ABSTRACT
Children are innocent in the face of political violence. In an ordered world, they should not need to confront it. Those who commit it are barbaric and those who witness it have an innate duty to "do something." This straightforward narrative can undercut the most complex political machinations. Far from the hard-headed strategies of global conflict, a single image of a child experiencing political violence can galvanise an unwavering emotional-political response and produce a clear underlying narrative: "This war is wrong"; "These people are poison"; "This continent is a basketcase." The iconically stylised image of an African boy holding an AK-47 has similarly become symbolic of global power relations between a developed liberal order and an underdeveloped illiberal disorder. The image of the lone African child soldier has come to symbolise not just childhood innocence lost, but also the loss of an entire continent.
