Civil war destroys social trust by transforming children into feared enemies.

Evidence

People were terrified of boys our age. Some had heard rumors about young boys being forced by rebels to kill their families and burn their villages. These children now patrolled in special units, killing and maiming civilians. There were those who had been victims of these terrors and carried fresh scars to show for it. So whenever people saw us, we reminded them of the massacres, and that struck fear in their hearts again. Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their families and communities. Because of these things, we decided to bypass villages by walking through the nearby bushes. This way we would be safe and avoid causing chaos. This was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you. — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 124

Categorization

• XREF: XREF: illustrates how civil war destroys community cohesion by treating children as lethal threats — connects to: Wars increase human cruelty, altering perceptions of normal behavior. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 338
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 124

Broader Connections

• Wars increase human cruelty, altering perceptions of normal behavior. #expands (0.75) — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 338