Emmanuel Jal
Emmanuel Jal
Emmanuel Jalis a South Sudanese-Canadian musician, former child soldier, and political activist. His autobiography, War Child: A Child Soldier's Story, was published in 2009...
NationalitySudanese
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth1 January 1980
CountrySudan
crippling ways
When you don't educate the people, you're crippling them. You are, you're not giving them ways to survive.
There's no pride in having been a child soldier.
excited fake people weird
I'm kind of weird - I don't get excited. Sometimes I fake that I'm excited just to make people happy.
When you see a Sudanese walking on the street, there is a story.
advice china foreign heard policy push war
The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.
anyone fighting found hard kept mentality time
When I first went to school, I was fighting all the time. The soldier mentality was still in me. I kept getting expelled. I found it hard to take instructions from anyone who wasn't a military commander.
mother rap people
When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.
want ordinary-people ifs
If you really kill, you don't want to talk about it.
gorillas monkeys forests
In Africa, you know, if you're poor, at least you can go to the forest and share some mangoes with the gorillas and monkey.
moving identity needs
I'm constantly seen as a 'foreigner,' and I need my passport to prove my identity, to keep moving and to carry on my work.
gun coward use
Only a coward will use a gun to protect and get respect for themselves.
rap trying sound
I'm rapping in English but in an African way. I'm not trying to sound like an American.
years poverty aids
I grew up in poverty. For 25 years I was fed on aid.
football family-love games
I lost my childhood. I didn't play football or video games. Or have birthdays or the love of a family.