highlight the negative and often stigmatizing perceptions many urban citizens continue to have of former child soldiers, specifically, and of urban youth, in general. Viewed as rough, irresponsible, and destructive, former child soldiers struggle to detach themselves from what Menzel (2011) describes as an “aesthetics of danger” (p. 100). Despite riders’ vital contributions to the economic and social mobility of the country, the dangerous nature of their work constrains their capacity to divorce their postwar identities from the undesirable characteris­tics associated with the wartime socialization processes they underwent. In instances where the “roughness” of their past is emphasized, a common occurrence in the bike riding profession as one can imagine, riders risk facing verbal and physical assaults by the public (Burge 2011). The stigma attached to former child soldiers’ identity, in this respect, can be seen as extending to all those affiliated with the riding industry, including other young men who may have never participated in the war.

Urban youth in Sierra Leone are generally relegated to an inferior social class (Bolten 2012; Menzel 2011). Perceived as uncontrollable, defiant, and lazy, the youth across the country face overwhelming barriers in accessing opportunities for socioeconomic and political mobility (Bolten 2012; Burge 2011; Cubitt 2012; Maina 2012).

In this regard, popular beliefs and perceptions of urban youth and former child soldiers as ruthless, destructive, and living a life of impunity work to conflate the stigma and oppression these young people must contend with. The situation effec­tively entraps urban youth in a vicious cycle of marginality and immobility. In light of such disempowering forces, it is unsurprising to see former child soldiers, and other urban youth, bond together in order to forge new communities, economic ventures, and support systems. Within such spaces, youth can, to varying degrees, find solace from an otherwise hostile and uncertain social landscape.

While social bonding is useful in fostering a sense of community and security among riders, it does little in terms of protecting them from the extractionary power of Big Men external to the BRA membership, namely, bike owners and the police. By attaching themselves to Big Men motorbike networks, former child soldiers stand to benefit from the far-reaching influence and status embodied in the BRA executive board. Interventions initiated by the executive, on behalf of riders, serve two functions. On the one hand, they offer riders a form of paternalistic protection from the abusive power of other Big Men. On the other hand, they work to maintain the BRA's network of clients from which to accumulate resources. These partici­pants report on the various ways the BRA has supported and protected them:

Indeed, riding an unlicensed bike was a problem I knew of, but I had hoped that through maneuvering skills, I wouldn't be caught by the police. The [bike] owner initially had not wanted to pay [for the license] but the timely intervention of the BRA ensured the Boss paid the [license] fee. (Makeni rider)

If my bike is seized and impounded at the [police] station, BRA will do all it can to have it released. The association will intervene if I'm held by the police. It's good. (Makeni rider)

Now the association insures that members have a license even if it is expensive. When you have a problem as well, you can rush to them for help. (Bo rider)

I was charged with riding an unlicensed motorbike, riding without a helmet, driver's license and insurance; All five (5) charges were levied against me (...) I was fined a hundred thousand Leones for each of those five charges. But through the advocacy of the BRA's Chairman, the fines were reduced to fifty thousand Leones each and I ended up paying Le 250,000. (Makeni rider)

The Chairman also secured a loan of thirty million Leones from the Bank which he used to acquire driving licenses for 108 riders with beneficiaries paying back by soft loan. (Makeni rider)

A few days ago there was a general meeting for all riders where the chairman told us that he has bought helmets [which the police always arrest riders for] from Guinea which he will sell to us for Le 25,000.00 instead of the Le 70,000.00 price at a shop. Also, he has ensured that members secured a one year driving license which riders pay immediately Le 50,000.00 and later pay the remaining Le 50,000.00 by instalment. (Makeni rider)

As these passages reveal, there are numerous advantages associated with attaching oneself to the BRA network. Not only does the BRA offer material resources to its members but also extends protection from legal authorities in instances where riders are in conflict with the law. In the absence of BRA pater­nalism, many riders would face long-term imprisonment and stiffening fines, thereby undermining their capacity to secure a living through the economic service they played a central part in making.

7