TOW # 17 "Arms" (Visual Text)

In warfare there are weapons; there are citizens who make the weapons, and soldiers who fire the weapons, but when we picture a soldier we do not picture a twelve-year-old boy with a machine gun in his hand. In this political cartoon the artist addresses the issue of child soldiers in African countries. The artist uses juxtaposition and coloring to highlight this problem and address underlying points that accompany this matter.

When children are forced to go to war in countries like Sudan, Somalia or The Democratic Republic of Congo, they are not seen as children, but as killers with a purpose. The use of juxtaposition in this cartoon addresses this underlying issue. The child arms at the top of the page, and the weaponry arms at the bottom of this page juxtapose each other and the quote “children are born with these arms not these arms” connects the two. The quote and arms themselves allow the artist to highlight this problem, but symbolically they show a much greater one. The symmetry of the juxtaposition turns the actual arms into guns. In these African countries the children are being turned into weapons, they are being robbed of their childhoods, and being forced to become killers. The artist creates this image and invokes empathy within their audience.

The coloring of this image provides a less obvious service, but it is key to gaining the audience’s attention. The arms reaching out at the top of the image are blackened, like a silhouette. This allows the audience to imagine their own children or their children’s children, being forced into a cruel life for no good reason. It allows the artist’s audience to connect with the image. Also, black and yellow are the two main colors of this visual text. These colors are two of the three colors of the ANC (African National Conference). The ANC has been addressing this issue and many others for years, and the colors of this picture allow the artist to attribute that. However, their audience must also be aware of the ANC and its goals.

All in all, I believe this visual text achieves its purpose of highlighting the atrocity of child soldiers in African countries. Through its use of juxtaposition and coloring the image connects with the audience and highlights underlying points that accompany the issue.