Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him.
"What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?"
Simon shook. "There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast."
-William Golding
The level of suffering among these children seems to be in direct proportion to their level of optimism. Aida in the West Bank and Joseph in Belfast are far more soured on life than are Boutros and Jamila in Lebanon, who have more to be sour about. This is not surprising; adults who have endured hardships often manage a more optimistic view than their experiences would justify. What is surprising here is that some of the children who have suffered the most are not only the more optimistic; they also show the greatest amount of charity toward their fellows, including their enemies. This is true to a large extent in Belfast, and to some extent in Israel and Lebanon. It is practically universal among the Cambodians.
Why this is so is mystifying. The charity level among children who suffer economic hardship is not noticeably high; yet they, like many of the Cambodian children and the Vietnamese to follow, have been starved, brutalized, deprived of companionship, parents, love. It may have something to do with the suddenness of these assaults. Slum kids die slowly, their lives eroded at so languid a pace that even they would have trouble tracing the disintegration. To the children of war death explodes like a car bomb. They simply may not have the time to seethe or develop their hatreds. For them the exercise of charity may be an automatic protection, an instantaneous striking back with the antipode of what strikes them—kindness for cruelty, generosity for spite. In short, their goodness may be a means of survival.
Kim Seng (see above photograph) has survived quite well for someone who, when he escaped into Thailand two years ago, was nearly dead from malnutrition. His father, a doctor, was killed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge soldiers. The policies of the Khmer Rouge included the execution of Cambodian intellectuals. Kim Seng watched his father being taken away in a helicopter, and for a long time in the refugee camp at Khao I Dang, all he drew were pictures of helicopters.
His mother died afterward, of starvation, with Kim Seng at her side. He was eight at the time, a member of one of the mobile work teams of children instituted by Pol Pot for their ''education and well-being." The night before his mother died he was taken to her in a nearby village. He noticed how swollen she was, how frail and tired, and that she was breathing with great difficulty. Kim Seng's mother took his hand and told him that he would very soon be an orphan. Then she said: "Always remember your father's and mother's blood. It is calling out in revenge for you."