BY: SAMUEL JACKSON
Liberian Politician and Economist
We love and live to fight each other. 1966 Children’s International Summer Village, Hexham, UK. We four Liberian students were constantly fighting each other. The head Master Hughes called us to a meeting. He asked “Do you see the other nationalities fight each other like you Liberians? That stuck with me forever.
During the coup. Attempted coups. 1985. 1989. Several interim governments. Splitting of Factions. NPFL. INPFL. ULIMO K. ULIMO J. Fights in ULAA. County organizations. Split in my own SPHS/St. Theresa’s Associaion for a long time.
Look at our lives. Constant fussing. Outside children versus inside children. Fighting over land among siblings.
Now we have developed a new nasty habit. Two camps. Pro government. Anti government. Both intransigent. Both callous. Both intolerant. Both unsophisticated and idiotic but thinking they alone can run Liberia.
In all I remember during the research for my book there were 135 wars in Liberian history (Nimley). The last big war before 1989 was the Juah Nimley Sasstown Insurrection in 1935. Then the 1955 Coup that failed. Then the biggest massacre in our history. The execution of 72 Kru chiefs in 1915 by Daniel E. Howard (Bitter Canaan by Charles Spurgeon Johnson, grandfather of Jeh Johnson former Homeland Secretary).
We are a nation of conflict. See George Clay Kieh. Our history is convoluted. See Charles Henry Huberich. Our economic history is upside down. See George Brown.
I know why we are a Rich Land Poor Country. Stupidity mixed with deep seated arrogance. A country doomed to fail and we are deep in the throes of failure. Unable to feed ourselves. Unable to provide light and drinking water. A nation of darkness. Pestilence and disease. A nation of simple wants. Perverted by uneducated louts spouting gibberish. The land of endless opportunities mired in perpetual ignorance. A forlorn land of interminable arguments. My country. Our native land. Destined to be in the bottom after nearly 178 years of nationhood. No other nation that old is so poor. It’s people so backwards.
We live on hope. Hope is eternal. God blessed us. We discarded our blessings. And so it goes.
