3.1 Mossville Moment: A Story of Invincible Corporate Power
3.2 Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona
3.3 Of Christiana Green: A Cold Loughner Victim
3.4 Liberia's Ellen Sirleaf and Jackson Doe: The Patrick Tamba Story
3.5 America, Even Idiots Respond to Language
3.6 And So for Once, America's Obama Zipped Their Mouths....
3.7 Social Reform Activism in 2011: Remembering Liberia of the 1970s
3.8: Imperfection: How It Cures than Kills
3.9: Laurent Gbagbo and a Date with Liberia's E. J. Barclay
4.0 Of Passion, Conversation, and Argument: Liberia's Weah-Sirleaf Talk That Seems Endless.
4.1 Long Form, Short Form: Mouse-Cat Enmity [America's Obama Birth "Blobady-blu"]
4.2 Black Boy, Blockbuster, and the American Mystique
4.3 Death: Should It Stir Joy or Sorrow? [Remembering the Osama bin Laden Story]
4.4 Strumming the Guitar of Colonialism
4.5 Sex: The Dark Unconquered Trail
4.6 Bosnia's Mladic: A Great Teacher for Liberia
4.7 A Winding Stairway of Marriage: A Page from Between the Scissors, the Story of K.M. Nagbe's Life
4.8. Liberia: Resetting the Compass of History
4.9 Liberia's Prince Yeduo Johnson and the Adam Syndrome
5.0 And You, Too, Anthony?
5.1 What America Really Is
5.2 Changing Scenes of Life: How Political Stars Rise and Fall
5.3 Finding the New Liberian Mind
5.4 You Should Do Things Better: A Chip from the Liberian Election Drama
5.5 Troy Anthony Davis and the Color of Justice in America
5.6 Liberia First, Constitution Second
5.7 In the Liberian Election Drama: May the Better Candidate Win
5.8 Power, Behold Gadhafi; Gadhafi, Behold Power
5.9 Doctorate: The Status and the Substance
6.0 Of Justice and Time: The bin Laden and Gadhafi Story
6.1 The National Elections Commission of Liberia:
An Error, an Error, Oh, God, This Error....
6.2 Fromayan: "In the Supreme Interest of Liberia"
6.3 Doeba, I Wondered....
6.4 Doeba, Doeba Bropleh...So Long, My Brother!
6.5 A Line for Doeba
6.6 Stirring Alfred Nobel's Bones: A Liberian Story
6.7 A Man, 50+, Has Sex with a Ten-Year-Old Boy: Penn State University (USA)
6.8 The Internet and the Future of Liberia
6.9 Two Men, One Afternoon
7.0 Liberians: No Back Seat on the Bus
7.1 Not Just the Music but the Message
3.1 A MOSSVILLE MOMENT: A STORY OF INVINCIBLE CORPORATE POWER
On January 2, 2011, I sat watching CNN's Sanjay Gupta go from place to place, trying to connect dots about the plight of the people of Mossville, Louisiana. A plastic factory which had been in the area for at least 40 years was constantly faulted for the respiratory ailments and several types of cancer which became prevalent among Mossville residents following the emergence of the factory in the area. Even with studies finding that this chemical factory was culpable for many of the illnesses, the company through its spokesman denied culpability. Year in, year out, residents of Mossville took to the road to visit local state offices for redress. They rarely had any official ear. Even at the federal level, there appeared little or no success until CNN reported on the residents' plight.
If the foregoing is happening in the United States of America, what can one say about multinational corporations operating in underdeveloped countries, where in most, I dare say all, of those countries, the perishing of a great mass of ordinary people on account of misery rarely means anything to a tiny few who would prefer gorging the wealth of each country while millions are decimated by poverty? My take is that money, not social responsibility, apparently rules the world. Thus, there should never be any silence when a multinational corporation appears in a community. Everybody in whose environment any such corporation appears must never take things for granted. Many of these corporations dish out more dirt than good. Vital vigilance does have an enormous value in order to ensure an environment free of devastating pollution trapping people in poor health and death, and endless circles of grim hopelessness.
3.2 GABRIELLE GIFFORDS OF ARIZONA
On January 8, 2011, the news that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was the target of an assassin’s bullet cut my attention in a raw way. No, I don't know the legislator. But I know, first, that she is a human being , and, like Terrence, the Roman playwright, I also know that I am human; therefore, nothing human is alien to me. And yet John Donne of old does whisper still: "Any [human's plight or] death diminishes me, because I belong to [the human family]."
Second, although I don't know Representative Giffords, I do I know the issue of gun control significantly enough to make me simply moan: "There goes America! There goes campaigners for unbridled gun ownership." No, they can't be faulted--That's what those who are in that corner of gun-for-all have been quick to bark out. "No, don't fault nobody! That incident is an isolated case. " And one wonders: "How many more 'one isolated case' retorts the American society will hear before Americans realize that guns in just any unprofessional hand is no good for any society?"
Jared Lee Loughner, rejecters of gun control insist, was just one "insane" guy motivated by his very own voices. No, neither Sarah Palin, who called for "re-load" to face up to government, nor any other inflammatory politician/commentator [the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck] should be faulted. They are within the realm of free speech. They say these words; they don't tell anyone to pick up a gun and go on a killing rampage.
And yet, people celebrate the results advertisements on radio and the television produce. Those people celebrate the success of political campaign ads, while remaining selectively silent on the fact that although there are graphics to go with ads, words are an important conveyor of the message and the intent of each ad.
The point so far is that Americans who deny any quintessential culpability which people with acerbic rhetoric play in inciting violence are simply tragic.
The near death moment Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords experienced through the bullet of Jared Lee Loughner is a moment brought on by a society in which people take the use of free speech to the extreme of insanity by using words which willy-nilly inspire the twisted minds in society.
3.3 OF CHRISTIANA GREEN: A COLD LOUGHNER VICTIM
Chris Green
Little Chris
Like the Crucified Christ
How too short your moment of elation
Before the death blow that sank
Not only through you
But through many who think death seems understandable
Until it hits an innocent kid
Whose only "sin" is to be out there
Testing a celebrated culture
Of freedom to be anywhere, say anything, hold anything
Until the epiphany arrives:
Nowhere are we safe
When Freedom uncaged
To the wild
Soars and swoops with sinister wings
And silences a babe of nine with sweet smile
Etched on the screen, a sore source
Of our life and our death, our glory and our guilt.
3.4 LIBERIA'S ELLEN SIRLEAF AND JACKSON DOE: THE PATRICK TAMBA STORY
If the murder-related story of Jackson Doe as told by Patrick Tamba is factual, then there is a grave need for concern.
Nonetheless, fellow Liberians, however strong our pent-up feelings may be toward one another, toward certain individuals, or toward certain demographics of our society, it can never provide anyone a long-term benefit if the motive that generates our individual words or actions is to hurt rather than to strengthen the process of coming together for the re-building of a nation torn by war.
A story coming out to prove that Ellen Sirleaf, among others, has had restive political aspirations may be insightful. But if it turns out to be a mere creative and spiteful narrative, it will hit the country in a way far worse. Why? Because it will aggravate the postwar polarization, the tempo of which is likely to increase in the present electioneering year.
The one individual or group that may release this story may be out of the country. But as a human being, and as an African with usually a huge extended family, there can be no telling whether such an individual or group will be fair to extended relations in the country, relations who may become vulnerable to any blow-back from any such story.
Mr. Tamba claims to have witnessed the brutal murder of Jackson Doe. Mr. Tamba claims that the deed haunted him for at least 15 years. Mr. Tamba provides descriptive snapshots of the murder and pauses abruptly, saying that the pain of re-telling the incident is growing worse and that he needs to stop until another time. It has been five years since the story initially came out. Might it not have been prudent by now for him to issue a full length account? Has the pain not worn away yet for him to resume the exposition?
Finally, reading through the Tamba story, I caught one detail, which though possibly trivial, may need to be pursued to its logical conclusion, because even the so-called trivial detail may turn out to be the threshold to authenticating an enormous factual or fictional narrative.
Here is the detail: I find it inconceivable that by August 1990 Charles Taylor would have regarded and announced Ellen Sirleaf as "leader of the revolution." The reason is that according to notes I took copiously during the war--and I always had a radio around which many displaced Liberians in Fendell would gather for BBC's "Focus on Africa" segment--I know that by July 1990, Taylor had announced to a worried world that he was the leader. He said he planned to rule for five years but was not sure whether he'd relinquish power after those years. One backlash was Prince Johnson's decision to break away and form the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Did such a man (i.e. Taylor) need an Ellen Sirleaf to eliminate potential civilian leaders in his reach, especially when he kept chiming that he was no one's "errand boy"?
I must say in closing that I don't intend to sound that I am needlessly defending Ellen Sirleaf, because I am not. I am evoking the sense of judicious treatment of one another, short of racing for some political advantage or scoring a political point that will exacerbate rather than ameliorate the fragile condition of our patriotic consciousness. In days when Mrs. Sirleaf seemed to have been winning, I was nearly petrified by the unrestrained excitement swirling from very many Settler Liberians who kept chiming that "their time" had come. Indeed, I continue to hold that Native Liberian supremacy is as dangerous as Settler Liberian supremacy. A situation of a Liberian win-win is the best option for a productive Liberia. Thus, in the context of the demographic excitement just mentioned, a win for Mrs. Sirleaf seemed a round of divisive politics, a situation which a war-ravaged nation like Liberia could ill-afford. Perhaps history will tell whether she ruled with an even hand, as best as humanly possible.
The point for now is that she eventually became the leader of Africa's oldest republic, south of the Sahara. When I look at her, I see her not as Ellen Sirleaf. I see her as the Nation of my Birth. That would hold true if another person, through significantly clean elections, became the Liberian leader. In the next round of electioneering, may we clear our minds and speak to issues that see Liberia as a nation of many demographics but one nationalistic conscience, as a nation in need of improved health services, as a nation in need of improved educational deliverables, as a nation in need of artisans capable of creating jobs rather chasing after jobs, as a nation of nationals ready to work together, understanding the fact that we are capable of creating a society of misery or a society of marvelous achievements.
3.5 AMERICA, EVEN IDIOTS RESPOND TO LANGUAGE
Ever since the Gabrielle Giffords incident on January 8, 2011, I have had one more chance of realizing how really human Americans are; that however culturally sophisticated they may seem to be, Americans are human beings, through and through. I sound naive. Whatever made me think for once that Americans are not human beings?
It is not that with all my training in the world of the humanities--the history books I have read, the short stories I have read, the novels I have read, the poems I have read, the plays I have read, the films I've watched--I ever doubted that Americans are really human beings who like all other human beings are capable of grief, capable of anger, capable of hate, capable of fear, indeed, capable of all human emotions.
Americans--and perhaps most especially American politicians--have often striven to show that they are above human frailties. Have you ever watched an American tear up and feel the need to apologize for the tears? Have you ever watched an American feeling it almost impossible to admit that some incident has sent shockwaves through his/her spine?
America is "the land of the free." America is "the home of the brave." Freedom and bravery, it seems, are an anathema to tears, fears, and all other purported emotive trappings of weaklings. Thus, they ought not to have any place in the American psyche or demeanor.
If Nature cared about whatever denial human beings subjected themselves to, when it comes to emotional attributes, that would be a different story. Conversely, Nature is often on the march, letting all human beings know that nobody is above fear, above tearing up, above anger, above hate, above greed, etc. (There may be varying intensity, but the emotive part of humanity cannot be denied with impunity.) No sooner had any human being acknowledged this reality of emotive weakness than he/she would do everything possible to strike a beneficial balance between human emotion and intellect. After all, it is such a balance that will give society the human meaning and purpose capable of adjusting the dictates of freedom and bravery. Failure to understand that balance often results in humanity rising to a state of buffoonery and at worst tragedy.
Ever since Jared Lee Loughner fired the almost unstoppable volley of shots with his high-powered gun, many an American has been tempted more to say that there is no causal relationship between incendiary rhetoric, especially in the past two or three years, and the urge by Loughner to purchase a gun, load it, go out to the Giffords political meeting, and open fire on the congresswoman and a host of other Americans present at the meeting.
That denial mindset of such Americans emanates from the fear of being called a weak thinker, who obviously has a poor skill of analysis. That mindset emanates from the fear of being called subjective, since calling out the danger of fiery political rhetoric in this Loughner incident is to say that a human being is monolithic when it comes to motivations and actions. That mindset emanates from the fear that it must be "sinful" to talk about the dangers of always giving the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution a free pass. It seems in that instance no American should be worth his/her salt if he/she thinks that a law which puts guns in every American's hand is simply absurd.
So, although there is clear fundamental evidence that Loughner is politically sensitized--e.g. he has had a record of being an independent voter; he once attended a Giffords political rally, asked Giffords a question, but felt dissatisfied with the answer he got; he carries a mixed bag of political literature--his action must be treated as one motivated by either the sheer brutish nature of human beings or just a matter of insanity. His action must be regarded as one emanating from a child of three who picks up a gun and through accidental touching from one end to the other realizes that he's touched a part capable of sending out killing shots. Indeed, the word is that Loughner's action must be seen as coming from someone who all his life has lived in a cocoon from which he suddenly sprang on that fateful January 8, 2011 and began shooting.
That argument is a symptom of denial. That argument proceeds without the full understanding and appreciation of the power of language. It is the type of argument perpetrated, namely, that although the media (especially TV, movies, and video games) are a source of ample violence capable of impacting the minds of impressionable demographics of society, they must not be significantly faulted for teen violence. Never mind the fact that the typical teen in America, for instance, spends at least six hours daily watching TV or video, or playing video games. Such an argument rising in the Loughner incident is the type which features in the statement that gun did not really kill little Christiana Green and others, while wounding Congresswoman Giffords; it was hatred, which caused the disaster. I know of societies where there is sufficient hatred to incite a killing spree. I know postwar Liberia best as one such place. But thank God, gun is not in every hand. The point is that a society which willfully allows its people easy access to implements by which anyone can live tragic fantasies is in cahoots with evil.
I submit that incendiary rhetoric motivated Jared Loughner, because he is politically conscious and because he is a member of a human society fully competent in and capable of language. He has the capacity of being affected by language. If Loughner had fired on a herd of buffalos or dogs, I won't have been up this 3 or 4 am writing. As well, even as tragic as it may be, if Loughner had fired on some school bus or some passenger train, I wouldn't have argued the point that there is a causal relationship between his shooting and incendiary political rhetoric. But this young man chose his weapon and his target wisely, and proceeded to work. What more evidence does anyone need in order to make the connection?
A society which prides itself in the constant fashioning of information capital cannot when the product is brought into the marketplace deny being the producer of such capital. Language remains the centerpiece of information capital. What is language but a communication chip buried in the subconscious of every human. It takes on the images and imagery of the culture it is first exposed to, while making appropriate adjustments along the way. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein remain important springboards for this thought about language. Halbwachs calls it "notions of collective memory," while Wittgenstein refers to it as the "picture theory of language."
A young man who lives in a society where imagery of gun use proliferates the media must be a robot to not absorb several of the related images produced by that source, and seek ways to act out those images. In that context, I was pleasantly surprised when Senator Barbara Boxer of California, appearing on MSNBC's "The Last Word" produced by Lawrence O'Donell, landed a finger on the truth of the hour. She said that people may argue in whatever way they want. But Americans live in a society where there are sufficient, "cultural noises capable of entering through the backdoor of the thought process" of even the mentally unstable person to do wanton damage to society. Senator Boxer made specific reference to the possible impact of the fiery rhetoric which has risen in the past several years in America.
Granted that the fiery language or imagery motivating Loughner could have come from just anyone, and not from Sarah Palin alone. But to deny that fiery language or imagery played a significant part in the Loughner shooting is to be careless with the truth. Fiery language played a major part. And someone like Sarah Palin, who in the recent past placed crosshairs on several districts in Arizona (including Giffords' district) or used terms like "don't retreat," "reload" as some command, as it were, to her audience to face up to government, ought not be regarded as innocent.
3.6 AND SO FOR ONCE, AMERICA'S OBAMA ZIPPED THEIR MOUTHS....
That title references the closing words, as it were, to the story of how a purportedly deranged young man gunned down several citizens peacefully assembled to deliberate on matters affecting their common interest. Indeed, those words seem an interesting ending to the story which played out when "mentally unstable" Jared Loughner bought a high-powered weapon and raced to a political meeting to cut down his prime target, Gabrielle Giffords. The epic climax of where to lay the blame was to end or find a respite on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 when President Barack Obama gave a soul-stirring eulogy, faulting neither rhetoric nor rhetoricians, Republicans nor Democrats, conservatives nor liberals for the heinous crime.
Even Glen Beck, one of the notoriously foul-mouthed critics of Obama, who had been calling the man nearly every incendiary name, felt himself cornered. He sounded like a raging beast eventually gunned down and straining to draw the last of some precious breath before passing into eternity. The idea that for once he had no single dark word to utter but "I can now call him President of the United States of America" spoke volumes. For once, this "evil incarnate," this "reverse racist," this "dark angel," this "strange beast," this "communist," this "socialist" could earn the momentary trust of even a fiery white clique who have clearly found it offensive and disgusting for a black man to cultivate some brazen courage to run for and win the covetous chair in the Oval Office.
But there was nothing Obama said that Wednesday evening that he had not said before. He had often said, "There are no blue states or red states, but the United States of America." He had often said, "We may disagree, but we must not be disagreeable." He had often called for civil discourse as a way of providing the people of America and the rest of the world deserving social, political, and economic deliverables. He had often championed the cause of bipartisanship. Wasn't it his worldview on harmony instead of disharmony, order instead of chaos, dialogue instead of monologue, inclusion instead of alienation which won him hearts and minds in all races, classes, and creeds around the world?
But in the United States of America, which had known white and only white leaders, this "black beast" had to be tormented all this life as president of the United States of America. To hell with any converted white group which partnered with other races to change the flavor, the color, and the dynamics of political leadership in the world's foremost society of democratic culture--if such an irony is not well and kicking by now!
And yet, during that solemn occasion to give all hope and to honor the dead felled by a sniper's shots, the lightning rod of the "big black scare" once again demonstrated that the Black Man is not an inveterate evil. He is as decent as any human being who has the capacity to reason, to peel off layers of a complex social issue, and rather than microscope blames, sculpt the precious aspects of humanity--unpretentious love, mutual concern, mutual respect, dignity, etc.--which when cultivated will heal the world and establish even a little heaven on earth for all humans.
By that verbal act, he outsmarted them. He outsmarted those who had braced themselves to say "We told you so!"--had he called for blood; had he condemned fiery political rhetoric as being the stimulus for the sinister deed visited upon the people of Arizona on that dark January day. But that was not a strategy. Clearly for Obama it has been a way of life. More often than not, he has always sought ways to speak to the better angel of our nature. John Henrik Clarke, the Historian of all historians, once said that a strategy is not a way of life. It is a momentary process which becomes dated when a particular hurdle has been cleared. What comes off as a way of life is that elaborate system of methods, which is elastic and expansive enough to prove a quintessential tensility. Indeed, it is that which stands out valuably in good and in bad, in best and worst situations of life.
Those who crave more to do good or to say good things may like all humans show signs of fallibility, but their restive nature of goodness will often redeem their name, their image, and their place in human history. Obama clearly has a restive nature of goodness. He will almost always zip the mouths of those who wish him ill. So the Glen Becks and the Rush Limbaughs of America had better get over it.
3.7 SOCIAL REFORM ACTIVISM IN 2011: RELIVING LIBERIA OF THE 1970S
In the wake of social reform activism in Tunisia, a certain historian appearing on America’s CNN identified hunger and anger as stimuli for revolutions—socio-political revolutions intended here. I couldn’t have agreed more. Philosophical capsules are found in unexpected places. How could I have easily gotten that summary for the generic causes of revolutions! Just as 2011 has become the year for Tunisia and Egypt, and it may become the year for other countries (e.g. Iran, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc.), socio-political revolution came gradually for Liberians in the 1970s. An elite class, which had successively remained indifferent to the suffering of the broad masses in Liberia for at least 100 years, soon found out by the late 1970s, that the social reform agenda requested intermittently had to materialize at one decisive moment, or it would not come at all.
In those 1970 years, while comparatively about 15% or 20% of the Liberian population remained affluent, occupying the best of jobs, riding the best of cars, wearing the best of clothes, living in the best of homes, eating the best of food, sending children to the best of schools, receiving the best of health care, evading high taxes with little or no punishment, etc., the rest of the population (85% or 80%) carried around a beggar‘s bowl.
For those who benefitted significantly, that economically, socially, and politically disastrous situation should have remained in place. The converse has become the source of condemnation for other Liberians who dared speak consistently and persistently about the inequities and the need for genuine change. I am thinking about the Baccus Matthewses and the Togba Nah Tipotehs, representatives of those who rocked the nation in the 1970s, calling for social reforms.
That is why, watching images on the screen for the past two months, I have only had to shake my head. Those who are being hailed today as heroes for helping to topple insensitive, long-serving regimes will soon find themselves as public enemies. They will soon find themselves kith and kin of Moses. Remember Moses? He was the guy of biblical fame who sacrificed his plush personal present and future to seek the collective plush future for a whole nation. He was the guy who felt that although being a prince in a palace was good, being the instrument for relieving a huge group of people from bondage was better. In ancient Egypt, that Moses was the instrument of liberty and freedom for the Israelites. But the Israelites thought liberty and freedom came as a one-shot deal. They thought liberty and freedom came through the stroke of a magic wand. They thought they did not have to make any more sacrifices than they had made by being in bondage under Egyptian pharaohs. Thus, it did not take long when they began heckling Moses: “Why did you bring us out here? We should have been in Egypt suffering but eating little crumbs here and there, instead of still being on the highway to Canaan.”
The path to prosperity is a long winding road. After the clearing of a huge obstacle comes the moment to clear limbs of overgrown trees, to mow overgrown grass. After the fall of a regime, which had grown in size and height, all agitators, who have seen the regime fall, should find that moral compass and patience to formulate a value system, neither divisive nor selfish, to sustain the spirit of the cause—the cause to ensure that never again should a tiny group gorge the wealth of the nation and become morbidly obese, with the members seeking selfishly to take along the whole nation to their dying bed.
Indeed, 2011 is a renewal of the human spirit to fight off excessive greed and political recalcitrance. Yet, it also challenges social reform activists to live up to the demand of formulating a sustainable system of service, in order that the memory of the dead and wounded will be a lesson—lesson to remind people that nothing can ever stand in the way when the long-subjugated and manipulated rise to assert their inalienable rights; lesson to remind people that no human is a god and that anyone wishing to become a national leader must consider the criminality of the temptation of often craving to rule longer than what times and circumstances can accept.
3.8 IMPERFECTION: HOW IT CURES RATHER THAN KILLS
The other day I sat reflecting on American punditry. The era of crises in the Middle East and North Africa heightened the need for this reflection. While there were a few Americans making cautious comments about events pervading that part of the world, there were many who were very audacious in their comments, especially regarding the outcome of the crises. And then came the big one about the glory of American democracy. It is because America—or I dare say many an American—gets easily swept away by this presumption of self-importance that the amount of caution which could remain a useful asset gets squandered, sometimes very conveniently.
American democracy, as we have seen since the beginning of 2011, has been one interested seemingly in democracy at home, but tyranny abroad. I know, I know it sounds cynical and at worst obnoxious. But think about this: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, etc. have had dictators who for many years fed from the trough of political America. They fed at this trough as long as they kept some eye on purported enemies of the world’s “foremost democracy, culture, and civilization.” As long as they remained America’s watchdogs, anything tyrannical they did to effect the mission would remain acceptable until the ordinary man and woman rose up to chime that enough was indeed enough. And then the great nation was ready to call for social reforms—and even political reforms!
Watching this trend of things, I can simply say that surely no human system is perfect. No human system can ever be perfect. There is often a lot to get in the way of human stride to perfection. Our very nature tends to take interest more in ourselves than in others. “Self-preservation is the first law of nature” cannot be at odds with the foregoing. Our very nature to want the best for ourselves more than what we want for others often easily progresses from group interest to individual interest. By the time such inclination progresses to the individual level, the interest in machinations takes firm hold of us. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Tale” embedded with The Canterbury Tales is revealing in the matter. Three friends find a hill of gold. Although initially excited at the very moment when they found the gold through the bidding of a bony old man, selfishness set in subsequently. “Won’t it be nice for one, just one person, to have all this gold?” The thought crept in and spread its contaminating acid through those who were once friends. By the time the end of the story came, all three became victims of selfishness, and specifically greed. Through poison and metal, these friends eliminated one another.
This phenomenon—the phenomenon of progression to selfish proclivities—is usually reined in or ameliorated by religion. The idea that if we become overly reckless something of our spirituality is diminished keeps us in check. The idea keeps us in check so far as we are conscious of the duality of our existence, namely, partly destructible flesh and partly indestructible soul, meaning the material and the immaterial essence of our very being. Indeed, it keeps us in check in so far as we are conscious of the sense of a higher being to whom we are likely to be accountable.
Politics is a different animal. It is the arena where humanity brandishes ego and all correlatives until the chronic reality sets in—a human is simply a human, period. A human eats. A human excretes, or, failing to do so, bloats, explodes, dies. A human gets sick under numerous other circumstances. A human lives only to a certain a ripe age and passes into eternity. A human cannot be God.
I believe the true understanding and appreciation of our transitory nature and its correlative imperfections ought to be something to strive for and practicalize in what we say and in what we do. It is the surest path to creating peace and harmony. Why? Because it provides a humbling experience. It really makes us more human than God.
3.9 LAURENT GBAGBO AND A DATE WITH LIBERIA'S E. J. BARCLAY
In April 2011, when the news of Gbagbo's arrest hit the air, I did one thing: recite from start to finish Edwin J. Barclay's sonnet about the futility of power, before I could blink. For non-news enthusiasts, Gbagbo was the Ivorian leader who refused to give up the presidential chair when the internationally certified election results in Ivory Coast [West Africa] concluded that Gbagbo's rival Alassane Ouattara won the Ivorian presidential election.
I know, I know--there are those who've argued that the election was an internal matter. Nobody, no institution, no external force was supposed to meddle in the internal affairs of the country. As for that, no one should play the fool here. Any national or regional indiscretion capable of unleashing grave human suffering, a suffering that can inevitably spill beyond national and regional boundaries ought not to be left to the whims and caprices of some leader who either lacks foresight or is saturated with selfishness.
I dare say that Africa has heard so much about "internal affairs," a concept that has offloaded numerous buffoons on the political landscape of the continent. In our time, the insistence on the right to enjoy the benefits of "internal affairs" led to the prolonged acquiescence of international institutions, a despicable silence which resulted in wanton death and destruction. We saw that in Rwanda, we saw that in Sierra Leone, we saw that in Liberia. We should never want to see that anywhere else. What right has one man [or a woman] or a clique to lord it over an entire country, while the rest of the world sit and wait? What right has anybody to think himself/herself more intelligent and wiser as to think it appropriate to stick to a political seat while ordinary man, woman, and child waste away by the scorch of poverty? What right has anybody to insist upon some law or constitutional provision which that person knows was manipulated for selfish entitlements and justification?
Gbagbo had been a political activist for at least 20 years. His activism paid off in the sense of what we saw eventually. In the wake of the death of Houphouet Boigny, the longest ruling president in that West African country, a death brought about by natural causes, some "heir apparent" Henri Konan Bedie took the mantle. He was shortly ousted by Henri Guei. The recurrent political drama eventually brought in Laurent Gbagbo. No sooner had he become president than he and others began to disenfranchise other men and women who for all their lives knew no other natural and permanent home except Ivory Coast. Alassane Ouattra fell in the category of the disenfranchised. The man who had served as prime minister of Ivory Coast was almost immediately made a pariah. He was classified first by Bedie and then by Gbagbo as a foreigner, one of lesser Ivorian breed.
No wonder Gbagbo doctored the national constitution and set up his very own "election watchers" as election commissioners and constitutional council to oversee and certify election results! It was these hand-picked government operatives who, he insisted, carried a voice of integrity and needed to be respected. After all, they thoroughly "vetted" the process and they were "sincere and honest" about the conclusion that he and not Ouattara won the election.
There cannot be a paucity of reasons for endless arguments. Yet the reality is never diminished--the intensity of a truth usually lies in numbers. That is one key reason why when something happens, the number of witnesses attesting to the validity of that incident carries the vote. With numerous voices insisting that Ouattara won [except the UN, AU, and ECOWAS are insane], Gbagbo, for the love of his country, should have sought a diplomatic way out of the quagmire and left. He would not leave. The idea of a Ouattara win meant that the political booby traps he [Gbagbo] had set for Ouattara would come back to victimize him. He therefore needed to fight tooth and nail to cling on to power.
Neither Africa nor any region of the world should ever want to pursue such a mischievous agenda, which sometimes borders on criminality, in the 21st century. Yet one is likely to take a cue from Edwin J. Barclay, Liberia's seventeenth president and an accomplished poet, when he laments the flawed character of humanity. He says: "Oh History! Upon thy glowing page/Time writes her judgment. But she writes in vain./ Her symbols man misreads in every age./ And garners then but legacies of pain."
Gbagbo, who was seen as a respectable activist for those in search of change in Ivory Coast, fell to the trappings of power and pomp, becoming a source of needless slaughter of his own people. And today, Ouattara is being hailed. May he not "misread" Time's "judgment" and "garner legacies of pain" for the people of Ivory Coast. May he become an exemplary African leader whose adherence to integrity will help redeem a continent longing for decent and honorable leaders.
4.0 OF PASSION, CONVERSATION, AND ARGUMENT: LIBERIA'S WEAH-SIRLEAF TALK THAT SEEMS ENDLESS
After a long silence which seemed like eternity, a college friend and I met. It seemed a treasured time until the unexpected happened. We strolled into politics, an area which like religion often turns harmony into chaos, friends into enemies, construction into destruction, balm into heat. The contention centered on Sirleaf and Weah--yes, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and George Oppong Weah of Liberia. All of a sudden, this colleague of mine considered himself more intellectually and intelligently elevated when I told him my choice in 2005 was not Sirleaf. He was disappointed in me, he said. I should never ever tell anyone that I chose Weah, he said. Weah was uneducated; Weah was narcissistic, he said. Conversely, Sirleaf was educated, he said. In all her life, Sirleaf worked in government and international organizations, he said. Sirleaf was not interested in where anyone came from. As long as that person could do a job and do it so well, she never relented in supporting such a person or providing such a person the tools required to perform a given task. This colleague of mine said that as a cadet he once worked with Sirleaf, so he knew what he was talking about. In short, Sirleaf was everything presidential; Weah was not.
My wife in the background kept calling for calm, anxious that what could be a precious reunion was just about to turn sour. But I trusted my capacity for self-restraint in the matter. I prodded my colleague while I kept a smiling face. Funny enough, he who appeared blazing hot over what I thought a simple topic of conversation, kept advising that we dropped the topic, "because I see you're getting angry." It was his tone, by the way, which had drawn by wife's call for calm. I simply told him that he sure wasn't serious about describing my feeling the way he did, when it was clear who was visibly passionate about the issue, turning what was intended for a mere chat into a contentious debate.
Just then he said he wanted to use the restroom. He went and returned, and seemed to have cooled off a bit--a moment I'd wished for to calmly and patiently describe to him a part of my sociological and political perspective on Liberia. When he returned, I told him that national politics is not as monolithic as some people often think. I told him that national politics shows the grand essence of intellectual, class, professional, and ethnocultural forces jostling for spots around one single table. National politics requires a balancing act which is very delicate. While classroom education has its part to play, it can never become the sum total of qualities for national leadership. I told him that at the core, national leadership requires a know-how and the heart and mind to effect the know-how. The know-how is contributive; the heart and mind to effect the know-how need a drum-major, a resolute campaigner. It is the soul of any given national leadership.
I told my learned colleague that in the 2005 elections, my preference for Weah came only when the first round of the 2005 general and presidential elections ended with Weah showing an impressive performance. I told him that all things considered, there were a few better choices I could have preferred. Who could have comparatively chosen Weah over Dr. Togba Nah Tipoteh or Dr. George Klay Kieh? These were very educated Liberians; not only that. These were men who had shown a passionate interest in the cause of the ordinary people. Of course, my learned colleague thought little or nothing of the two men--not even Dr. Tipoteh! In any case, these men couldn't garner the needed votes, so they lost in the first round.
Of all 20-plus candidates, Weah who reportedly had little or no education was chosen from among the long list of candidates. I told my learned colleague that Weah's performance said something to me; the choice meant something to me. Consequently, that popular preference was my first criterion of preference, except one believed sincerely that the Liberian voters were morons, that they did not know what they wanted. Granted there were many youthful voters. But it was insulting and very condescending to believe that these voters did not know what they wanted. A few months later, when Liberians purportedly voted for Sirleaf over Weah, they seemed at that moment to know better! Why wouldn't they? They had purportedly voted for the most educated and the most experienced!
Speaking of the first round of win for Weah, my learned colleague said that popularity was insignificant in the matter. Weah was chosen because of his football prowess. Nothing more. My learned colleague said even if Weah had enormous resources, having enormous resources was also insignificant.
I said Weah did demonstrate patriotism during the war by touring many refugee and displaced camps to provide whatever modest resources he had. He even helped in disarming child soldiers.
My learned colleague said that whatever Weah provided at those camps was simply to bolster his own ego. Weah did not do it for a selfless reason. Even in America, wherever Weah went and spent money, he did that to show off. Besides, whether at the camps or at public gatherings, it was simply his cronies--his past soccer teammates and his fans--he took interest in, not all Liberians.
Just then, I saw where the learned colleague was going in the matter. I saw that he was truly engaged in an argument ridden with embarrassing fallacies. He was pursuing an argument in which he would not concede one element of fact or truth from the other side. And there is a danger in argument when an arguer turns the activity into a sport of win-lose, instead of an exchange of views in a genuine attempt to clarify issues and make significant progress, which is the essence of real argument. I saw my learned colleague as someone planting feet in the cement of idle debate. In fact, he said what we were doing was a matter of showcasing either candidate before a camera in split seconds. So, each of us needed to put forth our best individual reasons. I said, I hadn't thought of our chat in that fashion.
So, from where did this man get the idea that every other candidate except Weah did public good only for altruistic reasons?
I told my learned colleague that Weah's very own journey to wealth placed him in a position to understand the suffering of ordinary Liberians. Wasn't his story one of going from rags to riches? I told this colleague of mine that the extent to which Sirleaf's possible win became a source of salivation for a particular ethnocultural group of Liberians--Settler Liberians--was very ominous; it did not promise healing for the country. I said however well-educated--if education means a quantity of degrees--anyone who did not cultivate the conscience to make things better for ordinary people, indeed all Liberians, could not make an admirable leader. I told my colleague that contrary to what many think, national leadership is more a collective journey than an individual journey. Thus, rather than peddle the notion of solo-drive, where unless a leader is spectacularly educated he/she ought not to be given an opportunity, people need to understand that there are other leadership qualities and configurations which may prove productive. Liberia has a pool of very qualified technicians and technocrats who could have helped steer the state in a Weah-led government.
Liberia cannot afford an inexperienced leader, my learned colleague said.
When it comes to national leadership, no singular person is experienced, I said. However, a nation is best served by the sum total of the experiences of its learned men and women--the cream of the society. Thus, to my mind, one who has true love for a country and its people does have an enviable quality to lead. It is such love that will guide policies towards health, towards education, towards multinational contracts, towards international diplomacy, so that at the end of every meaningful interaction with other countries, the country does not become the loser in terms of its relevant share of entitlements.
When I saw that for my learned colleague it was either his way or the high way, I just knew it was time that I moved on to valuable things.
I couldn't have gone on to tell him that for Weah's humanitarian work during the war and immediately thereafter, he won a humanitarian award presented to him by America's Denzel Washington. I couldn't tell him that for Weah's work with ex-combatants and other young people, Weah became UNICEF's goodwill ambassador. I couldn't tell that learned colleague of mine that while the likes of Weah were busy studying and promoting ways to end Liberia's civil war and restore peace in the country, many of the reportedly, highly educated Liberians clamoring for national leadership positions were down, deep in the blood of innocent Liberians, blood-flow which they caused either through words or through weapons of war. I knew that conversation is not the same as some contentious rub-it-your-face type of fuss or debate. I knew that conversation is an art of smooth, civil trading of thoughts and ideas, instead of intentional barking of conversers at each other or conversers springing down each other's throat.
My learned colleague could go on believing that education for its own sake is what Liberia needs. But I knew what makes a good national leader; it is infectious patriotism. It is a patriotism which does not scream "blood" at the slightest provocation. It is a patriotism which seeks to demonstrate in concrete terms goodwill for all. Weah had already shown concrete examples in that regard. I didn't know if Sirleaf did in the time period of reference--I mean the war years.
Later, my learned colleague slipped a word into another conversation, namely, that he was a bona fide member of Liberians for Ellen (LIFE)--a group rooting for the re-election of Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2011. I smiled. I said I didn't know Weah, except for all I'd seen or read about the man. And my claim was very true. Anyone could go out to read the newspaper clippings, the video clips, etc.
Later, the three-day reunion of me and my learned colleague came to an end, leaving me wondering about human nature.
4.1 LONG FORM, SHORT FORM: RAT-CAT ENMITY REBORN [AMERICA'S OBAMA BIRTH "BLOBADY-BLU"]
The Prelude...
Hatred has no heart
Hatred has no eyes
Hatred has no ears
Nor does it have any mouth
Except that with which
It feeds on filth
Of the death and destruction
Of its Target--
I've seen Obama's America.
Today is Wednesday, April 27, 2011. It is a day I've been turning a few things in my mind. Another anniversary month of my father's death. The twenty-seventh is a day after the death of the last Matriarch of the Nagbe family--Mrs. Regina Jili Nagbe. April is the month, this year, when Liberia lost an important journalist--Stanton Peabody--a jovial yet hardworking professional, a true breed Liberian unhindered by his demographic of birth; he often took every meaningful and purposeful Liberian into his company.
And then comes the news about the release of President Barack Obama's long-form certificate of birth. What has that got to do with the Nagbe family's hour of mourning? What has that got to do with mourning in the Liberian circle of professionals?
They all invite a reflection on the value of human dignity born of the conscious and conscientious attempt to sustain mutual respectability, a type of respectability which the world needs in full measure today. My father, Emmanuel Mombo Nagbe, instilled in members of the family the respect for every human being, irrespective of economic class, irrespective of ethnocultural background, irrespective of race, irrespective of creed. Stanton Peabody, born of the Settler-Liberian demographic [the so-called Congo-Liberian stock], lived to mingle not only with his own people but also with all Liberians interested in burnishing the image of a nation usually writhing from the pain of divisiveness. America's Barack Obama, born of an African father and an American mother, has striven to rise above racial mudslinging. Whether a word or a situation smells disgustingly of racism, the young man has made it his extreme business to deny a racist coloring to the word or to the situation--even to the visible anger and frustration of some of his supporters.
And yet, it is the Barack Obama who, ever since his election as president of the United States, has faced racial innuendos from many members in a society which touts first-rate civility, first-rate sophistication--oh, indeed the greatest civilization in world!
What sort of "kid, skinny and carrying a funny name," managed to fly into the Oval Office of the land? How did this happen? Who could have done this to America? What could have done this to America?
The mystery and the magic of Election 2008 in America so drowned diehard "Owners of America" that they have refused absolutely to sober up from the seeming stupor created in that year when a black man eventually became the President of the United States of America. It is these "Owners" who have, in these past several months, created bizarre scenes with the accompanying linguistic ecology to "trim the 44th United States president to size." Some have called him a chimp or a monkey, some have called him water melon farmer, some have called him a Muslim, some have called him the reincarnate of Marx [yes a crazy socialist], some have simply dismissed him as a fraud. One would wish they understood that by calling President Obama a fraud, they are acknowledging some fact that America may not after all be the society of sophistication that the country and its people have been trumpeting around the world. Otherwise, how could they have elected "this fraud"? But what do those critics care!
For them, it is possible that in America someone can not only cook up facts, but also use such facts to weasel through the long, torturous process of scrutiny into the White House. So, that is what, from their perspective, happened in the case of this African American child. Based on that contention, not even the official short form of birth certificate acceptable in one of the many states of America was convincing enough. No, these "Owners" could not see how by questioning documents acceptable to the State of Hawaii they were implying that the state did not know better, and that some demographic in America had the final word of authority and authenticity about what documents to accept in the official course of business and what documents should be rejected outright.
And then, after all this "blobabdy-blu," my coinage meaning extreme irresponsible nonsense, the "Owners" came to see today, April 27, 2011, Obama's long form certificate of birth, not often officially required in the State of Hawaii. And yet, the "Owners" have begun to say, "What if the long form is a fake?" Such "Owners," then, must surely be societal degenerates. These must be treated like crackpot buffoons who, for all peace-loving people of the world, must be watched as jesters in some king's court. The field of logic has a word for such people. They are agents of pig-headed fallacy. Those who swear to everything that they are right even when pristine facts prove otherwise are said to commit pig-headed fallacy.
Reflecting on those "Owners'" unfailing fastidious, arrogant, and usually hypocritical attitude towards their demand for "facts," I was reminded of the folk story of how enmity evolved between rat and cat [And yes some things do invite ancient lore sometimes to dramatize some simplistic nonsense!]. Rat was this very attractive woman whom Cat felt he had to acquire for a wife. Rat accepted the proposal on one condition--only if Cat could trim his nose. And for the next several weeks, running into months, Cat kept going to a local cosmetologist each time Rat pointed out that the nose was not trimmed well enough. By the time Cat knew what had happened, what he had for a nose was nearly buried into his face. When he showed up for the last time, believing that he had paid the ultimate sacrifice demanded by love, Rat was badly shaken. Cat could not be a man she would go out with. After all, the nose was terribly trimmed for her liking. Thereupon, Cat leaped after Rat, screaming: "No, Not this time. Pray I don't lay my hands on you. When I do, you will go down in history as a woman who for criminal manipulation was gorged by a naive victim of love."
The moral of that story is often frighteningly true. Beware of those who pretend to hold an interest in a thing, a place, a person, or an idea. Their demand to shape the course or the form of that thing, place, person, or idea is often driven by the desire to totally destroy what they hate. And what is hatred? Hatred is best described by the prelude to the present note of reflection. Hatred is blind, deaf, and numb to all things craved by love.
Enjoy.
4.2 BLACK BOY, BLOCKBUSTER, AND THE AMERICAN MYSTIQUE
Well, I don't know what all those who hate the idea will do now. I really don't know what Americans who hate the idea of a black man as president of America will do now. America established protocols for the American presidency. A black man convincingly went through the protocols and became the President of the United States of America.
Irrespective of their inveterate doubts that a black man can rise to the occasion, these malicious and mischievous Americans have willy-nilly seen that this black man has a head on his shoulders, that he cannot be easily dragged around. He may see the need to compromise when the moment comes. But that ought not to be taken as a weakness. If that is so, then all productive humans must be weak. After all, no human can succeed all the time by standing like steel against the need for compromise. Comprise is the salt of civility. Compromise fertilizes life. In the American context, it is compromise which is at the heart of what one may refer to as the American mystique--the capacity of a whole continent [a group of states passing as one] to appear governable as if it were a single country or state, while single countries find it comparatively tough to break through chaos and destruction.
A country on the brink of falling into an economic hell hole was pulled back through the inner working of the President. Yes, presently prosperity is not visible and rampant. But misery which comes with the territory of Depression is not visible and rampant either. In the moment of a life-threatening fall, a tilt instead of the fall is much better. The auto industry which had been sliding into a terrible slump is picking up. Unemployment might undulate at 9% but couldn't it have been worse if nothing had been done? In short, the economic measures taken by Obama to stabilize the economy may not be producing spectacular results for now, but they bear the seeds of hope. Sometimes in life's great uncertainties, the hope of working together and resolutely is all humanity needs.
In came May 1, 2011, a day that will go down as a real blockbuster in American history. A man who master-minded the death of at least 3000 Americans in a single day on American soil, not to mention the hundreds more he'd helped to destroy in American embassies around the world, a man who had eluded capture for nearly ten years was eventually captured and killed on May 1, 2011. I'm talking about bin Laden--Osama bin Laden! How Obama-haters must have bitten their nails! How they must have cursed eternity! Why couldn't bin Laden have been captured by some white president!--Two of them had preceded Obama and had been eluded by bin Laden. In their corners, these Obama-haters obviously screamed: "Why, WHy, WHHHYYYY? O 'Just' God, Why?"
Why? Because the real just God doesn't like ugly. He enhances the value of the rejected stone without which a building cannot stand.
Why? Because the real just God preserves the abandoned glass slipper for the disparaged Cinderella's foot.
Why? Because the real just God apparently gets a kick out of watching clumsy giants trumped by decisive, adept midgets
Why? Because some Americans are yet to understand that the mystique that is America's has grown and can be sustained not by one race but by all races, not by one creed but by all creeds, not by one economic class, but by all economic classes.
Any one American who rejects that reality is doomed to eternal misery.
4.3 DEATH: SHOULD IT STIR JOY OR SORROW? [REMEMBERING THE OSAMA BIN LADEN STORY]
The death of bin Laden has become an interesting minefield of queer sorts. One such is the human attitude towards death and justice. When someone dies, what are we supposed to do--mourn? Laugh? Sit unmoved? When is justice ever served? In such matters as pertain to death and justice, and even war, however hard we try to drop everything in either the basket of condemnation or the basket of celebration, there is often an irresistible reality which compels us to categorize our emotive responses which land us in the middle basket. That is to say, such matters as pertain to death, justice, and war are inevitably contextual. Whether we like it or not, not all deaths and wars are equal. Anything to the contrary is simply hypocritical. As for justice? That's another matter.
In the case of death, generally any human's death ought to draw our attention to our own finality. It becomes a confirmation of our very own pending end, however distant it may be. It has nothing to do with whether or not we fear or welcome death; it is simply a reminder of our mortality. It becomes a confirmation of our place in the human family. It is to such end that John Donne speaks: "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind." Thus, he states further: "Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Terrance the Roman playwright observes: "I am human therefore nothing human is alien to me." In short, the ontology which invites us to invest in human solidarity and commonality of feeling on multiple levels is never without its value and place in life.
Yet, the extent to which any member of the human family stands out to diminish human dignity and fraternity which are promotive of human decency, peace, and concord, there is the natural tendency to sideline such a member. After all, by our very nature, we gravitate towards the order of respect and dignity of life. It is a part of the natural law protective of life. It is grounded in the substance of ethics--the sense of right and wrong.
Consequently, we pass laws [the so-called man-made laws] to sustain life. We cultivate the consciousness and conscience to dissociate ourselves from what negates our drive to sustain life.
The foregoing explains why many Americans, for instance, find it strange that someone like Osama bin Laden who showed no respect and dignity for human life evidenced by his masterminding the death of many people around the world should be treated with the same level of sorrow at the moment of his death, like those killed by his plan. Of course, some people may seek to apply the Donne view; they may even extend it to the biblical admonition of "judge not that ye not be judged." But there is the pressing reality that without group sanction or condemnation the world can run amok or run ruinward by those who make the wanton decimation of lives a sport.
The argument that even bin Laden has his supporters does not obtain here. What ought to apply is that whatever the reason, any one person who indulges in schemes aimed at wanton death and destruction should not enjoy the benefit of good will in the human family.
This difference between the plan to halt wanton death and destruction and the plan to perpetuate wanton death and destruction provides the litmus test of when to applaud a death and when to mourn a death, when to applaud a war and when to condemn a war.
The above should explain the concept of justice. That is to say, justice is served when those who perpetuate destructive acts are halted in their tracks. The other aspect of justice which requires an arraignment cannot apply in the context of bin Laden. After all, in the instance of arraignment society seeks to determine the truth or falsity of an issue. It is such expectation that demands every single piece of information as proof. What truth is sought to be established in the case of bin Laden? Why was he being pursued, except for the fact that he had masterminded the death of several thousands? Did he not accept responsibility for these deaths and brag about them? Denial invites court arraignment.
In the instant killing of bin Laden, those who believe that justice was not served are simply expressing implicit hurt and envy: Just as bin Laden's victims experienced death in stages--bodies crushed under crunched vehicles and granulated walls, men, women, and children choked in smoke-filled rooms or floors, wondering without hope that some rescuer could pass by to bring them a craved relief--Osama bin Laden himself should have faced myriad indignities, faced taunts, and perhaps finally the electric chair. That would have been the real justice! Yet, however huge the number of ways of suffering or deterrence any society can devise for a crime, no one criminal can be successfully subjected to the number of punishments comparable to what he/she may have subjected to all his/her victims. Even Hitler--had he been alive today languishing in jail or being sliced one inch at a time, his suffering would not have compensated for the Holocaust and all the correlative evils he reportedly committed during World War II.
Allowing Osama bin Laden to have stayed alive, reveling in his "fame" as a notorious destroyer, spewing out hatred for America and allies of America would have been terribly disturbing, to say the least. America would have provided him a platform of celebration, a celebration funded by taxpayers' money. It would have been trivializing the blood of those killed. No amount of physical agony could have compensated for the mass murder he committed directly and indirectly, and for which he did unabashedly accept culpability.
It is one thing to be accused of an act; it is another thing to not only accept responsibility for an act but also to brag about that act. The former is obviously the stuff court cases are made of. The latter, none.
4.4 STRUMMING THE GUITAR OF COLONIALISM
Ever since the rise of social reform activism in North Africa, with the addition of the crisis in Ivory Coast [West Africa], there have been pundits emphasizing the theme of colonialism, emphasizing the point that the upheavals in Africa have been motivated by superpower politics, an insinuation that without superpower machinations those countries would have remained "peaceful." On the surface that's an important assertion. For all that superpower politics has adversely done to Africa, only lunatics may dare defend rich and powerful Western nations in the matter. Yet, I must say what I was compelled to say some twenty years ago during the Liberian Civil War. It was during that time that some Liberians often joined some Western nations to denigrate the work of Ecomog, the African peacekeepers in Liberia. I said then that when owners of a home are so reckless as to deface it, neighbors who come out of moral obligation to halt the destruction must not be humiliated recklessly.
In other words, when massive populations of ordinary Africans are in the throes of poverty, never mind the level and quality of education some of them may acquire, and then some tiny privileged few roll about in coaches, going to the best of schools, occupying the best of jobs, receiving the best of health care, eating the best of food, etc., what makes the so-called privileged few feel it their right to continue living the unearned luxury unabatedly? What makes them think that in a country of even two million, two thousand citizens or less are entitled to enjoy the entire wealth of the nation--without any challenge?
In those years, I often said that without Liberia's own sons and daughters providing the viable alternative of patriotism, peace, and harmony, people weren't using their time wisely if all they did was criticize Ecomog. Now, also, I am tempted to say that mere strumming of the guitar of colonialism will not get me to dance. Most African leaders race for the presidency, get in, and refuse to get out. They float on the presumptive arrogance that they are the most intelligent, if not the most educated; without them the nation can never exist. They build massive personal security network to silence every other person. They amass wealth, throwing crumbs to their cronies. The rest of the population may fill pavements and dark, stinking corners of the country, holding out the beggar's bowl with little or nothing to fall in such a bowl, what do the national leaders care!
Ben Ali of Tunisia. Hoseni Mubarak of Egypt. Moammar Gadhafi of Libya. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Along with their family members and friends, these African leaders have carried the purse strings of their individual nations.
If the situation were reversed in such a way that more prosperity than poverty did abound, where, just where, would any super power find a spot to plant a foot of confusion--and win?
4.5 SEX: THE DARK UNCONQUERED TRAIL
Why do humans get trapped every now and then in the web of sex? Why do men lead the pack? So many factors. So many variables. Psychologists do have their theories. Philosophers do have their theories. Yet, the truth is what operates deep in the subconscious cannot be fully known and understood. After all, there is often an unknown element which surprises the audacious theorist and renders certain conclusions untenable and sometimes absurd. It seems true that knowledge visible and knowledge invisible will be at odds. Perhaps this dichotomy is important to human existence because it is the quintessential source of conversations about life.
Here again appears the subject in recent times, as recent as May 2011. Senator John Ensigns of Nevada, USA, trailed by allegations of dalliance with a staffer, his friend's wife, eventually fell; he resigned his post. He now faces serious federal investigation over backroom payments he made to cover up his tracks and the lies he told, believing he could get by.
Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California just admitted, on May 17, 2011, that he fathered a child out of wedlock. The news, according to sources, devastated Maria, his wife of 25 years. In fact, shortly after celebrating their 25th anniversary this very year, the couple issued a statement explaining that they were separating to sort out certain family issues--the irony of it all. No sooner had people begun speculating about what necessitated the statement than the bombshell came. A son came out of the dark!
In the midst of it all came news about a sex-related arrest at the JFK airport. The offense allegedly occurred in a New York hotel, where the alleged sex offender rented a room priced $3000.oo a night. The alleged offender? Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French diplomat head of the International Monetary Fund. He allegedly, sexually abused a hotel maid. This was a man who, according to news, was high up the charts as a serious contender for the French presidency.
Why? Why would this high-profiled man fall to that depth?--And for a hotel maid!
Some blame such circumstance on man becoming drunk with power, man feeling a sense of entitlement, man projecting the craving for conquering a childhood deprivation or subjugation, man feeling a sense of invincibility. But what if the circumstance is based simply on the human curiosity to rendezvous with Fate, to wrestle with Fate, just for the fun of it? It is the same reason why people lie--to see who'll have that sharp sense of wit to identify the flaw. All humans are idiots of sorts. They are like blind people running silent in a room. It is only when they collide with one another or collide with unseen walls do they understand and appreciate the fact that all around them there are constraints--no path without an end, no passion without a limit, no crime without handcuffs.
4.6 BOSNIA'S MLADIC: A GREAT TEACHER FOR LIBERIA
Quite recently--on May 26, 2011, to be exact--the news broke that a former Bosnia Serb General accused of spearheading the death of 8000 Muslim men and boys, during the war in Eastern Europe, was eventually captured. This was after 15 years; some say 10 years. In any case, he was caught sometime after the heinous crime had been committed.
On his running trail, imagine what General Ratko Mladic must have felt--he felt he could outwit the law; he felt he could outwit the international community. He probably enjoyed the best of food, indulged in whatever passion of his choosing. At the other end, those who felt violated, or their families and friends, must have cursed the law, cursed the international community, for being apparently insensitive to the death and destruction which the likes of General Mladic had caused.
Were they not justified? Of course, they were. Yet, the reality is that in such matters Justice does remain patient. If you ever lived in a place where your swatter did battle with flies, you will understand the analogy I find relevant here. If you keep moving your arm every time a fly sweeps by, you are likely to get tired. But if you sit patiently, as if you were lying in ambush, the fly which had been taunting, if not tormenting, you will come floating by. And then that tactical move of yours will be very sweetly rewarded. You may not swat down just one fly; you may swat down several, becoming a brother of Seven-at-One-Blow--that ancient trickster.
The resources intended to chase just one person or a comparatively small group for committed atrocities, as in the case of war, could better be reserved for catering to a much larger population, until a less expensive moment comes. When the deed is fresh, there are more supporters for such an individual or the small group, thus, an attempt of arrest is likely to be met with vicious opposition and carnage.
A good idea, then, is to allow the criminal or alleged criminal who seems to be getting off scot-free to feel a sense of amnesia, to feel that everybody has forgotten about a war-related barbarity, owing to a protracted period. Let such criminal or alleged criminal seem to forget that he/she ever violated society. The capture that springs upon criminals when they least expect inflicts a pain no less sharper than what their victims may have felt. In fact, it may really be a double pain. "O God!--You mean after all these years Justice has been hunting for me?" That is a terrible cry.
There is a lesson for Liberians. Those who've been on the relentless march, calling for War Crime Tribunal in Liberia, those who've been calling for the nabbing of every wartime criminal, may have a point. Yet, the reality is that Anger may like to drink his coffee hot. But Justice sometimes does it differently--she loves to drink her coffee warm; that's when it is really sweet and refreshing.
Remember the atrocities of World War II? It took 30, 45 or more years to nab and nail some of the heinous war Generals of that era. The moment will come, just when we least expect. For now, let war-weary Liberia convalesce. Let a generation which was trapped in the crooked claws of war take respite. As compared to those few criminals or alleged criminals, the nation will have too much to lose, should an all-out chase begin for those who may most probably deserve to face justice now.
4.8 A WINDING STAIRWAY OF MARRIAGE:
A PAGE FROM BETWEEN THE SCISSORS, THE STORY OF K. M. NAGBE'S LIFE
It was in that year, 1972, when I did my tenth grade, that I really saw a woman for the first time. Since then, women I've seen--the cocky and the humble, the cunning and the honest, the abrasive and the caring, the restive and the restful, the insatiable and the satiable, the jealous and the detached. I should add that through all such experiences about women, I'd understand that not all women are really meant to be wives, just as not all men are meant to be husbands. A certain mysterious tender spirit is the common denominator of those who become husbands and wives. It is that tender spirit that seeks ways to settle tensions that can be humanly accommodated. It is the mysterious tender spirit that lends an ear to the dream, the desire, and the expectation for human perfection but fully understands that always caught and torn by the vicissitudes of life, no human being can ever be immaculate.
I said, a no-nonsense man or a no-nonsense woman never easily gets married or stays in marriage.
4.8 LIBERIA: RESETTING THE COMPASS OF HISTORY
On Mary 20, 2011, I bought a copy of Professor Dew Mayson's short work, In the Cause of the People [Selected Speeches and Lecture Notes]. I'd looked forward to a book of that nature because of two reasons--one, academic; the other owing to interest in genuine history. I've always thought that prime actors in events of Liberia's 1970s had waited very long to tell the story, explaining in enormous and repeated details not only the philosophy and the psychology of the social reform activism [SRA] of the 1970s, but also the basic gains Liberia made in the area of social justice, owing to the SRA. What were some of the gains? I'll give a few:
1. Eliminating draconian ways of exacting hut taxes from the rural mass of Liberia
2. Eliminating gross disproportionate taxation victimizing the rural mass of Liberia
3. Inevitably accepting, if not genuinely respecting, authentic African names, values, norms, and mores
4. Inevitably widening doors for Native Liberians to sit unhindered at the table of national politics and in effect participate in the national decision-making process, roles which had heretofore been substantively and substantially played by Settler Liberians only
5. Eliminating one-party rule
6. Empowering ordinary people to express, with little or no fear, their views on matters affecting the running of the nation
Those gains and many more were, sadly, not touted long and repeatedly enough by the social reform campaigners of the 1970s. The backlash was that the SRA leaders' silence gave scandalous opportunists the platform to corrupt and trash the significance of an otherwise noble campaign. This was a campaign exposing corporate greed in Liberia. This was a campaign exposing the ills of protracted illiteracy. This was a campaign exposing the ills of disconnect between rural and urban regions of the country, as well as between the rich and the poor in the Liberian society.
Corporate greed led many past Liberian government officials to work in cahoots with multinational corporations to divest the nation of enormous revenue that could have helped with the building of effective and efficient schools and hospitals, roads and bridges, airports and seaports, in order to make most Liberians enjoy the freedom of movement and always work hard to actualize their dreams. Protracted illiteracy led to most Liberians remaining complacent with conditions of ignorance and being uninterested in participating in national conversations about a sound political and economic direction of the country. The protracted disconnect between rural and urban, between rich and poor Liberians made the issue of genuine integration a mere national fiction.
Those were themes of campaigners of Liberia's SRA in the 1970s. Those are themes which must remain recurrent if the future of Liberia must become clear, bright, and reassuring. Those are themes which are yearning to be taken up by relentless cadres of genuine patriots. Those are themes which must never fade until a population of 3m inhabitants take pride in their country and never regret doing so.
The Mayson book has begun to rejuvenate the spirit of the 1970s. It has begun to tell the frustration and pain those key campaigners of the 1970s experienced, frustration and pain many nowadays have not fully understood because of the misinformation which has filled pages of post-SRA Liberia. It is about time the compass of history was reset. Liberians must see what the past really was--a time of political apathy, a time of grave disconnect, a time of national retrogression, which young learned Liberians emerged to transform.
No doubt, there has been unintended consequences--the April 1979 rice riot, the April 1980 military coup, and the nearly 20 years of catastrophic civil crisis. The bright days of a nation do not always come in galloping strides. Nor do they come with sunrise ease. They are brought about by those who feel deep in their bones that "there's gotta be a better way." There ought to be a better way of making most people's lives comfortable. There ought to be a better way of teaching and learning, providing health care, empowering nationals to take hold of private sector productivity. There ought to be a better way of building a resourceful nation.
The campaigners of the 1970 SRA were of an altruistic generation whose traits of bravery, courage, and patriotism must be replicated. There may have been some from among this "gallant gang" who fell by the way side. But such a fall cannot, must not, devalue what the campaigners' self-denial and selfless campaign for social justice did for the country. I was an apostle of that generation. I am coming with my own voice to give these people the honor they deserve. I am coming....
4.9 LIBERIA'S PRINCE YEDUO JOHNSON AND THE ADAM SYNDROME
Once again, Prince Johnson, one of Liberia's former warlords, has re-echoed the claim that he was fooled by powerful politicians and clerics to kill the way he did during the war--never easily hauling out his ivory handle pistol in vain. This was frequent. Each time he hauled it out, buckets of blood were left in the trail; there's no exaggeration about it. One whole human being, according to science, contains about 1.5 gallons of blood. Multiply that by the number of bodies he left dead time and time again. Johnson has been credited with capturing and killing General Samuel K. Doe. He killed very many important and less important Liberians during the war. Indeed, those were days when the likes of Journalists Elizabeth Blunt and Mark Hubband thought him a no-nonsense General, since with his infamous pistol he allegedly kept fighters under his command in order.
It will be unfair to say that Johnson and only Johnson killed many Liberians. The other warlords, Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah, George Boley, Roosevelt Johnson, etc. do have their crates of bones to cart away into eternity.
What can one say? Those were the days of war. And rather than pass the buck, rather than say this person or that group is to be faulted for their wartime actions, some of the past warlords did own up to their atrocities and asked for forgiveness. Whether such forgiveness will be granted eventually is yet to be seen. In any case, they have accepted their culpability.
What is contemptible, for me and has got me directly commenting on specific actions of any one warlord in Liberia's barbaric civil crisis, is the idea that the likes of Prince Johnson will not demonstrate a contrite spirit but venture down the path of passing blame, becoming victim of the Adam Syndrome--the God-it's-Eve-who-gave-me-the-apple mess! Prince Johnson was as smart, educated, and sound as any reasonable human being could have been at the time of the mind-cringing Liberian war. Did people fool him to participate in the 1983 Nimba Raid? Did people fool him to train in Libyan camps to prepare for insurgency in West Africa? Did people fool him to serve in the Burkina Faso army and then move on, once Thomas Sankara was eliminated? Did people really fool him when under the huge cotton tree near the junction of Caldwell Road and Somalia Drive, near New Krutown, he and his men would chant by heaps of corpses, "The sound of bazooka is the sound of music?"
Here I am reminded of an African movie and the lamentation of a mother. The movie is the story of two sisters, where out of jealousy the elder sister kills the younger sister, only to seduce the younger sister's widower and become pregnant. When the mother, who had been living in the village, comes to town and sees that the daughter is impregnated not by any other person but by the grieving son-in-law, husband of her late daughter, she cannot help chiming: "You have done the worst! You have done the worst!"
By passing the buck, Prince Johnson continues to do the worst. He continues to utter the worst of narratives, seeking to fault others for actions which he clearly was not coerced into taking. He must not help kill Liberia and find it a sport to spit in the face of the bleeding country. That is never going to help him in any shape or form, even if he lives a hundred years.
5.0 AND YOU, TOO, ANTHONY?
Yesterday, June 7, 2011, Representative Anthony Weiner of America succumbed to the truth: His wrestle with Fate was over--his flaw was caught. It was he and not a hacker who sent his "in-boxer-brief" photo to a 21-year-old girl in Seattle, Washington.
At a news conference, Weiner entered the proverbial lion's den. Breaking into scant but intermittent choke-ups, Weiner told how he tried to weasel his way out of the dumb act of trying to send lewd photos to women he simply had "sexting" company with. "No," he said he had not met any of those women physically and therefore never had sex with them. Somebody, someday, will have to clearly define what having sex means, because the present definition--the male organ of reproduction penetrating the female organ of reproduction--seems limited or convoluting.
In any case, that's the human story. We do all the catch-me-if-you-can until we are nailed. Whether it's in small things or in big things, it's the same human story. Sad, isn't?
So, having Weiner face his rendezvous with Fate on the "low things of life" is just a tiny part of his story. Weiner had been dubbed the "angry liberal voice" in Congress. You simply needed to see him on the floor arguing the cause of the down-trodden--arguing for more rights, for more tax relief for the working class, for more federal funding in the name of the broad masses--to understand what an asset he was to ordinary people in the corridors of power.
Yet, there he was, being gorged, as it were, by hecklers calling themselves journalists--throwing usually inordinate or ridiculously repetitive one-line questions at him. And the usually fiery congressman kept responding sheepishly, sweating like grilled chicken dripping oily mess. Guilt must have its very own drugging effect. All of a sudden the brash become the subdued, the sturdy become the brittle. Watching Weiner, I couldn't help thinking about the notorious Salem witch trials in America, where alleged witches were often dragged from homes, heckled by crowds, and sometimes imprisoned or put to death. Watching Weiner, I also couldn't help thinking about good old Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. Yes, right there, it seemed as if a red scarlet letter "A" for adultery was being tattooed on the forehead of Representative Anthony Weiner of New York state.
I couldn't believe the near ferocity of humans diving down another human's throat for what realistically falls on a scale lower than corporate greed and gross political insensitivity towards the struggling American in areas of health services, housing, education, transportation, etc. I do agree with those commentators who were quick to make that sound distinction between individual moral failings and deep longing for greater public good, especially from people who wield power.
But Weiner, too....With all the kudos he'd continued to get for often speaking in behalf of the ordinary people, sexting [the act of sending or exchanging pornographic photos over the cell phone] was what he would easily allow to dampen his role of being poor people's advocate, and cause them the grave loss of his absence?
If he so desired to have gone down to nothing, he probably should have grabbed a woman and fleeced her in his office. Why not! Nibbling at a cookie shouldn't be enough. Eat up the whole jar, Anthony, and pick your teeth in your dungeon of self-inflicted disgrace.
5.1WHAT AMERICA REALLY IS
From some public teachers cramming into some dark room to change students' high stakes test answers, in order for those schools' performance record to look good, to some politicians in the world-renowned democracy enacting laws to curtail the right to collective bargaining; from politicians gloating over partisan victory, disregarding the pain and frustration such a purported victory is causing ordinary citizens, to people picketing about the assumed travesty of justice, even though nothing seems flawed in the case adjudging a possibly careless mother guiltless, no one watching recent events in the United States of America should think less of the reality that America is just another nest for mindless humankind.
Beyond the sight of skyscrapers and magnificent bridges, ports, and highways, there is the looming, contemptible human character of ignorance, gullibility, greed, fear, and outright insensitivity. If the list laid out in the first paragraph of this reflection left out that covetous name--the United States of America--many would have easily concluded that I was about to comment on life in underdeveloped countries.
The converse is now true.
I do not mention these things to think less of America. I mention them to state the fact that every society surely has its dark spots. The difference is what a society does at all times to ensure that the dark spots do not metastasize--spread out to cause suffocation in a prolonged way. The teachers whose craving for accolades or fear of losing entitlements tempted them into such an academic crime will eventually pay a price.
Politicians who have abetted the passing of draconian laws inimical to unionization are each beginning to face the axe of voters, through a state re-call system. Republicans who managed to squeeze a deal out of Congress--John Boehner, the House Speaker, boasted of achieving 98% success--dared any agreement to touch tax breaks for the wealthy. These Republicans may now gloat, but it is yet to be seen what will happen to the party when Election 2012 comes around.
Casey Anthony accused of killing her tw0-year-old daughter walked basically scot-free, because there was no proof linking her to the death of the little girl. This may be jaw-dropping news, but that is the "glory" of adversarial law. It is the law of wits, the type of law which seeks winners and losers. It is the type of law which, even on the minutest technicality, lets the so-called culprit walk free, while the so-called innocent gets canned. Usually, there is more scientificness than morality, when it comes to adversarial law. What is not proven is not factual. What is not factual cannot be used to condemn a person, especially when such a person is likely to lose head and limb--should the gavel of guilt descend.
Public opinion may throw itself into tantrums. What will adversarial law care! If such logic cannot be easily understood in a place like the United States of America, what can one expect when it comes to underdeveloped countries?
The crux of the matter is that people can make or unmake their society. People can make a heaven or a hell of their homeland. Those traveling around the world or reading about what is going on around the world ought to find deep in their bones the reality that needless, criminal, bestial fuss and fight should never have a place in their midst. They may argue out points, but they should never give any society, however sophisticated that society may seem, the honor of being seemingly a place that is incapable of human failings.
5.2 CHANGING SCENES OF LIFE: HOW POLITICAL STARS RISE AND FALL
I don't know about you. But I enjoy moments of extreme silence, I mean, just sitting or standing without a word. I just sit listening. I just sit thinking. Nothing else, and the seconds and the minutes and perhaps something close to an hour pass by. Silence is a lens into the utmost depth of human consciousness--great philosophers made such a comment in many forms. By experience, I've found that comment true. It is in the moment of silence that one holds an internal dialogue about himself, about his surroundings, about life, about the world.
There may be sounds around, yes. But lost in personal silence, you don't notice those sounds after the first ten or fifteen seconds.
I must take you now to one changing scene of life I noticed one day while sinking deeply into a moment of silence. It was about politics and about how one generation of hounding critics morphs into another generation of hounding critics. This day when I sat in silence, looking on the screen, I saw President Barack Obama making what I thought was a strenuous effort to convince people about his earnest desire to bring jobs and prosperity to the United States of America. In that same breath he also spoke about the intractable Congress led by Republican die-hard defenders of corporate America, making his plans for a prosperous America next to impossible.
I could not help shaking my head. "Life!" I said. This was the young man who took the world by storm with his change message that resonated with a huge number of people, both in America and around the world. Obviously, he had a point. In America, war fatigue had gripped many, if not most Americans. Jobs were slipping. The economic pinch continued to bite. It was the moment in a nation's life that make people even welcome a real military coup. At the time Obama hit the stage, had it been in Africa, a coup rather than an election would have come in handy.
And yet three years later, nothing tremendously changed. Those to frustrate Obama's efforts have dug in their heels. Thus, instead of bringing about sweeping changes to transform the society into the more egalitarian one Obama had dreamed of, he has been making ginger, faltering steps. Meantime, his pack of hounding critics is growing. The howling is increasing. The howling is increasing. The howling is increasing. On the other side, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney and Mitchelle Bachmann--the Republican presidential hopefuls--are riding the crest of cheers.
Tomorrow if Perry or Romney or Bachmann became president--good luck to them!--Obama would soon look like an angel--the near angel he looked like when he first hit the political trail, vying to become President of the United States of America.
This changing scene of life reminded me of what is happening in my very own country--the Republic of Liberia, West Africa. In about two months, elections will be held. Each candidate's supporter has, justifiably so, been touting the glorious attributes of his/her candidate. Many of the comments have been toxic. It is sad. After all, whatever nationals say or do, the reality is that when all the tension is over, they have one natural country to call their own. If they trade nasty comments, if they trade vituperations, if they trade threats which only people from different poles of the world could possibly afford to trade, because they would choose never to see each other after the pelting march of words, how else can these myriad Liberian supporters of Liberian presidential and legislative candidates find the face to sit at a table to discuss critical issues to advance the cause of the country?
Perhaps, this situation is so much a part of life that no one can do anything about it. People are often likely to always defend what they passionately desire. All that notwithstanding, a nation coming out of war, a war which destroyed thousands of lives and sent hundreds and thousands into exile, should be reflective enough, practical enough to know that nothing constructive is easily gained in the long run when people thumb noses at one another or shoot out incendiary language. A society which often engages in things that self-destruct is a society which is never higher than a pack of lower animals. We Liberians should really be far better than lower animals.
5.3 FINDING THE NEW LIBERIAN MIND
Hope is a magical, sometimes mysterious word. In moments of grave pain, human beings crave for relief; they crave for rest. In moments of grave suffering, human beings crave for a savior. In religion and politics, looking for a savior has its dangerous and tragic turns. Either the messiah, when found, is eventually called toxic names or put to death. The charge may be that the pace of promised progress is not fast enough, or that the antidote of suffering is not intense enough. Hope, in short, can be a promise that everything's going to be all right, or it can be some murder lurking in the shadows.
Liberia has had her share. In a country where roughly 8 out of every 10 Liberians craved for the best of homes, the best of jobs, the best of health facilities, the best of education, while 2 out of every 10 Liberians took those comforts of life for granted, the 8 Liberians longed for better days. The 8 out of 10 Liberians traced roots to local Africans who formed the demographic of lower class Liberians in the West African republic of Liberia, and the 2 out of 10 Liberians traced roots to the repatriated African Americans who formed the demographic of the ruling class Liberians of ex-slave experience in the United States of America.
That disparity was the situation subsisting up to the 1970s. By the 1970s, there were clear signs that something needed to be done drastically to reverse the situation or to create a strong balance whereby Liberians--all Liberians, irrespective of tracing roots to local Africans or African Americans--could live their dreams unhindered by a contrived and flawed structure unjustifiably keeping a tiny segment of society affluent while keeping a huge segment in perpetual poverty.
The promise of "redemption" became the rallying cry in the 1970s. For the 80% of Liberians in need of better life, there needed to be a Liberia in which such hope could be actualized. For the 20% of Liberians who believed all was well, "redemption" was already present. Yet, a few Liberians on both sides of the divide believed that Native Liberian supremacy was as dangerous as Settler Liberian supremacy. For them, a change did not have to be about bringing relief to one side, but bringing relief to both sides and in a sense making Liberia a place that ought to accommodate not one side but both sides of the divide. It must, then, be said further that in the advent of the 1970s, just as there were possibly few adults on both sides interested in the sense of justice, equity, and equality, there were also few young people on both sides interested in such a sense of fairness.
Thus, by the 1970s, Liberia seemed to crave for that one Liberian mind who embodied the sense of fairness, that one Liberian mind who believed that Native Liberians were entitled to live well in Liberia just as Settler Liberians were entitled to enjoy the land.
Unfortunately, such a mind was not to be found, and would not be found for a very long time. After all, on the one hand, most offspring of Native Liberians long alienated from lucrative political, economic, and educational opportunities of the land were coming with the goal of settling scores, while most offspring of Settler Liberians were coming with the goal of playing defense. The result was intense rancor.
In light of what I have said so far, namely, that Liberia long before and up to the 1970s was gravely divided, especially along class and, in a sense, two-tier ethnocultural lines--that is indigenous and settlers--there wasn't that one Liberian mind to be easily found, a mind embodying the soul of real national consciousness, the consciousness accepting the reality that unless a whole survives, a part lives only in temporary comfort. But for the purpose of finding a narrow concept with which to describe a substantive Liberian mind, which is the core of the present reflection, suffice it to say that education did much to empower the voice of conscience in the 1970s. The voice which rose in the 1970s was a voice springing out of education. It was a voice made and sent into battle by education.
In the 1970s, the loudest voice heard was the voice demanding social change at all cost. Therefore, called to distinguish between the young Liberian mind of the 1970s and the young Liberian mind of the millennium, this is what I'd venture to say:
The young Liberian mind of today is not mentally monolithic, compared to his counterpart of some 40 years ago. His counterpart of some 40 years ago was angry and eager for a transformative order. He had one target--the elite class--comprising of a tiny fraction of the population supposedly enjoying the wealth of the land, while the rest suffered.
After witnessing a rice riot, a military coup, and nearly 20 years of war, somehow emanating from the original cry for social change, the current young educated Liberian has had the opportunity to survey a plethora of virtues and vices saturating life. He has seen the best and the worst in human character. Many of those once celebrated as heroes did not live up to an immortal stature. They proved to be imperfect mortals. They either joined corrupting power structures or supplanted one corrupting power structure with another.
The young educated Liberian has seen many of those past heroes transform from radicalism to passivity, if not docility. Some of such heroes have even turned barking dogs against the new generation of radicals. Perhaps without saying it, these past heroes know very well that experience is the most potent force capable of destroying one perspective, one feeling, or one action for another. People once youthful radicals have inevitably come in touch with realities of life and have understood the insanity of brazen radicalism. Perhaps, they find it useless to tell what they have seen or felt, because they know that experience is simply a personal rendezvous with life. Experience is like pain; it is like sickness. People go through each condition before they acquire a deeper understanding of what such a condition means. Every individual in a specific time and place must personally face that fire baptism of life; nobody else can. Without that rendezvous with life, an audience populated with inexperienced minds hears noise and not advice.
Indeed, experience has a way of teaching an individual something that it does not teach another person. When they were young, many of these past heroes believed that the best path to transformative order was to create tension, to see government as a huge dragon in a cave, good only to be poked at with huge flaming torches and poisonous spears of agitation. Now after long years, they have gone through pre-and post phases of radicalism and know the better of the two phases. They assume the role of counsel -on-caution.
But the current young educated Liberian has become confused. This change of attitude towards social reform activism has killed something in him. He has become disillusioned and bitter. He has become simply cynical. He has clogged almost all his ears to advice from anyone calling for caution. Like a sobbing child sitting on the floor, deciding whether or not to look up from the floor, he looks up and prefers screaming the one standing above him out of sight.
Liberia of today needs a different kind of young educated Liberian. The young educated Liberian needed is one who recognizes a light, a new light on national identity, national conversation, and productive change. The young educated Liberian whom the country needs is one whose language is less emotive and more reflective. The young educated Liberian whom the country needs must cultivate a communal mind and temperament.
The young educated Liberian must be empathetic and have a sense of the future where all things past and present meet for accountability of human actions and thought. Perhaps, guided by the sense of the future, he will be cautious about what he says and what does, so that nothing easily tragic befalls him, except what is set in God's cosmic plan for him.
5.4 YOU SHOULD BE DOING THINGS BETTER: A CHIP OF THE LIBERIAN ELECTION DRAMA
Whether we like it or not, criticism is an ego trip. Of course, it is natural. Through the act of criticism, we seek implicitly or explicitly to distance ourselves from others. We’re saying that at the moment of criticism we are better than others. Everyone from childhood to old age has done some form of criticism. And is it healthy? Perhaps so, depending on the degree and the purpose. When we preoccupy ourselves with criticism, so that nothing whatsoever done by another person is ever good in our eyes, then that act of criticism borders on the pathological; it really becomes a disease. Such an aspect of criticism can become detrimental, not only to ourselves but also to society. It keeps us grumpy, spiteful, and mean. It leaves us few or no friends; it raises a legion of enemies. Worse still, it may turn us into gang members. After all, a spiteful mind which meets its kind several times over becomes a gang.
Criticism is healthy when the words and matching actions show a sense of integrity, a sense of sincerity. In criminal law, one hears the talk about motive. That is to say, where motive is established, the guilt of the suspect may be easily established. For example, if a man or a woman kills a spouse because of another person’s coveted love or because of insurance benefits, we are likely to understand the motive of the murderer. However, if, while the man and woman are strolling and one of them drops on account of some seizure, and the other, while attempting CPR or some form of first aid, accidentally kills the one to be revived, we cannot assume murder. This example probably borders on the extreme. But the point is that the criticism which results not in the clear purpose of improving things is capable of smelling with envy and animosity; it portends death and destruction. It is not healthy for a society; it is not healthy for a country.
Today—meaning loosely September 2011—the criticism which rages in Liberia as the country prepares for general and presidential elections in October 2011 is disturbing. The raw aspect of name-calling which presently spices up most listserv entries on Liberian national politics is worrisome. Liberians don't need to shred one another. I know a few have sounded the very plea I'm sounding. I know I've sounded this very plea a few times. But a constant repeat doesn't hurt. If anyone uses words in such a way that he/she will never feel comfortable in the company of the one criticized, then such a critic needs a full re-examination. Warfare is warfare. And it must be told so, in order that the one to be engaged gets fully armed. But criticism disguised as warfare is cowardice.
5.5 TROY ANTHONY DAVIS AND THE COLOR OF JUSTICE IN AMERICA
After a long delay, Troy Anthony Davis, a 42-year-old black man of Georgia, United States of America, was executed for allegedly killing Marc MacPhail, a white police officer.
The name Troy often feeds my desire to travel into time to the Greek world. Troy was a strong city until it was wiped out by machination. The Greeks fought the Trojans for ten whole years. They couldn’t penetrate the high walls which surrounded the city. But Odysseus, a principal warrior of the Greek camp was visited by a god who told him to have the Greeks build a wooden horse. When completed, the horse would store in its belly the best fighters of Greece. The short of the long was that using the horse as a gift of appeasement, the Greeks gained entry into the city, came out of the belly of the horse, and wiped out most of the city. In that way, the Trojans were vanquished.
I thought about that old story as I watched with pain the back and forth discussion on the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a young adult of 20, who was said to have killed an off-duty white officer called Marc MacPhail. Twenty-two years later, Troy seemed ripe for the executioner’s chamber. No word of plea from Pope to priest, priest to parishioner, president to peasant, could save his life. Not even a word from Amnesty International and over half a million signatures could save Brother Troy. Seven of nine witnesses, whose testimonies helped convict the man, eventually claimed police tricks and coercion led them to give the damning testimonies. Troy Anthony Davis was even refused a polygraph test—a test often used to extract truth from suspects or alleged culprits. Pro bono lawyers ( i.e. public interest lawyers) who’d taken the case earlier gave it up when the pro bono legal fund was purportedly depleted. So, for some time, young Troy was at the mercy of the courts. Through television exchanges over the Davis case, I learned that of some 200+ lawyer-identified cases involving death row inmates, over 60% involve African Americans.
In America, what is it about the Black Man that is so intimidating or infuriating that, when it is feasible, all types of machinations can be used to destroy him--if it is not through slavery, it is through segregation; if it is not through segregation, it is through police brutality; if it is not through police brutality, it is through the miscarriage of justice.
The Troy Anthony Davis case attracted all there is bound to be wrong with a case when those who have the capacity to get it right are determined to get it wrong. In the end, they go blameless. The victim? The poor and most vulnerable of society. September 21, 2011: Troy Anthony Davis was put to death at 11:08 pm. The last minute attempt to invite the intervention of the Supreme Court of the United States became futile. Thus, having waited for four more hours on the scheduled day of execution, this fine young man was eventually subjected to the strong arm of [in] justice. As he lay dying, he continued to chime his innocence. He continued to ask for mercy and blessing for his executioners. He told the MacPhail family that he felt their pain, but that he was not the killer of Officer MacPhail. Troy, indeed, urged the family further to “dig deeper” and find the right culprit. Troy, then, asked his very own supporters to never give up the fight for justice.
If Troy Anthony Davis’ resolute determination to send a strong message to the world, even as he lay dying, is not an example of courage, then I don’t know what is. May his soul and all others wrongly convicted and killed rest in perfect peace.
Yet a question lingers: What world we live in? What world we live in that will ignore glaring mistakes, glaring inconsistencies and bind an individual head and limb? What world does ignore the doctrine of “reasonable doubt” in criminal cases? Where is the principle of morality? Granted that law and morality are not always synonymous. Yet, in the final analysis law that is not strengthened by morality, law that completely ignores morality is capable of disrupting and even obliterating society. Law as an end, and not a means to an end, is capable of a dismal disservice.
5.6 LIBERIA FIRST, CONSTITUTION SECOND
Laws are very important. Without laws, a group cannot thrive for long. If a mere group cannot thrive for long without laws, then what should one expect of a nation without laws?—terrible tragedies. The same applies to constitution. If a nation does not have the adequate resources to establish institutions that ensure compliance with its constitution, the nation cannot rest in peace.
However, there is a danger when law or constitution becomes an end in itself, rather than being a means to an end. Where there’s present and imminent danger to a group, if the members decide that a law inevitably needs to be upheld, then of what use is the law? The point is that laws are made for the preservation of a group; a group is not made for the preservation of laws. In that context, where the ultimate survival of a nation rests not on the mere adherence to law but on the judicious comprises its people have the capacity to make, then such people need to make those judicious comprises for the survival of the nation. I dare say that law for the sake of law easily wreaks irreparable havoc.
The impact of a war as devastating as the past civil war in Liberia cannot be softened in a matter of a decade or two--even if most or all Liberians wished otherwise. Strong and viable institutions of national security need to be built. Because as we all may be aware, the makers and interpreters of law work in vain, provided there are enforcers of law, who are men and women of integrity. Obviously, building such institutions takes a long time. Liberia—whether or not most Liberians see and feel it—is still at a recuperative stage; Liberia is still on crushes. Just look at the number of UN peacekeepers. Consider, also, the grave war-related fear which keeps unprecedented huge numbers of people in the city rather than in the rural parts of the country.
I can understand and even respect those Liberians who continue to insist that a provision as important as the residency clause be applied to the letter in anticipation of the pending elections on October 11, 2011. But the tenor of our times requires deep understanding of the consequences of denying any candidate on the present slate of presidential candidates an opportunity to participate in the pending elections--only as it relates to the residency clause. Those consequences of rejection are likely to be horrendous. Conversely, the benefits of waiving an adherence to the clause are likely to be enormous. Such a waiver will not give any criminal-minded candidate and would-be supporters the opportunity to destroy Liberia’s fragile peace. Exclusion or alienation, especially in the time of fragile peace, has a way of inviting sympathy, hatred and anger.
There will be time, fellow Liberians; there will be time when our nation is significantly strong, making our constitution the most sacred as it ought to be. America's Thomas Paine once said, "These are times that try men's souls." I say to you: These are times which try the soul of a nation. Those Liberians who are very passionate about the progress of the nation in upholding the constitution need, for now, to channel their energies into educating more Liberian voters to make the right presidential choice for the survival of the Republic of
Liberia
5.7 IN THE LIBERIAN ELECTION DRAMA: MAY THE BETTER CANDIDATE WIN
It’s interesting how time flies by so quickly when people least expect. October 2005 seemed yesterday, but then six years went by and on October 11, 2011 Liberians were ready for national elections to field another batch of executive and legislative officials of government for another six years. Already, Liberians have had the first round in which two of sixteen parties emerged to face off on November 8, 2011.
Indeed, democracy is multi-lingual. If democracy doesn’t speak many languages, how can one translate the results produced by the first round of national elections?—Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the incumbent, standing at about 44%; Tubman standing at about 33%; and Prince Johnson standing at about 12%. While one may understand the pointed rise of Ellen and Winston, because they have international accolades and what’s often been referred to as Ivy League education, it is confusing why Prince Johnson came third from the remaining batch of fourteen. It is confusing because, first, he was one of the warlords whose forces reportedly committed heinous crimes against humanity. Second, although well-spoken, Johnson is far less educated than the several other candidates by whom he swept clean to clutch the third place in the first round of national elections. Cllr. Charles Brumskine, Dr. Togba Nah Tipoteh, Professor Dew Tuan Wreh Mayson, Mr. Jonathan Mayson, etc.—these highly educated Liberians were left gasping, tumbling, and eventually falling on the track field of the national elections.
Dr. Tipoteh and Professor Dew Mayson were once household names in the 1970s when they and a few other very educated Liberians rose to champion the cause of the down-trodden of society. These social reform activists rose up to demand the bridging of a huge gap between the rich and the poor. They found it intolerable that 1% of the Liberian population at the time could be so unconscionable as to enjoy the wealth of the country while 99% of the population lived in abject poverty. The intensity of the campaign partly led to subsequent tragic events—a rice riot, a military coup, and nearly twenty years of civil war. Sadly, the heroic move to battle all odds and speak for the ordinary people became the undoing of those educated Liberians, who could have ignored the plight of the ordinary people, taken some lucrative government jobs, and gone on enjoying fruits of their education.
These are the Liberians, who following events of the 1970s and early 1980s, have continued to incur inflammatory insults, and now a significant desertion in politics. Perhaps they ought not to have spoken truth to power some forty years ago. Perhaps they ought not to have shaken the status quo from slumber some forty years ago. Yet, the reality in fighting against injustice is that there will always be unintended consequences. Thus, a nation which fails to look inevitably at the mission for justice but only at the unintended vices engineered by obstructionists will realize only too late the danger of ingratitude.
Indeed, the history of a nation does meander so long into time that once people are far from the scene of action, what was very monumental becomes easily trivialized. Heroes seemingly become villains, eagles turn sparrows, and mountains turn mounds. Yet, a nation that will not seek to celebrate its true heroes will sooner than later stifle the desire for bold acts of patriotism, from generation to generation.
The second round of elections for the presidency soon convenes in November 2011. Prince Johnson has reportedly decided that he will throw his weight behind Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Accused of initially funding the civil war in which Prince Johnson fought, Sirleaf has had some stigma of active participation in the war. Thus, for some Liberians, the move by Prince Johnson has been characterized as birds of the same feathers flocking together.
Whatever happens, may the better candidate win. Liberia will need a president who refuses to be drowned in corporate greed. Liberia will need a president who does not enjoy drowning Liberians in mere words of niceties. Liberia will need a president who will strive to provide enormous opportunities for the growing population of restless, visionary young people eager to acquire appropriate education and training in order to find or create jobs that will help them live decent lives and help them build a peaceful and stable nation.
5.8 POWER, BEHOLD GADHAFI; GADHAFI, BEHOLD POWER
Today is October 20, 2011. Moammar Gadhafi has been pronounced caught and killed. This brings to an end 42 years of ruling Libya. It wasn’t only Libya he ruled to the ground; it was also many African countries that he helped destabilize. My own country, Liberia, is too strong an important example. Charles Taylor and many of his fighters, including Prince Johnson, once Taylor’s strong man, were all trained in Libya. The war they waged on their very own country resulted in the death of at least 250,000 people—quarter of a million human beings!
Today, with all his power, with all his wealth, with all his machinations, Gadhafi was killed as a result of international collaboration. He defied the international community. No plea for him to make an easy exit made sense to him. He felt himself invincible. In the end, France, Great Britain, and America operating as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) moved on the very Gadhafi. With the blessing of the United Nations, they moved into Libya to halt the bloodbath which Gadhafi did not only threaten to visit on his people but also actually began visiting on his people—all because he craved to rule Libya in perpetuity. Those who must exit from leadership but refuse to do so, believing there is none capable to succeed them ever, only too soon realize the lone buffoons they are. Sadly, Gadhafi died as one such buffoon.
There are many autocratic leaders around the world today. Many of them are in Africa. Even with the death or dethronement of leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, and now Libya, there are many such terrible leaders who, living in chronic denial, doubt that what happens in the lives of other power-hungry leaders cannot happen in their lives. And then comes the hour of reckoning!
I pity such leaders, because I know that chronic denial is a sure path to colossal
tragedy. It is a colossal tragedy because such leaders don't die alone. Before their death, tens of thousands, indeed, sometimes hundreds of thousands of innocent people die before they, the leaders, meet the lone death. In recent times, I have known Samuel Kanyon Doe of Liberia. I have known Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Moammar Gadhafi of Libya now makes that list.
5.9 DOCTORATE: THE STATUS AND THE SUBSTANCE
Why does someone need a doctorate? The answers may vary. But when I sought a doctorate, I sought it, first, for the love of knowledge. I’ve often loved to explore multiple layers of knowledge. And if going from one specific body of knowledge—as one talks about undergraduate, graduate, etc.—could afford me the opportunity, that would be very fine. I also sought a doctorate because I often believe that each specific body of knowledge offers varied tools for analytical thinking. It helps one balance idealism with pragmatism. Anyone who has a one-track mind or even a two-track mind is dangerous. A multi-track mind is healthy. Of course, I’ve often heard the myth of some doctorate degree holders being dogmatic. You know, the type that says, “I’m a doctorate degree holder. I’m saying this; therefore, you must take it.” No doubt, if there is ample evidence to go with the assertion, there might not be anything wrong with that assertion. Better still, then tagging on a title isn't necessary in the first place. But to engage in the fallacy of merely appealing to authority may have its tragic turns. Moreover, research into doctoral education has begun to show that the type of processing information in doctoral education which may have led to dogmatism and idealism has become dated.
Gladly, today, the real doctorate degree holder knows that conclusion with caution is the rule of the game. Gladly too, the working with numbers in research, which over time builds a culture of desiring precision and therefore acquiring the implicit arrogance of exactitude, has given way to, if not added on to, working with a story. In other words, to date, the doctoral student examines the advantages of processing information through both quantitative and qualitative methods. Doctoral students may configure numbers for exact measurement of data. They're also urged to explore underpinning stories for understanding the emotions and the psychology of the participants from whom the numerical data were extracted.
So, as a researcher, when I explore a problem, I don’t settle only for how many people think an idea is wrong. Or the extent to which those who think the idea is wrong spread out, bringing in the concept of central tendency and variability. Additionally, I’m interested in why each individual thinks the idea is wrong. I’m interested in how each of them came by thinking that the idea is wrong. The quantitative and qualitative substance of research explains the numbers and the stories to go along. It is the multi-layered inquiry which produces findings that are formalistically and substantively sound. It is because of that multi-layered attribute of the findings I must caution against exactitude, or I must caution against the arrogance of "know it all." I believe my doctorate has given me the right tools and temperament.
6.0 OF JUSTICE AND TIME: THE BIN LADEN AND GADHAFI STORY
We ought not to be like those who harm us. The word floats about very often. The “we”? Those who espouse values of decency; those who espouse the values of civility—kindness, respect for law and order, respect for human life, respect for everything promotive of social, political and economic justice.
In recent times—as recent as when Osama bin Laden died—many in the world and in America, specifically, raised the question of justice. They also raised that-easy-to-utter statement: "Terrorists have no sense of justice. Those who hunt them down have a sense of justice. Therefore, they should take the moral high ground." In keeping with that, bin Laden shouldn’t have been killed. Everything should have been done to capture him and bring him to justice.
In such matters that pertain to the situation where the Navy Seals encountered bin Laden, and, as recent as a week ago when Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed, it seems rather idealistic and absurd when people insist on justice where there is clearly the impracticality of the rule of justice. Justice and emergency don’t easily match. Justice and “in the heat of passion” don’t match. Justice and “temporary insanity” don’t match. Anyone who accepts otherwise is a god and therefore ought not to live in the human world.
In International Law and its offshoot Human Rights Law, one hears about “emergency situation.” “Emergency situation” is a legal doctrine often evoked to justify the suspension of certain laws, inasmuch as upholding such laws hinders certain actions of government, or inasmuch as government does not have the requisite pool of resources to ensure the application of such laws for its citizens. In short, “emergency situation” does have an elastic application. No doubt, draconian leaders often race to clutch it as a way of attempting to exonerate themselves from certain actions which, if they were very conscientious, they could easily avoid.
For example, when an outspoken social critic is mistreated by “thugs,” a draconian leader may simply offer what is more a hypocritical apology, vowing to bring perpetrators to justice. And one would think such a leader would stop there. No. In the next breath of comments, he/she is likely to say, “That’s why we’ve continued to say people need to be cautious about what they say or do in public. Even though Government would like to pursue criminals, resources are so limited. Foolish people attack good, good citizens and then get away before they are caught. This is not fair, not fair at all!”
The same thing would happen where, even though there is the claim of limited government resources to establish critical welfare programs, government officials race around in flashy cars, build fabulous homes, and, in short, live the life of kings in the midst of massive poverty.
The time element is rather fuzzy in contemplating the doctrine of “emergency situation.” The reason is that often there is ample time to think through the actions during so-called time of emergency. That is why any government which evokes such a doctrine does not easily obtain the type of exemption or empathy it may wish from the international community.
That is not the case when it comes to “in the heat of passion” or “temporary insanity.” In essence, what distinguishes these two from “emergency situation” is the intensity of time. It becomes the litmus test. When one’s emotions are suddenly aroused, and the time between action and inaction is likely to spell life or instant death, or the loss of some moment of gratification as in the case of sex, food, or vengeance, such a person should fault no one else. Of course, it needs to be pointed out quickly that the capacity to control one’s action is priceless. And yet, when all else fails, there can be the mitigating factor couched in “temporary insanity” or “in the heat of passion.”
The nabbing and killing of Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi occurred at moments which precluded the luxury of deliberating on the matter of justice. They were caught in the heat of passion. Anyone entering upon the premises of the world’s number one terrorist was likely to be eliminated if such a person tried to play around. It was that simple: Kill or just be killed. Anyone grabbing the one single man, who’d equally evaded capture, had to be playing a dead man’s game. Under quiet and palatable circumstances, bin Laden and Gadhafi would have been treated to the niceties of civility. After ducking from justice, the moment in which they were caught created precluded such civility.
The case of Mubarak was different. The case of Ben Ali was different. Now, both men live to see another day. See?
6.1THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS COMMISSION OF LIBERIA: AN ERROR, AN ERROR, OH GOD, THE ERROR....
Just shortly after the National Elections Commission of Liberia gave the official results of the October 11, 2011 general and presidential elections on October 26, 2011, a letter bracing the two front runners for a run-off sparked contention. An event which was touted by most international and regional observers as being free, fair, and peaceful was about to be disturbed.
On the matter of the "Hot" NEC letter:
Two issues appear relevant here--(1) Whether NEC's error is so grave as to weaken CDC's need to participate in the run-off; and (2) Whether NEC's error is so negligent as to incur the resignation of its chair.
As to Issue (1), the error of swapping results between UP and CDC in letters sent out to both parties to prepare for the run-off need not be considered grave enough to make CDC reject a run-off. First, neither result is high enough to avoid a run-off. Results swapped or not, there would be a run-off anyway. Second, had this controversial letter come out before NEC's announcement of the official results, the swap error would have been grave. Fortunately, there is weighty evidence to suggest that the swap was indeed an error. For a whole week, the results were announced piecemeal. And the official results on October 25 significantly matched all that had been given piecemeal. In that context, CDC should find it prudent to ignore the swap error and move on with campaigning, especially after NEC held a news conference to explain the nature of the error.
As to Issue (2), the explanation NEC provides about the error is very disturbing. NEC acknowledged that the swap error was caught the first time around and the staff members responsible were told to correct it. Thus, whether the letter came a second time around and shoved under a mountain of documents, the sensitive nature of the subject should have made a reasonable administrator doubly sensitive to track the letter's second or third time appearance. Given sensitive nature of the matter, I myself would have retyped that letter, period. With persistent accusation of negligence, fraud, etc. the last thing NEC would have dared allow to happen was to send out such a contentious and embarrassing letter. However difficult it is, the NEC chair needs to step aside as a matter of honor and dignity, as a matter of integrity, as a matter of patriotism. The NEC swap error is tantamount to the negligence of entrustment. That negligence which when committed is capable of inflicting harm to an already sensitive process or situation cannot be settled with the mere wave of a hand. After the first time around, the NEC chair, as the superior administrator, should never have left the rectification to an agent staff. The error of the agent is the error of the superior. He must take full responsibility and fall on his sword as an ultimate sacrifice for the country.
6.2 FROMOYAN: "IN THE SUPREME INTEREST OF LIBERIA"
News has come that James Fromoyan, chair of the National Elections Commission, resigned on October 31, 2011, against the background of the swap error letter. No doubt it was a difficult decision. It is sad that he had to go. Perhaps, he too is a qualified Liberian caught in difficult circumstances of history. But it is apt that he took that decision "in the supreme interest of Liberia," as he clearly pointed out. Too many times when it comes to national politics, individual human beings dig in heels, desiring to fight at all cost. Arrogance at any level and in any corner of life doesn't augur well. It ought not to augur well for a nation. Perhaps, in the 1970s when some of us, including Fromayan, were college students agitating for social reforms, if national leaders of those years were wise enough to seek a productive configuration of social, economic, and political voices and ideas, Liberia would not have sunk into the abysmal hell hole it fell and it has been struggling to climb from.
Youth and young adults of those 1970s have become full adults today. They must not lose sight of the fact that because they showed keen interest in the sense of community, and that because they showed interest in communal consciousness, they were taking up the tabernacle of history. A tabernacle carries what is sacred, what is the gift box of the quintessential ideas and ideals of a people. A tabernacle is a nation's oxygen tank. Those who consciously become armor-bearers of that tabernacle must realize that they owe a duty to their generation and succeeding generations to do what is audacious and yet respectable.
Does it mean that they may not slip here and there? No. It is idealistic to insist on such demand of unwavering perfection. All humanity is drape in imperfection. Nonetheless, to be aware of this fact of fallibility and to always seek ways to make an atonement is the noblest duty of those who must carry the awareness that to act well on a national, regional, or world stage is to eventually reap some honor and glory for the human family, and for God Almighty.
6.3 DOEBA, I WONDERED....
When I heard you passed, I wondered whether your soul was serenaded as it climbed Mt. Matiè, that mysterious mountain which minds and men of special, irresistible skills do climb on their way from the mortal world. I wondered Klø Matiè, on the outskirts of Séklékpô (Grandcess), eastern Liberia, knew a young but vibrant mind from the Kru homeland was passing. I wondered Klø Matiè felt the electrifying moment soaking with songs and drumbeats of mystical griots and dancers carrying a youthful, elegant mind shoulder-higher out of the mortal world.
I hope Klø Matiè did. I hope they really did.
Doeba, Kun-kun jù (Child of Prowess)! Ni kpam' nyêno!--I bid you good night. Good night, my young writer friend. Rest in perfect peace.
6.4 DOEBA, DOEBA BROPLEH...SO LONG, MY BROTHER!
“Next!”
The line melts slowly. In some back road of a monstrous war feeding on everyone but its very own emissaries, one should not pray for a time on a line. It may spell death. Well, except some angel swoops down to pull back an eliminating hand. Isaac was a lucky lad.
“Next!”
The nerves pull to a twang. Beads of sweat tumble down the forehead. Some glide down the sides and back of the neck. The clothed part of the body is awash.
“Next!”
We all are like that. All humans are like that. Gradually, gingerly, while standing each day on the line of life, our time draws nearer. So that when a friend falls, blood surges in us. The fall leaves us momentarily empty.
Empty is just to put it mildly. I was granulated to hear about the death of a young writer friend. I never could have expected such news about a young man I’d come to admire from our very first meeting at a National Kràô Association meeting in Atlanta, Georgia about six years earlier.
Doeba Bropleh had an air of quiet confidence. He loved intellectual things. He often lit up around people who talked about books, about writing, about deep thoughts.
His death is one which reminds people of the poverty of humanity. The fact that however well and vibrant we may look, we’re often as close to the grave as a garment is close to our very skin.
Forty-three years old? My God!
But then there’s another reminder that life feeds not on numbers but on kindly deeds. Life feeds off those little things which help others left behind appreciate the soul who lived and walked about in the human family.
I will remember Doeba fondly. I will remember his knack for stories which crackled with flavorful details. He loved the arts. He was a beautiful mind. May Gabriel up there make a fine use of him.
6.5 A LINE FOR DOEBA
It is now inclement weather--
The leaves yellow, red, dry
Spin downward hurriedly
Like kites stringless and panicky
Lo, each fall shadowed by
Winter leaves us
Bare, lonely and cold
6.6 STIRRING ALFRED NOBEL'S BONES: A LIBERIAN STORY
For the ordinary person who has not heard or read anything about Alfred Nobel, Nobel prizes named in Alfred Nobel’s honor are prestigious—that is when they land in the hands of those who clearly demonstrate the value and understanding of peace, and literary or any other respectable human ventures.
The truth is that these prizes are a symbol of the ever changing nature of human beings. They are a result of a man whose killing inventions—including explosive dynamite—gave him a change of heart in his last years to bequeath something positive to the world. This transformation has gone to make the point that every human has the capacity to evolve. But the evolution which seeks no positive but negative path cannot augur well for a society.
The standoff which occurred on November 7, 2011 did not happen in a vacuum. The storm had been gathering for at least two years. Opposition spoke of its distrust of the National Election Commission (NEC). This distrust came out of the 2005 general and presidential elections, which President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was said to have won. Was it patriotic for the concerns of opposition to be waved off? Was it patriotic for the concerns to be confronted with political rebuff or retort, with some of the most defiant rhetoric coming from an organ of government as sensitive as the Election Commission? Was it patriotic for the concerns to be usually treated with complacency?
As Candidate Sirleaf went on some of her rally tours in November 2011, she kept reassuring Liberians that no war would ever come about again because Liberians are tired of war. That was a disturbing comment. In 1996, when warlords Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah, George Boley, Roosevelt Johnson, etc. eventually got on board to lead the provisional government, they kept reassuring Liberians similarly. And then April 1996 erupted with another chapter of the Civil War. Taylor became president in 1997. The same reassurance came. What happened in 2003? Another bloody chapter of the Civil War.
There should be no amnesia. However hard we pray, war is capable of resurging if people believe that words by themselves can nip off war in a post-conflict country enjoying fragile peace. Mutual respectability and making serious efforts to genuinely ensure political inclusion will evolve enduring peace.
Frankly, whether Candidate Johnson Sirleaf likes it or not, there is often much expected of a political incumbent. This is as old as biblical times. To those who have been given much, much is expected of them. Luckily, Candidate Sirleaf has been riding the crest of accolades. She has the burden to demonstrate judicious leadership. It must not appear that she is reaching out. But it should be seen in clear concrete terms that she is reaching out. It has been said that she was an activist. An activist is futuristic. An activist is people-oriented. An activist always seeks to take the concept of easing people’s plight to an impeccable level. Candidate Johnson Sirleaf—I don’t know why I shouldn’t call her president already—should not afford to shake the bones of Alfred Nobel in the grave.
I said, the idea that the Sirleaf-led government is either not culpable or less culpable in events of November 7, 2011 is simply fraudulent, disingenuous, and has the propensity of taking Liberia along a perilous path. No one in the right mind should crave for that path. I’ve seen that path. I am one bona fide witness to that destructive path.
I should add quickly that the culpability of the Sirleaf-led government notwithstanding, people in opposition need to realize that meeting fire with fire doesn't save anyone. No Liberian of this era need further lessons about the mental and physical destructive capacity of mutual threats. Defiance in any form does not always show the strength people have. What they do to ensure peace and sanity is the best estimation of strength; it is also patriotic. In the period when the ghost of the nation's immediate past of death and destruction remains haunting, no one in reality or in jest should evoke the sense or the desire of wreaking havoc.
Liberia has had enough.
6.7 A MAN, 50+, HAS SEX WITH A TEN-YEAR-OLD BOY: THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY STORY OF RITUAL SACRIFICE IN BAD TASTE
On Thursday, November 10, 2011, news broke out about an assistant coach who had sex with a ten-year-old boy in a sports shower room at the Penn State University in America. The coach is a man, a much older man. A graduate student coach and a janitor saw the act, which was reported later in a hush-hush fashion. The “report” went on to the main coach who had worked at Penn State for 40 years. It also went on to the president of Penn State University. For ten years, nothing else was supposedly said or done. Jerry Sandusky, the assistant coach, went on allegedly to even have sex with other terribly young boys while he served as founder of a Sandusky charity called Second Mile established for young vulnerable children. So much for the irony.
Joe Paterno, the Penn State coach, had been instrumental in raising the sport profit margin of the university from about $25,000.00 to at least $53m annually. Over a 2000% increase in revenue. What do you do realistically with a cash cow? What do you do with those whose work rakes in tons of money for an institution? So, what Joe Paterno and the Penn State hierarchy supposedly deemed inconsequential in the broader frame of things had to be inconsequential. Such a twisted logic. But it is rooted in the human nature of what is deemed ultimate sacrifice. It is rooted in what we inevitably allow to give way in our pursuit of so-called greater things of life. It is the collateral damage.
This phenomenon raises a serious anthropological and sociological question about the place of the individual in society. In the riddle of individual vs. community, how much does an individual’s life count? When anthropologists and sociologists speak about rituals, especially blood rituals, they explain that for ancient societies, an individual’s life pales in comparison to the life of an institution, a community, or a nation. To ward off pestilence or to make peace binding on parties in conflicts (as in the case of two or three towns or villages), an ancient society was likely to exterminate an individual as the ultimate sacrifice.
Things Fall Apart, the celebrated African novel, has a poignant example of such circumstance, where to avoid war, the people of Mbaino presented to the people of Umuofia little Ikemefuna, a boy of 13, for sacrifice to atone for the murder of a Umuofia woman in Mbaino.
In Plato's work, The Republic, Plato spoke about the inevitable expendability of the individual in the context of sustaining the ideal state. In other words, in the mind of Plato the sanity of the state was supreme. And it had better well be. Without the state, without the community, without the institution, no individual has the capacity to achieve the fullness of life that is humanly possible. Yet, the paradox is that the whole cannot exist without its constituent parts. What we can draw from the logic is that just as the whole is important, the constituent parts are important. Perhaps the best thing to do is to always strike a judicious balance between the welfare of the whole and the welfare of the constituent parts. The intensity of any imbalance is likely to cause uproar.
Ancient societies knew better. Modern societies do not. For most ancient societies, the sense of community was rooted in the belongingness for just cause as opposed to unjust cause. It was driven by intangibles as opposed to tangibles. Intangibles meant immaterial wealth—e.g. honesty, sincerity, peace, comfort, justice, etc. Such were elusive and indestructible things of life. They made the journey of life challenging and yet exciting. Tangibles meant material wealth—homes, cattle, farmland, etc. Such were acquirable and destructible. Never mind their destructibility, because people acquired them in a relatively easy way, acquiring them remained fashionable.
The point is that today, the sense of community has been turned on its head. People are bonding together in minute “communities” driven by criminal subcultural goals, the goals of manipulating the broad mass of society, so that a tiny clique revels in the plush life of society. This situation is projected in themes like the powerful few versus the supposedly weak masses, the rich versus the poor, the captains of industry versus the field laborers, or the elites versus the peasants. We have seen with growing intensity perfect examples of the sense of tribe and the sense of community corrupted to destructive proportions—banking and lending institutions gorging the earnings of innocent and unsuspecting customers; oil and other multinational corporations poisoning the land, the sea, and air of villages, with little or no benefits for the ordinary man, woman, and child.
Those who condemn the practice of ultimate sacrifice in ancient societies have a lot to think about. In the past, such sacrifice was done for the common good of the entire society. Nowadays, the practice of ultimate sacrifice has become a mockery. “Minute communities” are greedy cliques or subcultural groups who pursue extreme actions that obviously destroy the wellbeing of the greatest number of people in society. Examples abound--the global economic meltdown, the American economic chaos of mortgages under water, astronomic rise in unemployment, the rise in bank fees and charges, the sworn decision by Republican (US) lawmakers to shield the rich from taxation, etc. Surely, these have become clear examples of the concept of ultimate sacrifice corrupted in a dismal way.
The Penn State University sex scandal cover-up in the name of undisrupted flow of money is just an item on the disconcerting list. And that’s sad for a leading institution of higher education in America.
6.8THE INTERNET AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERIA
The coming of Internet has, like many other human inventions, brought in its best and its worst. Yet, both the best and worst opportunities introduced by this invention challenge the human family to decipher the best from the worst in order to make enormous progress in ensuring that people live efficiently and comfortably.
One area of these best and worst opportunities, which has not ceased to attract my attention, is the use of language. For this, I cannot easily speak about all nations and societies, even though there is rarely any human society where instances of both the absurd and the purposeful are not present.
I can speak competently about Liberia, my West African homeland. Clearly, the Internet has given every Liberian with access to some Internet café or a home computer with an Internet server a voice. Sadly, this has been the voice bent more on destruction than on construction. There is probably a justification for the path of destruction. Distrust, frustration, and anger like seeds of weeds have been strewn by Fate along the long winding path of the nation.
Think about this: A group of people is living, unknown to a significant wave of another people. And then in a few days, the significant wave of people begins trickling in. The new people have a skin color similar to that of the host group. But they speak a different language and practice a different lifestyle. The host group thinks the arriving group is in for a short stay. But no, weeks go by, months go by, even years go by. Misunderstanding upon misunderstanding gets in the way. Tension rises, tension falls. Battles rise, battles fall. Weeks go by, months go by, even years go by. The circle of tension appears far from ending.
The circle of distrust, frustration, and anger on both sides—the hosts and the guests—was born, and was not seemingly going to end any time soon. This circle has defined the very existence of a nation born of the encounter of both sides. This circle has defined the very existence of the Republic of Liberia.
Until the 1970s, there was no earthshattering voice demanding the equal sharing of economic, political and educational opportunities between descendants of the host group and descendants of the guest group. From 1847, when the nation was established, to the dramatic decade of the 1970s, besides the demand for human respect and dignity by a few undaunted local ethnic communities, the guest group which had become leaders of the nation went about unperturbed. Of course, in their ranks, there was the natural tension created around competition for political and economic entitlements. However, instead of engaging in real battles, these people had a way of dialoguing fostered by infrastructures which encouraged bloodless engagement and compromise. The infrastructures rested particularly on columns of the church and the Masonic craft. Yet, the perceived strength of these infrastructures became the national leaders’ undoing, because given the presence of the infrastructures, the leaders of the nation grew overconfident. No pocket of resistance, no dissenting voice of an "inconsequential demographic" of the nation—meaning the ignorant and inexperienced batch of descendants of the local ethnics—seemed competent and strong to derail the course of the nation.
And then the 1970s came in. This decade would change the Republic of Liberia forever. The offspring of the previously inexperienced demographic of the nation had come of age after 123 years of national existence. The earthshattering voice demanding equal sharing of political and economic opportunities had begun. Ironically, the circle of distrust, frustration and anger, which had subsisted between two key national demographics in the sporadic battle for supremacy, would seek to obstruct any move to return to the original indisputable dream of creating a nation where all persecuted and suffering people of color would find rest, peace, laughter, and progress.
Building that nation for rest, peace, laughter, and progress must become the mission of the millennial generation of Liberians. The Internet must become the absolute tool for the mission. The men and women of the 1970s whose earthshattering demand for change was heard around the world were not angels. Besides the fact that they had acquired a valuable amount of education, they were ordinary human beings whose minds and souls craved for building a Liberia where the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the lettered and the unlettered, the educated and the uneducated would hold hands together and sustain a reassuring nation for posterity. Reflecting only on the pain resulting from the disturbing aspects of the social reform activism of the 1970s—e.g. the April 14, 1979, the military coup of April 12, 1980, and the civil crisis born of December 24, 1989—it is easy for anyone to be tempted into condemning everything of the social reform activism and thereby miss the quintessential value of the struggle for social justice which preoccupied the minds and souls of those patriotic sons and daughters of the land.
Each member of the Liberian millennial generation must find the one positive thing he/she must do to help build that nation for rest, peace, laughter, and progress still waiting in the winds. The Internet can create the social networking community to create infrastructures that will dissuade people from offensive language and high grade antagonism. The Internet must be used to help us mutually mourn our national moments of defeat and mutually celebrate our national moments of success. Those who live a life simply condemning and cursing everyone and everything but leaving thethemselves out have little to offer the Republic of Liberia.
6.9 Two Men, One Afternoon
"You're wrong, wrong, wrong!"
Said the man, swinging a finger and panting
As if the word was oxygen to sustain his whole life.
"Dead wrong, you are!"
He added, his neck veins budging.
His face awash with sweat.
"What's your answer, then?"
Said the other man, arms folded across the breast
And awaiting the right answer.
Seconds passed, then a minute or two.
"Wrong!” came the word again.
The waiting man without a word
Picked up his hat and his cane
And strolled into the breezy afternoon.
7.0LIBERIANS: NO BACK SEAT ON THE BUS
Just a day ago--I'm talking about December 14, 2005--an offensive photo was circulated by a member of Liberia's emerging generation of doctorate degree holders. In the photo were a few people attending nature on one of the beaches in Liberia. The intention, as evidenced by the long accompanying essay, was to let the world know that the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf-led government is not doing enough to put hygiene and sanitation infrastructures in place. In a sense, that listserv entry was intended to add another item on the list of the scores of Sirleaf's real or perceived failures.
I have lived long enough (soon to enter my three scores) and read widely enough to believe that there can never be a human government which is without its critics. However, the population of critics increases in direct proportion to the insensitivity the government shows to dealing with the plight of the governed. Additionally, that population may increase in direct proportion to the level of anxiety and depression which prevails at a particular time. For a nation coming out of a very devastating civil war, no political administration should expect many among the governed to offer overwhelming praises. After war, with so much lost and the eagerness to replenish what has been lost in individual homes and communities is widespread, people often find it offensive if clear and urgent actions are not taken by their leaders to help with the restoring of hope and the providing of tools for empowering the governed to rebuild their lives.
This situation of apparent insensitivity of some of the present Liberian officials, in terms of how they flaunt the wealth which their new public positions have given them, and the growing frustration among the governed to rebuild their lives in postwar Liberia have been creating a platform for those who feel it is a sport to throw out language, ideas, and graphics which have the capacity to stir people into action. If the language, ideas, and graphics had the capacity to stir people into actions which heal rather than hurt, I won't be up writing this note, except to thank and encourage people to replicate the positive actions.
Liberians who have the capacity to improve the conditions of the country cannot and must not afford to be insensitive. Who are the Liberians who have the capacity? It is Liberians who have state power. It is Liberians who acquired higher education. It is Liberians who find themselves in religious institutions. Each of these stakeholders has a following. Each of them must bring the relevant followers into the conversation of building a strong and vibrant country.
If you are a public official, what do you think about along the way as you go to work, find time for lunch, find your way home after a day's work, or sit at a beer table at night? Don't you want to have a sustainable peace of mind which can be significantly achieved if the least among us also has some meal for the night? It doesn't have to be as superbly nutritious as yours, because just as you worked to acquire the knowledge and skills hopefully qualifying you for your position, you do deserve the requisite entitlements. Yet, the less qualified should understandably acquire their requisite entitlements. But to have you take everything while all other people have nothing is to create a needless recipe for disaster which will create a tragic environment for you yourself. A wealthy ten in the midst of mass poor of 90 is suicidal. If a 50-50 sharing is not possible, how about 60-40, 55-45 or thereabout?
If you are highly educated (holding a bachelor's, a master's, or a doctorate), what do you think about your degree? What one specific idea or concept you believe your degree has instilled in you, which you can use to create a change beneficial to a huge mass of people? Is it an ability to simplify issues, issues related to cleaning their environment, learning a skill or craft, mobilizing their resources, learning the importance of honesty and integrity with which they can transform their talents into respectable opportunities?
If you are a pastor, a priest or an imam, what are you doing beyond preaching people into heaven? Do you counsel your members on realities of life? What do you counsel about financial management in homes? What do you counsel about literacy? What do you counsel about clean homes and clean communities? What do you counsel about healthy lifestyles to reduce high blood pressure, diabetes, and any other disease or illness, which has the capacity to reduce not only individual institutional membership but also reduce county as well as national population?
Until each Liberian feels the connectivity which runs across creeds, cultural beliefs, and professions, no one group will ever lead Liberia to a prosperous destiny. The soonest we realized this truth and acted on it, the better it would be for the Republic in our life time and beyond.
7.1 NOT JUST THE MUSIC BUT THE MESSAGE
Sundaygar Deboy, one of Liberia's millennium musical icons, has a song which cautions people never to take actions which are likely to lead to swapping respect with humiliation. In Liberian Pidgin English, Deboy warns, "If you bypass your respect, you will border with your disgrace"--i.e. if you don't act in ways to attract respect, you should be prepared to settle for disrespect. Many Liberians hear that song and get carried away by the simple story of a domestic drama about the wife of a man, who doesn't rest until she goes all out to track down her husband's mistress. Now, this mistress who had always been cautious about her very own perilous position and therefore tried to avoid confrontation with the man's wife eventually found herself in a situation where she knew she had to fight back. She instantaneously developed the guts to fight the wife and beat her up. Like most, I dare say all, arts, there is often some symbolism, some hidden message, lying somewhere. In the song, the warning screams to be taken seriously: Those who ought to act with dignity but fail to do so will have themselves to blame in the end, when all they get is humiliation. Inasmuch as that warning is true in the home, it is also true in public matters. Inasmuch as that warning is true in private institutions, it is also true in public institutions.
Take the incident of December 22, 2011 for example. Young people, most of whom were enrolled into some City Hall-related summer job program, went on the rampage. Amounts promised them could not be settled, three days away from Christmas.
Now, it is easy to say that hooliganism does not pay. A good citizen must learn to abide by the law, even in the most provocative of situations. Yet the need to be a good citizen does not give any power machine the license to create instances of provocation. Every living thing has the natural inclination to respond to stimulus. Whether people like it or not, there are so many ways in which living things respond to stimuli. In the case of human beings, while there are others who may respond quietly, there are others who may respond loudly and rudely. The best way, then, is to ensure that in such matters as pertain to keeping public safe, administrators ought to do thorough planning, an action which should be able to avert needless chaos.
Again and again, some of us who are very sensitive about the need always to pay attention to causal relationships have said that when things happen, it is disingenuous for people to look only at the effect instead of simultaneously looking at the cause. In the present case, was there no thorough planning before the young people were employed? Had there been such planning, City Hall would have known how much it had in its coffers. Knowing the amount, it would have known how many young people to employ, and therefore, it would have known the amount it would be spending, and when. On the other hand, if City Hall employed simply any number for the sake of making a political point, then the resulting tension ought not be laid at any other doorstep but laid at the doorstep of City Hall.
After war years, a nation will be in a dreamland to believe that young people, or anyone for that matter, is the same. War baptizes people into the unfortunate belief that polite requests seem to have no place in a "dog-eat-dog" world. When this belief, again sadly, is strengthened by the insensitive language of administrators, then things get worse. What value does the following language have, except the relishing implicitly in fomenting trouble and then blaming it on others:
"Those guys can't do a thing!"
"We cannot be intimidated!"
"When we say wait, you must wait."
Language or actions which tend to disrespect or demean people, especially those who we feel have little or no capacity to react, ought not to have a place in a civilized society. The national leaders in Liberia have simply got to stop this growing attitude of needless defiance.
7.1 WONDERS WILL NEVER END
December 31, 2011 (7:45 pm)--Just a few hours from 2012. What blessing is more than this! May the days ahead be bright for peoples of the world.
