UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, has estimated there to be over 250,000 children under the age of 18 actively being used as armed soldiers. While most of them are over the age of 13, children can be forcibly recruited at ages as young as seven. This is considered by most to be completely reprehensible and is illegal in many countries, but the use of child soldiers is still practiced in many conflicts around the world. 

Whether it is for a rebel militia group or an actual government force, children are often considered to be suitable candidates to be used as fighters, slaves, spies and cooks. They are uprooted from their homes and communities at young ages and are trained to fight. They are brainwashed, tortured and forced to commit horrible atrocities, and are punished if they do not follow through. Being pulled from a family and placed into a competitive, combative power struggle within an army of other young children wreaks havoc on their impressionable minds and cripples their development for the rest of their lives.

The play “The Lord’s Resistance” is about a character named Okello, a seventeen year old child soldier of the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, Africa, who is being adopted into a “typical” American family. The Lords Resistance Army was a rebel group led by Joseph Kony who fought with the goal of establishing a government based on the bible’s Ten Commandments. The majority of the LRA’s militia was made up of children who were terrorized into being soldiers and guards, who were routinely beaten, raped, and forced to march until complete exhaustion. Children who attempted to escape were brutally killed by their fellow soldiers. Young kids were preferred because they are susceptible to believing in the religious and spiritual aspect of the LRA’s goals, and most actually believed Kony’s self proclaimed spiritual power to be genuine.

As soon as Okello first arrives, conflict between characters arises and the audience gets an example of the contrasting clash between Okello’s old life as a soldier and his new family life ………. 













March 13, 2008
Race, Gender and Performance
Anita Gonzalez 
Response Paper #3 Issue planning project
The Fear of Losing Control 

1. A one page description of the central issue of your presentation. And an explanation of how that issue relates to the Lord’s Resistance.

The Lord’s Resistance is a play about the power struggle in both the average American household as well as in Uganda. One of the issues that we chose to highlight from the play The Lord’s Resistance, is what Okello experienced when he lived in Uganda- being child solider in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Although his past life is not a main focus of the play, his experiences in Uganda determine and shape his actions in his role as part of the American family as he struggles to find his place and power there. We decided that the central issue of the play is “The Fear of Losing Control”, all the characters in the play are fighting for power, struggling to gain more, but limited by the social standards that guide their lives. Taking a step back from the individual character, the concept of a power struggle is still a major issue in each of the societies, providing guidelines and even the motivation for gaining more power. 
Each character is fighting for a different version or area of power, although most of the conflict occurs when the power struggles collide. Pauline wants to get back into her job of a great writer, be the head of the household. Harvey acts as passive as possible, allowing his wife to assume the title of head of household, but once another male comes into the picture he chooses to fight for a short time and then leaves. Michelle is trying to figure out her connection to the past, as well as being African American and not losing her roots. Okello is imprinted with the severe power struggle he came from, the LRA is part of a huge political, religious and social power struggle. All of the issues collide when Okello arrives and heightens each characters desire for power, as they question their own intentions for the power as well as personal roles in society. Behind Okello’s new American image lies his dark and wretched past of being a child solider in the Lord’s Resistance army. His experiences in Uganda severed altered the way he sees the world and when he expresses his vantage point on the Whitaker family, everything changes. 
Since Okello is the catalyst for all the events in the play, we chose to research what the Lord’s Resistance, his roots, are really about to further grasp the reasons for his actions and interpretations. Our group feels that Americans, including ourselves, are so unaware of the world around us, although we are partly to blame for not being more active in trying to find out about the world, most of our media is corrupt in the fact that our information in censored and warped to fit a certain angle, Interestingly enough this system also is a part of the power struggle that defines our lives. We thought that it would be most beneficial to the class to see another perspective on life, outside of our cultural norms. We think that taking this path on our project will work well because it relates back to the central issue of race and gender so well; we will talk about gender in the Whitaker family as well as in Uganda, how Henry finally had a reaction when another male came around and why Pauline become so attached to him. 
To keep things on a positive note we want to discuss the rehabilitation of the child soldiers, and touch upon the issue of adoption in the context of refugees. The frame of the beginning of the presentation is very reminiscent of the power struggle of our own society and the gender/ race roles that effect it because we are acting out America’s Next Top Model. We thought this would even be a nice connection to the play because Okello and Michelle watch it and even discuss it, so it’s a nice more literal connection. In the end we are aiming to be able to communicate the connection of fear and loosing control/power and how that guides our lives and the Whitakers; while also providing the students with the knowledge of the LRA, as to hope for knowledge to motivate a change.