Liberian TRC: Reconciliation before the Truth - hummmm?

Question – What if we (Liberians) were to find out the names and countries of all those who had their hands in the “cookie jar” of the Liberian war, is Liberia in the position to take those involve to court? Or will we only reconcile with them as well? Personally, I don’t think Liberians can handle the truth regarding the war because no two sides will agree on whose to blame.

Sometimes I think the reasons we are getting help from the outside countries in rebuilding Liberia is their way of saying “we are sorry for what we started in your country and to your people” nothing more. I don’t think they really care, do you? All of the assistances we are getting from the USA are only a mere “we should not have let Charles Taylor out of jail, we made a mistake” gesture. Then again, one can only wonder what was in it for them, the diamonds or to reduce the population of an African country or both.

Some of the things I see and hear happening in various African countries I think are all plans to hopefully reduce the African populations. The sad part is we (Africans) know this all too well but still take the bribe for our own selfishness and greed. Africans are known to sell their own for a buck dating back to the biblic al days. As much as we are reconciling, it will take only one person to sell us back to 1979 or 1989. We always claim to want help with our day to day and long term lives in Liberia but the minutes someone comes along and present us with a dollar, we will sell whatever and whoever for that buck no matter what the short or long term consequences are.

To reconcile is to be willing to forgive and acknowledging that no one groups or tribes is to be blamed. We also need to acknowledge that we deserve a second chance. We need to know that we are valuable to the world. We need to start by showing respect for ourselves and our countrymen and women. One can not love their country and steal from it and break it down to nothing. It is impossible to love someone you do NOT respect; we have to learn to respect each other and take pride in our country first. We have to stop wearing our emotional on our sleeves and genuinely work on our feelings for one another.

We need to de-program ourselves to connect the dots, meaning we need to use what we learned in school in our personal everyday lives. We have psychologist using and abusing women emotionally and don’t see sleeping around as a sign of uselessness towards one self; we have medical doctors sleeping around without protections but go to work everyday and give advice on protections. We have RNs sending for over the counter drugs (street drug) from Liberia to use when they are sick, by the time they realized the Liberia street drug is not working, it’s too late. We have accountants who can not count but know how to steal but at the same time never want to be accountable for their actions; and lawyers who are more of a criminal then the guys on the streets but yet practice the law everyday. We have educated, well rounded Liberians still believe when they are sick someone must have witched them. We have PhD holders acting like third grade dropouts but know how to present themselves at work. We have food specialist that are over weight and eating large amount of fufu and soup at 11pm at night; shouldn’t they all know better or was their schooling only for “name sake” to say I have a degree. Why are Liberians not connecting the dots, education and life should go hand in hand, why can’t we use our education to live better lives?

By the time we Liberians are 45 – 50 years old, we have multiple kids by multiple women/men; multiple marriages; many illnesses; and no real family connections; no dependable friends around to lean on and we looked 20 years older then our peers from another country…..and then we died before our 55th birthday, why, only two reasons…

1. We wear our feelings on our sleeves meaning our feeling do not go beyond the present moment, when you are out of sight, you are out of our minds, we don’t care what we do or say to or about you.

2. We do not apply our education in our personal life, we spent 4 – 12 years reading for a good job but when we get home from work, our minds and behaviors are as if we were never in school!!!

All the reconciliations in the world will not get Liberians to:
Respect each other
Make real peace with one another
Love the land call Liberia
Stop the hate
Stop the envy
Stop the unnecessary greed
Think of what they can “do for” Liberia and not what they can “steal from” Liberia
Seek counseling for ourselves and our love ones
Mentally change our mindset of what we consider the word LOVE to be.

We have a long way to go my friend!!

Roberta Williams