The Great Confession

When I said I will build you a great nation

That was a Lie

When I said no Congoes, no Dingoes but one nation

That was a lie

When I said no longer we beg for bread

That was a lie

When I said to uphold, protect and defend

That was a lie

When equality I proclaimed for all

That was a lie

When I said no Vai, no elite Monrovia but a nation of one

That was a lie

When I said from Cape to Cape we shall walk on gold

That was a lie

When I said the prime of teens I preserve

That was a lie

That this land shall be the star of the western Coast

That was a lie

When I said we will evolve to higher heights

That was a lie

When I said crooked ways are of the past

That was a lie

But when my conscious said I was doomed to die

It was the truth underscored.

Just Telling a Gist

I was born in a village of two huts. The village is called Gbakuken, meaning conquest of the jungles. My father used this place when he wanted to spare himself the juggles of the life in the major town called Doodwicken.

When I was strong enough to make an hour foot trek to school, I was enrolled at the Doodwicken Orphanage Mission School. I was not an orphan if one applies the literal meaning of the word, orphan. in fact the Greboes' word for an orphan is known as quoayju, meaning child of woe and sorrow or a destitute. I had both parents plus an additional mother who could have taken over in my mother's absence. She was my step mother. Now I have told you that my father had two soul mates. In fact he would have had three if the head wife had not consented to leave her compatriots. She rescinded her earthly toils to rest in perfect peace with the greatest of our fathers who resides in the Heavenly realms. Wait a minute, when I was growing up I learned that my father was contemplating adding a replacement for the departed one. So he began to cajole a beauty in our neighborhood. She was dark and exquisitely charming. Her son who was our childhood friend called her Hyee, meaning mom as the English speakers would say. We too relished the name and called her Hyee. My father was a charming man too, very thoughtful and soft spoken. I thought he was a natural philosopher, a psychologist by coincidence, and a pragmatist by choice. But he was no Casanova though he successfully managed a pair of soul mates and was at the verge of adding another when he embraced the Christian Faith.

So I was not an orphan by this measure. But as my thoughts began to extend even into the realms of what Piaget, the French child psychologist, described as formal operational stage, I began to relish the notion that yes I was an orphan, a total quoayju. I mean what the Greboes are talking about when they say, quoayju, a total destitute. My brothers and sisters were orphans. The people next to us in the villages of Chetugbah, Tenneboh, Chellatehken, and Poomehken were all orphans, real quoayjlu(plural). Even the highly revered David Parlor, who could tell the time by looking at his feet or tap huge gourds of palm wine with ease was an orphan. The people of Doodwicken and and the entire clan of Jedeapoh were all orphans. Let me briefly tell you why I think this way. How should one refer to a people without a country? How will you refer to a people despised by a government that supposed to protect them and provide avenues for the schooling of their children, health, and source of income? What sort of people are they when the only time they lay eyes on a government personnel is when a tax collector escorted by two armed soldiers goes there to beat them up and extort taxes from them?

I was a child but I can still recollect an instance in which a man in Doodwicken was beaten until his skin fell off his bones. He was my cousin. They said he has refused to pay the balance two coppers owed in taxes on one of his huts built out of red earth, forest trees, and thatches. even as a child I knew he did not refuse to pay the balance. That was all the money he had that he had given. He could no longer afford the balance two coppers ( two cents in contemporary Liberia).

So every morning two of my brothers, a sister, and two cousins will enjoin a band of children from beyond our village to make the trek to Doodwicken for schooling. There were two institutions of learning at that time in Doodwicken. One was the missionary ran one and the public institution which was headed by Mr. M. Doryen Carter. May peace be upon his soul! Mr. Carter was gruesomely murdered by rebels of the ironic Liberia Peace Council in 1995.

I continued my foot trek with my brothers to attend school in Doodwicken, until I graduated from junior high school. Prior to my graduation, the missionaries have left Doodwicken and went to the Sinoe Bible Institute (SBI) to continue their work. So the two institutions became one-Doodwicken Elementary and Junior School. After I completed my Junior high school I went to Monrovia where two of my sisters stayed. They generously offered to foot my school bills. And they truly delivered despite the hardship that perpetually docked in Monrovia. One of my sisters worked at the University of Liberia's Business and Finance office while the other worked for the National Investment Commission (NIC). They chose for me a private high school in the name of Monrovia College and Industrial Training School. I made it through Monrovia and in 1986; I was awarded a diploma confirming that I have acquired the academic knowledge of a high school scholar. I was ecstatic. My two brothers who had trekked with me from Gbakuken to Doodwicken also went through the same walls of Monrovia College and were granted permission to leave with their diplomas as well.

First I wanted to study political science at the University of Liberia. My sister advised against it. Then I wanted to go into journalism owing to my innate ability and undiminished desire to write and read news. I was member of the Monrovia College news paper club. I was part of the team that published the MC Gazette. The present Minister of Information, Mr. Lawrence Bropleh was our boss. He monopolized everything though. He attended every function we were invited to. He spoke every word. He read every news item on the radio, ELBC. He was the back and the front of the paper but we were loyal to him. But my "journalism" at Monrovia College got me into trouble. I was severely punished during the final examination week. I was made to scrub the Hatcher Hall for three days in succession for writing an article in the Gazette about one of the school's classrooms. Though the article was removed from the final publication, I was drastically punished by Dr. York. I harbored no resentment but I rethought my desire to study journalism at the University of Liberia. I thought my journalism sojourn emerged on a false start. Those were the days also when life was a daily pitch battle between journalists in Liberia and the government of Mr. Samuel Kanyon Doe. So I chose biology to prepare me to become a medical doctor. By 1990 I have completed close to 80 credit hours. My desire to become a medical doctor was squashed when Charles Taylor, Thomas Woiweyu, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and others felt that we were living in servitude under Samuel Doe; therefore we needed to be liberated. So they gathered bunches of deadbeats and lowlifes, gave them drugs and guns and urged them to shoot them to power, wealth, and revenge. I abandoned my studies for the first time ever and fled to the Republic of Guinea. My two brothers of the trek to Doodwicken also trekked with me to Bossou, Lola District in Guinea.

Guinea, a nation impoverished by greed and ineptitude, did all it could to grant us solitude. Unfortunate it did not have the respite we sought. Guinea was not delivering what we wanted so we moved to the Ivory Coast, then Ghana, later Nigeria, as far as Sokoto, far in the harsh Muslim desert of Northern Nigeria. How we got to Sokoto will require a volume which I am not prepare to commit to in this piece. Sokoto did not offer the respite we sought as well so we moved back to the refugee camp at Oru near Jebo Ode. Six months have passed after we arrived at Oru Camp. We decided to retreat. We boarded a bus and to the Buduburam Refugee Camp we rested our tired limbs.

While on this camp one of my brothers and I wrote the Notebook of a Warrior which was published in 2005. We also wrote the Convert, Tribute to Nehemiah, The Love that Never was, a collection of proverbs, and parables. We also pioneered the establishment of the Precious Jewel Foundation School on the Camp in Ghana. After we left, we learned that the school became one of the best high schools before it descended into oblivion due to reckless stewardship.

My life is inundated with rises and falls, trials and triumphs. I did not succeed to become a medical doctor. I will not be the one to heal the body but I have taken another trend, to heal emotions, modify behaviors, help others analyze their thoughts and see how such thoughts interfere with their functioning. I think more than many things, the human psychology deserves enormous investigation. This was why I chose to study psychology far enough. These are just tit-bits of my story, a long hectic one. These are just few steps of my journey, a journey through valleys and plateaus.

Thomas Woiweyu Still doesn’t get it

I was right when this time around I did not attend the Haywood Reunion especially when the events were right in my backyard. I would have fallen asleep or lost my temperament over Woiwoyu's packs of lies, shallow justification for the murder of close to a million of suffering Liberians, and his misrepresentation of history. I am, for now interested commenting on the excuses and justification that people (Wowoiyu and others) make about their roles in the destruction of Liberia.

Mr. Wowoiyu is giving excuses for what he and the NPFL did to the country. He is claiming that Liberia needed a change so the 14 year carnage was justified. I resolved to strongly differ, Mr. War Spokesperson. That was not a revolution Mr. Wowoiyu, it was carnage. It was mayhem. It was a ploy to annihilate an entire people, Mr. Wowoiyu. It was not a change for progress. And you were right when you said in June of 1990 in Sierra Leone on BBC that the objective of the NPFL's war was to avenge the killing of the 13 TWP government officials.

Mr. Wowoiyu, I concede that a lot has gone wrong in Liberia from the very onset when the resettled slaves entered the Grain Coast and decided to alter everything to their advantage.

I thought you started well in your speech but like a drunken wobbler, you began to fumble from the TRC issue onwards. The problem we continue to face in Liberian is the arrogance of present and past stakeholders of the Liberian mayhem. This has to do with their inability to see where they have gone wrong. You are yet to admit that the NPFL went beyond excesses. And this is also the problem today with President Sirleaf, her failure to acknowledge her past mistakes without giving excuses and justification. Her inability to acknowledge the mistakes of her benefactors, the TWP, the ex-slaves and her protégés. And it hurts a lot of people, Thomas, when those of you who have masterminded the suffering of the Liberia people and the near demise of a nation continue to pester the victims.

Mr. Wowoiyu you alluded to the Ghanaian experience and accomplishment to justify the Liberian carnage. On the contrary, you admitted that progress is stagnant in Liberia. Despite the unparalleled outcomes of the Liberian and Ghanaian experiences, you continue to make the case as if the two experiences are the same. Unlike the Ghanaian experience, the NPFL struggle since 1985 has being about revenge and giving power back to those who believe that power is their heritage, Liberia belonged to them because they "founded" it, they named, they crafted everything about it. They designed the Flag and it is all about them. They carved the Motto. So when a Kanyon Doh took power from them, they saw it as degrading to be governed by an untouchable. So they did everything within their ability with your help, Thomas, to reclaim their inheritance. And many of us dearly paid the price: 300,000 thousand of the already victims of misrule and discrimination were murdered. Our villages and zinc shacks we have labored to put up were turned to relics. The schooling of the children of the down trodden was put to a halt for 14 years while the sons, daughters, and wards of you the elites flourish in serene spheres of the West. After such destruction, nothing has changed. And as you rightly said in your speech, "it seems that we have gone backwards."

But what is disingenuous about this whole thing is if you believe that we have gone backward, then what is the point of justifying the circumstances that have driven us backward? How can this country move forward if you fail to acknowledge your flaws? How can Liberia move forward if we fail to confess our sins one to another and sincerely apologize without excuses. I relish the view that Liberia will make progress when the TWP, NPFL, INPFL, Americo-Liberians and others descend from their arrogant pedestals and admit the ills they have caused us all. Are Americo-Liberians willing to acknowledge that they have misruled the country for over a century? Can they admit that Fernando Po was a wrong measure? That treating the native population as peons was wrong? Until there is true acknowledgment on the part of those who have caused too much pains and suffering to others, there will be no respite. And I do not leave out the victims as well, they must be willing to let go but it starts with the perpetrators. Liberia will be a better place if you and Ellen start the ball rolling. Others will follow in your steps.

“There is no true forgivingness without true admission." - The unknown author

The Culture Debate

LIBERIAN CULTURE: What is it?

What do people mean when they talk about Liberian culture? What is Liberian culture and what is not? What culture is practiced in Liberia? Whose way of life is it? Is it possible to separate one's systems of solutions or problem solving from his/her culture? What really do we mean when we say Liberian culture?

I submit that the issue about respecting or not respecting Liberian Culture will be addressed within the context of attempting to answer the above questions and other subsequent ones. These require some thoughtfulness and soberness. This will also require that we shed the existing image of Liberian culture that most of us limitted to Kendayah and look at culture within a braoder context.

But while doing so, it will serve us well if the discussion is about the integration of the various facets of the Liberian society(culture) into a system of solutions. But the idea of one talking about what is Liberian culture and what is not is like making fools of ourselves. If the way we interact in Liberia is not part of our culture then whose culture is it? The language, the food, the ceremonies and their protocols, religious practices, naming processes, governments, administrations, etc.. are all part of the Liberian culture and no other. The idea of Liberian culture and non-Liberian culture is the embedded in a slave mentality that was engendered during the Americo-Liberians( even the idea of Liberians calling themselves Americo-Liberians is another illusion. this is another discussion anyway) rule. It came out of ignorance. I am surprised that inspite of the increased awareness amongst many people of the globe, certain people in Liberia still think of their way of life as not part of the Liberian culture. So whose culture is it? British culture? Afghan culture? Whose culture is it? the languages Liberian speak, whether English(liberian English, Kpelle, the way we run government, or all the foods we eat).

Culture is adaptable and once it is adapted it becomes one's culture (i.e. the people who practice it.) When Western culture is adapted by Liberians, it is no longer a Western Culture, it becomes Liberian Culture. As long as it is accepted as a system of solutions. So, we need to stop creating this stupid divide or a peripheral feel good attitude. We need to stop limiting Liberian Culture to just dances, Poro, and Sande societies, etc. Everything we do as Liberian to solve problems is our Liberian Culture. It is an illusive paradise that one creates for himself/herself when he/she begins to think that he/she is a Liberian but is not a Liberian by culture. How is that possible? How can one be a Liberian yet think of himself/herself as a stranger by culture? It just happens that every culture has many dimensions and facets.The Liberian way od life is no exception.

Liberia is Paying for Obama’s Healthcare Reform

The President, Barack Obama is carrying his Health Care reform agenda to families, trying to convince Americans about his plans to overhaul the program. Majority of Americans are convinced that the cost of health care in America is directly and devastatingly so, connected to the economic hardship faced by many Americans. In the President's words: reforming health care will reform the economic lives of many Americans."

One of the President's challenges is how is he going to pay for the health care overhaul. The President has advanced a number of measures that will pay for his health reform program. Unfortunately the President has failed to include one major source of revenue to help with his agenda. The forgotten source is the Republic of Liberia. Wait and you will read/hear what I am going to tell the reading audience.

With this present campaign by the President and Congress, I began to reflect on the skyrocketing cost of health care in America. I wonder what it could if one is without a good health insurance or a health insurance at all. I remembered some years ago how I was billed close to a thousand dollars just for registering at the Triage for admission at a hospital in Pennsylvania. I waited for three hours yet I was never called to be seen by a doctor or physician so I left and went home to it be treated.. For those of you who may not know this, one of my brothers is a quack doctor. I dreaded asking him for treatment but I had no other choice.

Two weeks following my departure from the hospital, I was billed $973.00. I do not know what my bill was going be if I have taken treatment at the hospital. It could have been unimaginable. But I also remembered when my sister in Chicago was billed $30,000.00 following a three day hospitalization. Thanks goodness she had health insurance. But what about those who do not have? Can anyone imagine what they might be going through? Hell! I guess is the answer!

But in the case of some of my fellow country men and women, I say “not too fast.” Hell is not the answer. Can you imagine a minister in the Liberian government sending his wife to the United States each time she is to give birth? Or can one imagine an official of government traveling to the US for medical check up or physical examinations? The other day the Press Secretary to the President of Liberia, Cyrus Badio, was clamoring about how the President passed her physical exams with flying colors at a United States hospital. A principal at one high school in Liberia has just sent his wife to the United States for delivery.

What Mr. Badio failed to recognize/imagine was how this can happen when health care in the United States is tied to health insurance and health insurance is the equivalence of high costs. How are our Ministers, President, and now school principals paying for such health care in a country where even those with jobs here are feeling the pinches and the punches of health care cost?

The excuse for such lofty lifestyles that have being associated with a lot of Liberia's higher-ups has always being “we do not have state of the art facilities to treat our leaders." And that is quite true. Our medical facilities are in dismal state. That is expected. I do not think it requires any hard thinking to know that Liberia's health care system is close to medieval. What do we expect if those with the money and resources do not want to spend them at our hospitals? If the President of Liberia is traveling to the United States for her annual physical exams while Americans with jobs and health insurance plans are feeling the pinch and running to Canada for low cost health delivery.

Can anyone imagine if a minister's wife were treated at Redemption Hospital or at the Telewoyan Hospital how much revenues the facility could be receiving? By this time Liberia's health care could be at a desirable level. This has never being the case in Liberia, maybe when it was called Grain Coast. But this is not the point for this discourse.

So as I watch the health care debate rages on and recognize the seriousness the President attaches to this issue, I just sit and wonder how easy it is for government officials in Liberia to access the American health care system than Americans themselves. This is why I was a bit disappointed when President Obama failed to disclose one of the major sources to pay for health care reform in America. That source is Liberia- the President of Liberia, her government officials, and others, like the Principal of the school in Liberia, who are stealing from the poor to get state of the art treatment in the United States. When Americans are unable to afford paying for their own health, Liberians can. And they do so with flying colors too in American hospitals. So I hope President Obama in his next, speech, tell Congress, Liberia will pay for his Health Care Reform.

A Critique of the President’s Visit to River Gee

Recently the President of Liberia paid visits to theSouth East of Liberia. Amid the many utterances of thePresident the one which struck me the most is thereinforcement/restating of the Ministry of InternalAffairs mandate banning the practice of trial byordeal. Since this issue was widely heralded throughthe media in the report of the President’s visit toRiver Gee, I believe that was her central theme. It isbased on this premise that I articulate the followingobservations:

1. There is a demonstration of the lack ofunderstanding of the fundamental issues facing theLiberian people. I think the President’s advisors dida very poor job by allowing her to raise the ordealtrial issue on her nation wide tour. The problemsLiberia faces have nothing to do with trial by ordealbecause the practice itself is a result of the need tocompensate for those basic things that are absent fromthe people of Liberia. Trial by ordeal is tocompensate for the absence of an appropriate judicialsystem. It is the result of the absence of appropriatemedical and scientific systems for the improvement ofthe standards of living of the people.

2. Singling out River Gee or the South East to deliverthe statement was inappropriate and politicallypremature because it stigmatizes one section or regionof our country. It is polarizing, to state the least.The problems Liberia faces are unique though manyregions of the country may adopt different ways ofaddressing them. So what is needed from the Presidentis a central theme which unites the nation insteadthat divides it. In fact, viewing the statement from abroader angle, it is an affront to the hosts (thepeople of River Gee). It is against the norms that avisitor has to be polite and civil to the host. Youcan’t visit someone then castigates them. Thepresident showed little respect for the people ofRiver Gee by repudiating them on their own soil. (Thisis an approximation of telling your hosts that his/herhouse is filthy). The President needs to apologize tothem

3. There is a failure on the part of the president andthe government to acknowledge some forms of judicialpractice existing in our present system which areparallel to the ordeal which banning highlighted hervisit. Some forms of judicial practice which has to dowith coercion, indoctrination, sleep deprivation,testimony with the promise of lesser sentence orpardon, etc.The Way to go, Madam PresidentThe problems Liberia faces are enormous and must be viewed keenly from a broader perspective.

Some candidways of dealing with those problems involve thefollowing: There is a need to review and over haul oureducational system. Our educational system shouldreflect our values and must be valuable to thecommunities. The need for teaching science applicableto the society must be encouraged and fully financed.In so doing some make beliefs and superstitions couldbe dispelled. The Liberian Judicial system must be strengthenedthrough the training of judges and others responsiblefor the dispensation of justice. The system has to beindependent and fully financed as well. Law enforcersneed to be fully trained and equipped in order toserve the nation well. The county administrative system should bestrengthened by placing responsibilities and somepowers (financial and administrative) into the handsof county/community leaders. By so doing some of ourbrightest must be deployed in the counties instead ofcrowding them in the Capital city.

There is a need that government relinquish someof it powers of trying to do it all and perhapsdomestically ‘out source’ some of itsresponsibilities. In so doing government can identifysome responsible and capable institutions orindividuals then delegate some of it projects to them.Let’s consider for instance the Catholic Diocese, theAssembly of God Mission, and other credibleinstitutions getting loans to undertake projects likehousing, road constructions, and health care delivery,amongst others. Finally, it does not augur well for the Presidentto choose as a central theme to deal with one of thesymptoms long existing of chronic problems. Thismatter involving trial by ordeal must be left with theInternal Affairs Ministry which will tackle it throughthe local officials. T

The President needs to identifythe central issues that connect the entire nation. AndI know for sure that we do not need to look too far orelsewhere for find those issues.

Letter To Dr. Jabaru Carlon

“Unfortunately, it may seem to some of us that the miracle we had expected is not happening fast enough. In which case we need to stop and ask ourselves: “Where would Liberia be if we were President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf? Would the nation’s state of affairs be any better?” And, my friends, my experience over the past three decades and beyond compels me to respond to the latter question with a resounding NO! And I can say, without any hesitation, that most of the vocal critics now surfacing may turn out to be among the worst actors, if the table were to be turned around in their favor. Honestly speaking, many of us here today, who have experienced happenings in our country over those decades, especially since 1980, may agree with me on this.” -Dr. S. Jarbaru Carlon

This is an extract from an article written by Dr. Jabaru Carlon on March 10, 2007 and carried by the Perspective. I am compelled to respond to the former IGNU’s Sport Minister whose major accomplishment during his service was a proposal to change the name of the S. K. Doe Sports Complex.

I wonder as to what extent some people are willing to go in compromising their intellectualism and integrity for the sake of sycophancy? Dr. Carlon’s comments that he sees no other person doing better in Liberia than what President Sirleaf is doing or has done thus far is an assault on intellectualism and high performance. His comments are demonstration of the lack of respect for hard working Liberians who are making positive impacts in various spheres of endeavors. His comments undermined the growth of Liberia and offered no hope for the future. At the same time his unscientific claims offered no hope for Liberia’s younger generation. However, I am assured by the fact that those claims are without empirical basis and thus must be dismissed

I understand Dr. Carlon is a member of the ruling elites that have miss-governed the country since the Tubman’s era as such he perceives no better. The Dr. has seen around himself for almost a half century a continuous recycle of corrupt elites from the days of William V. S. Tubman to present. But this is no sufficient recipe that the country is void of the brightest and those with the ability to excel beyond the present condition at a quicker pace. I can assure Dr. Carlon that there is hope for the country and that hope rests with the departure of the corrupt and destructive gangs. The gangs that have emerged from the days of Tubman yet have refused to vacate the political scene. The departure of such gangs will usher the dawn of a new Liberia.

Dr. Carlon is a prophet of doom whose assertions must be dismissed because they undermine the integrity and resolve of progressive Liberians. I guarantee the Doctor that there are brilliant, visionary, and constructive Liberians with tested and proven strategies to salvage the nation. There are Liberians who could have acted differently in the circumstances he alluded to as regards the behavior of the President. There are Liberians who could have performed far better than what the government of the elderly have accomplished so far (how do you refer to a government in which the average age of a top officials is 65?).