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Ellen Is Not a Saint By:Nvasekie N. Konneh 30 August, 2010  Before
taking the first step in writing this article, let me make a disclaimer:
I am not one of those blind critics President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, nor
am I one of her blind praise-singers. That point being made clear, let’s
proceed. I left Liberia on the 13th of August for the US, having spent
five months straight in Monrovia. This was my longest stay in Liberia in
the last fifteen years. Except for the brief visit to my home town of
Saclepea, Nimba County, I spent the entire five months in Monrovia. In the SN Brussels flight from Monrovia, I was a participant in a conversation between me, and two other Liberians. One of the other two was a government official coming to the US for study on some kind of government program. As he explained, there were several other students travelling to different schools in the states on government dimes. All these are parts of the government’s capacity building efforts. The other participant was another Diaspora Liberian who lives in Europe and was returning to his place of residence. Like me, he’s planning to move back to Liberia. As usual when we meet as Liberians, particularly in foreign parts, and in this particular instance in an airplane thousands of miles above, we like to talk about developments back home. Those of us living in the diaspora will have to give account of our experience in the motherland to not only our immediate relatives but countless friends who are curious to know what is going on in the homeland. So it was one of those conversations. I and the gentleman from Europe were basically talking about some of the challenges Liberia faces today and how difficult it may be to overcome some of those challenges-the roads, traffic, water, electricity, unemployment, poverty, disease, illiteracy and the mother of all of the above, corruption. I am not and have never been under any illusion that when President Sirleaf took office that tackling any of these issues was going to be an easy walk in the park. I know that a country which for fifteen years stopped development and the only thing that was taking place was destruction of lives and properties and uncontrollable corruption could not bounce back within a twinkle of an eye. All along I knew it was going to take a while and lot of efforts by all serious Liberians, not just the president, to turn things around in Liberia. As things stand now, she deserves credit for the efforts she’s making. While we were analyzing issues such as these enumerated above, the fellow Liberian who is a government officials became agitated and defensive about the president and what she is doing in Liberia since she took over as president. He started making comparative analyses of the great effort President Sirleaf is making now to what Taylor could not do in all the years he was in charge as president. He was busy preaching to us to see what the president has been able to accomplish in the “few years” she has been in office. From the way this government official was talking, I could see that he had concluded that we were some of those “blind critics” of the president whose eyes don’t see the “great job” she is doing in the country. As much as I tried to convince this government official that we were just making objective analyses without any bias for or against the president, he won’t calm down from his exasperated defensive mode of the status quo. I told him that every regime has it supporters as well as critics and this cannot be helped, particularly where politic is the only thing that matters to a lot of people in Liberia. When I told him that the only way poverty can be alleviated in Liberia is for the government to encourage the growth of the private sector and that Liberians must not only desire the political offices but must make determined efforts to take over the economic of their country. I said that would be the real “poverty reduction strategy.” The government official said that Liberians have not proven to be reliable business men and women; that they have not established the credibility of paying back their loans with the banks and since the Lebanese, the Indians have good track records of paying back their loans, it’s easier for them to obtain loans from the banks operating in Liberia. On and on this government official talked as if to say Ellen is a saint without a sin. I told him that his defending of the president to the point of making her appear like a saint is nothing new in Liberia. Even Charles Taylor, with lot of evidence of mindless cruelty against his fellow country men, is a saint in the eyes of some of his ardent supporters. While the rest of the world sees an evil man, they see a compassionate man comparable to a saint. Who did not see some of his supporters weeping profusely on TV when he was been rescued from the LURD rebels on his tail? While some of the president’s political opponents are so blind to see the progress the country is making under her leadership, some of her supporters go way overboard in trying to portray her as a saint who does everything right and does not go wrong on anything. The fact of the matter is that Ellen is just another politician and she is not doing anything we don’t expect her to do as president of our country in term of progress and development. In other words, whatever she is doing is what she promised to do and if we expect her to do more than what she promised during her campaign, we are still not wrong and even with that she is not a saint. In 2005, she was able to convince the voters that she could do better than any of the other candidates if she was given the chance. After more than five years, she has not been able to do everything she promised to do. Electricity is not everywhere in Monrovia even after five years when she promised to do so in six months during the campaign. But any rational person can understand that things are easier said than done. Only a fool could believe that turning things around in post war Liberia would be like an easy walk in the park. Another point this government functionary made that is often repeated by many of Ellen’s supporters is that she deserves credit for not locking up her critics like some of her predecessors did in the past. Yes, Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor were ruthless with those who opposed them. Because they were ruthlessly intolerance of opposition, Doe ended up dead and now Taylor went down in disgrace. So I won’t buy the rhetoric that we must be grateful to Ellen because there is no torture chamber in Liberia under her regime. Not that she does not want to but she cannot afford to be a torturer like any of her predecessors. The freedom we enjoy in Liberia today is not a gift given to us by Madam Sirleaf. All the people who died in the war couldn’t have died for us to still be under another draconian dictatorial regime. When people are liberated from dictatorships they don’t want go back there and leaders who don’t understand this simple lesson end up in the dog house. That’s what Doe and Taylor could not understand and that’s why they went down the way they did. The history of her predecessors is still fresh in our collective memory for any president to take us for granted. Another reason too is the fact that Ellen was a pro-democracy activist for more than two decades. I don’t think she would want to do anything to taint that pro-democratic credential of hers. All the more reason why no one is incarcerated by her regime. So next time you talk about Ellen, don’t try to preach to me that she is a messiah or a saint because she does not operate any torture chamber. I won’t give her credit for that. The only thing extra-ordinary about her is that she triumphed in the male dominated field of Liberian politic to become the first elected female president of Liberia and Africa. That’s a history worth being celebrated. Other than that she is just another politician. About the author: Nvasekie N. Konneh is a Liberian poet and writer. He’s a nine year veteran of the US Navy. He’s the author of the book of poetry, “Going to War for America.” Since 1992 up to present, Nvasekie Konneh’s articles and poems have appeared in many newspapers and websites in Liberia and the US. He can be reached @ KonnLove@aol.com or knvasekie@yahoo.com . |
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