To initiate consideration of the reconstruction of Liberian cultural traditions is a worthwhile enterprise. The view there is need for cultural renaissance in Liberia must be welcomed by the marginalised, indigenous and economically disadvantaged. It is interesting to note that this enterprise requires rigorous and sustained efforts imbued with dedication and commitment.

The arrival of the settlers from 1821-1822 to the present day on to these shores has been over a considerable period of time. Let it be noted that during this period, much has happened that can not be easily undone. The devastation of our traditional culture, which once cohesively held us together prior to the advent of the freed slaves, has been massive.

The settlers have calculatedly manipulated the environment, thereby giving them advantage to firmly hold on to their power base. They are too economically potent; they are well educated; they cooperate mightily; and they are firmly united, disallowing penetration by any outside force.

Persons like us who have been in the country since, and have witnessed many unfolding events: political as well as military have endeavoured to identify the attendant dynamics. The natives failed to consolidate the power they obtained by staging the 1980 coup which brought Samuel Doe from Grand Gedeh County to power. We failed to entrench ourselves.

The settlers 'divide and rule' tactics disintegrated the government. They bounced back in December 1989 by using ourselves against one another in full scale rebel unconventional warfare. Their resolve was to totally disorganise, disintegrate, neutralise; in fact to politically, economically, socially and inhumanely vaporise us.

The settlers, through their strongman Charles Taylor, made children murder their own parents; and brothers fought and killed one another. The by-product of the over 14 years' conflict is a whole wasted generation, trained only to understand ruthlessness, crime, quick-fixed financial gains and drug addiction. They lack interest in education of any kind. Above all, there is a void in the ability to reason by logical analysis.

To mention the worst, our sacred ancestral shrines have been ruined and desecrated, therefore exposing our traditional heritage and beliefs. The settlers have made significant gains.

The Pambuzuka movement must endeavour to undo this by challenging what has been established. It must begin now. The many of you in the diaspora must begin to establish the movement at home. You who have acquired such a level of education from amongst the grassroots have resided among the white man and learnt his culture. If you return to your people, they will definitely respect your views. You must come, and have an impact on their lives by establishing institutions, building capacities and empowering them.

The presence of the indigenous brothers in the diaspora on the ground will reinvigorate the masses with new ideas, experiences and professionalism. The return of qualified indigenous Liberian professionals to contribute to the reconstruction of the country will buttress the success of the culture renaissance.

The movement to re-establish indigenous traditions must empower and engage communities, especially the poor and vulnerable within the villages and towns of our country. The recognition and embracing of the movement will be predicated upon investment in human capital, human development focusing on health education, and poverty reduction. These will guarantee food security by facilitating the expansion of food production and distribution; making food accessible and affordable; and improving food absorption.

Some of us have been here, watching and waiting to exert our full potentialities in a peaceful and normal environment. We want to see a very competitive society: native versus settlers. We can win, only if we trust and believe in ourselves and cooperate in unity and oneness in purpose. Our number is more than theirs. We have the numerical strength as well as the geographical advantage. The cultural renaissance must begin now. The change we desire to see must be ourselves.

"The Independent" newspaper, which was banned by the government for publishing a sex photo of former presidential affairs minister, Willie Knuckles, has been ordered by the Supreme Court of Liberia to return to "status quo ante." The court's latest ruling is a result of a challenge by "The Independent" through its legal counsel, Attorney-at-Law Syema Syrenius Cephus, protesting the government of Liberia's order through the court's system.

On 15 March 2007, Sam Dean, publisher of "The Independent", a Monrovia- based privately-owned newspaper currently facing a ban, alleged that his life is in danger due to continuous threats on his life by agents of the state security. He has therefore been in hiding.

A group of Liberian refugees given sanctuary in Israel five years ago now face deportation and fear their lives will be in danger if they are repatriated. Liberia's on-off civil war from 1989 to 2003 devastated the once prosperous West African state and killed more than 200,000 people.

When the West African state of Liberia was torn apart by 14 years of civil war, the victims of the brutal insurgency included mostly women and children who were subject to rape and sexual violence.

The Liberian government has completed a short-term national poverty reduction plan to tackle the country's massive unemployment. The plan outlines four key areas of poverty alleviation, but principally centres on job creation.

The government of Liberia revoked the operational license of "The Independent" newspaper in Monrovia for one year. The decision was announced at a press conference in Monrovia by acting Information Minister Laurence Bropleh. Minister Bropleh said the decision was in response to "The Independent's" publication of a photograph showing former Presidential Affairs Minister Willis Knuckles in a sex scene with two ladies.

The government of Liberia formally charged the country's former Interim President, Gyude Bryant, with theft. He led the country after the world community had sacked Charles Taylor from power and headed the transition into today's democratic regime.

Some 406 Liberian refugees from Guinea have returned home through the border town of Yekepa, in Nimba County. According to UNHCR, the movement is part of ongoing voluntary repatriation from camps in Guinea which started in 2005.

I applaud Mr. Bropleh's article because it hits on the point that in order for us – Liberians - to move forward, we must learn about our past, come to terms with our failures and incorporate the experience of our nation into our vision for the future to make it a unifying national vision.

Members of the small Liberian community in Tel Aviv have appealed to the Israeli government to allow them to extend their stay in Israel. The appeal comes seven months after the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative in Israel wrote to all Liberian refugees directing them to return to Liberia by 31 March 2007.

According to a symposium report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Liberian women have identified the enhancement of national security as a key area of focus in the reconstruction of Liberia alongside the revitalization of the economy, strengthening governance and the rule of law, and the rehabilitation of the infrastructure.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf described the achievements of her year-old government in recovering from a prolonged civil war and called upon the U.S. and other Liberian partners to drop the debt inherited from past governments, continue security assistance, and step up development assistance, especially road building.

Rising levels of rape and sexual exploitation of women and teenage girls in Liberia have sparked concern by both the government and women's rights groups. Despite a peace agreement in 2003, these types of violent abuse were still common, according to Lois Bruthus, head of the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL), a leading advocacy group.

IRIN news reports that the United States has promised to write off US $391 million of debt to help Liberia recover from its 14-year civil war, although this is a fraction of the $3.7 billion that the nation owes international lenders.

As Liberia emerges as a new nation with competing resource priorities it needs to look back to it’s past cultural traditions particularly in the area of education, in order to move forward. Children should be taught “traditional arts, music, literature, religions, languages” and most importantly the ancient and modern history of Liberia, argues Doeba Bropleh.

There are many competing resource allocation priorities for Liberia as the country emerges from years of corruption, political instability, and civil conflict: education, shelter, food, economic revitalization, reintegration of former refugees and combatants, security, rebuilding infrastructure… the list is long. While each of the listed elements is important, for Liberia to develop, it has to use a foundation that includes an “expanded cultural perspective”. My premise is that economic growth, without a unifying cultural base, will lead to a bland society, one suffering from a lack of character and susceptible to further degradation.

As Liberia rebounds from the socio-economic and political carnage wrought by corruption, instability, and war, the country needs to reverse the dilution of its heritage. The Liberian identity should be reshaped to include more aboriginal cultural markers: there was learning before western-styled education; religion before the missionaries; and an economy before capitalism. Cultural truth is where salvation resides – Liberia needs to reach back in order to leap forward. This process may be uncomfortable at the onset, but, like birth, first there is pain, then joy.

Liberian identity, forged primarily from two disparate groups – freed American slaves (settlers) and indigenous people – developed in a lopsided manner because of the dominance of the settlers, even though they were the minority. Wrapped in western culture, which is all they knew, the settlers collided with and distorted the prism of the country’s “pre-settler” value systems. Various degrees of “westernization” were demanded from the natives before they were granted access – albeit limited – to the corridors of society, which were all controlled by the settlers. In the process, textured indigenous tradition and mores were shunned for foreign/imported ones.

Though Liberia was never directly colonized, the weakening of its native tradition was accelerated by the intrusion of western nations. The neo-colonialists’ “dark continent” outlook had insidious ramifications. In his book “Decolonizing the Mind”, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the esteemed Kenyan writer, discussed the “cultural bomb” of imperialism. He stated that: “The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves.” In her essay “Africa”, Maya Angelou, the renowned American writer outlined that: “The slaves too soon began to believe what their masters believed: Africa was a continent of savages.” It was some of these same slaves – armed with their altered worldview – that eventually resettled in what we now know as Liberia. Conflict was inevitable. Culture, however, provides a homogenizing glue that helps bind a multi-ethnic society, such as Liberia’s, creating a collective conscience buttressed by self-love and pride. Shared experiences and commonality work to humanize members of a community; thereby, moderating tensions which may arise. An “expanded cultural perspective” could aid in neutralizing the settler-versus-native rift that has plagued the country since its inception.

The sewing of cultural fabric does not require the suppression of intra-group differences however. On the contrary, the quilt should be expansive and inclusive enough to showcase the best from its various sub-groups, while respecting their idiosyncrasies. Such an approach acknowledges the contributions of all and signals equanimity between members of a society. This, in turn, fosters “buy-in” from each sector and gives people a product they can, and want to identify with. Many sub-groups (Ibo, Hausa, Yoruba, to name a few) influence Nigerian culture, yet each maintains a distinctive heritage of its own. While Liberian culture does have facets of this phenomenon, it could use more. This fabric though, only becomes durable if customs, traditions, history are truly shared, and if there is an awareness of these mutual elements. Hence, my proposed cultural paradigm for Liberia’s reconstruction calls for a holistic approach, plus aggressive, focused teaching and subscription to Liberian culture and history. This orientation will help Liberia develop the nationalistic audacity to question foreign socio-economic, political, legal, and religious systems, instead of accepting them carte blanche. Respect, especially from outsiders, is reserved for a people imbued with self-knowledge and pride.

One medium that can be used to jump-start this cultural awakening is the formal education system. Traditional arts, music, literature, religions, languages… should be taught in schools. The teaching of Liberian History – an integral part of cultural development – needs to be broad and rigorous, not the truncated version I was fed in junior and high school. The historical time line should be stretched to include the Liberian moment prior to the American Colonization Society’s resettlement plan for a select group of freed American slaves, which began in the 1820’s. Every person who attends school in Liberia should be aware of how the various tribes got to the area now known as Liberia, and what occurred in the territory before the arrival of Portuguese explorers in 1461. Instead of the romanticized, revisionist stories of settlers-repelling-natives”, former combatants – my young brothers and sisters, exploited as pawns in Liberia’s recently ended 14-year civil war – need to learn about the tribal internecine conflicts of yesteryear. The adage continues to hold true: a people unaware of the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them.

Language is a cultural agent that needs to be strengthened in Liberia. S. Kpanbayeazee Duworko II, an instructor at the University of Liberia, addressed this issue well in his essay, “Literary Education and Canon Formation: The Liberian Experience.” In that piece he wrote that: “There is a need to create schools of Liberian languages and performing arts at the University of Liberia as a means of promoting Liberian culture.” Duworko went on to argue that students from elementary to high school should also be exposed to Liberian languages and literary works. He stated: “This exposure will give them a broad view of their own culture and will help them to have a sense of pride in their heritage.” Ngugi wa Thiong’o, (who now primarily writes in his native Gikuyu instead of English), asserts that the loss of language is a loss of culture. He declared that: “Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world.” The politics of language and its role in the preservation of culture reminds me of the late Liberian President William Tolbert’s much-ridiculed “Kpelle” effort, which was implemented in the late 70’s. This was when it was made policy for Kpelle – an indigenous Liberian language – to be taught in schools. For most of us in school at that time, learning Kpelle was our first and only exposure to a written aboriginal language. History will judge President Tolbert as a visionary for mandating the teaching of a traditional language. Now is a good time to reconstitute native language programs in schools.

In addition to the formal education component, the country’s heritage can also be brought to the fore through the promotion of traditional dress (current Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s simple, but highly visible act of wearing African attire sends positive self-esteem messages), food, visual arts, music, dance, literature and orature. The heritage needs to be accessible to people in their everyday lives. The South American country of Venezuela recently implemented a program that calls for the inclusion of traditional content in various outlets (television, radio, theaters, museums). Liberia could use that idea to create its own cultural content programming. While strong cultural cognizance alone will not prevent conflict, it is a practical way to reduce the chances of recidivism into lawlessness. And, if knowledge of the total “Liberian Self” cannot stop the outbreak of future hostilities, it can at least help lessen the resulting devastation. Greed will always be a threat, but it makes sense that a people connected by an “expanded” knowledge of self is less likely to destroy that which it loves. A people, bound by common purpose and drenched in homegrown pride – requirements for cohesive nationalism, collective conscience – would think before ruining their collaborative creation.

This new paradigm assumes more relevance given the exponential growth of the Liberian Diaspora since 1980, when many Liberians began relocating out of the country due to its civil and political conflict. The cultural renaissance suggested in this article could work to lure some citizens back, who could help with the country’s reconstruction. The shift to include a wider, more representative swath of Liberian tradition benefits the country three-fold: a) reduces the potential for a return to conflict; b) gives citizens the confidence to discriminate as to what is placed in the country’s “cultural canon”; and c) provides the foundation to move the country forward.

Many people have and continue to be dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Liberian culture. A few of the voices that have agitated in this realm are: Miatta Fahnbulleh; Fatu Gayflor (singers); Joseph Gbaba; Peter Ballah; Womi Neal; Konah Khasu (dramatists); Bai T. Moore; Dr. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley; Wilton Sankawulo; and K-Moses Nagbe (writers and teachers). Let the teachers teach it, writers chronicle, singers harmonize about it, medicine men, and yes, the preachers preach about Liberia’s cultural vitality. I am beginning to feel better about myself just by thinking about it.

* Doeba Bropleh is a Liberian currently based in California, USA

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Primary school instructor Richard Morgan can no longer stroll between the rows of desks to teach in his classroom at the SIMS Community School. The boys and girls are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in their blue and white uniforms as Morgan lectures from the front of the room.

Some members of Liberia's lower house of Parliament, opposing the leadership of Speaker Edwin Snowe on 23 January 2007, threatened to bar two independent FM stations and a pro-government radio station from covering their sessions. Star Radio and Radio Veritas, two independent, Monrovia-based stations and Truth FM, a pro-government radio station, were accused of bias in the coverage of the ongoing leadership conflict in the country's legislature.

The UNHCR reports that the general strike paralysing Guinea over the last two weeks has limited access to camps hosting Liberian refugees. Despite this, the organization planned to go ahead with a voluntary repatriation convoy on the 27th of January which will bring to 46,000 the number of refugees it has helped to return to Liberia from Guinea since the repatriation programme started in October 2004.

The government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf aims to dramatically increase the country’s enrollment rate through the Education for All law that was enacted in 2004. "The enforcement is getting the results we want. Children are now coming from the farms, off the street and into the classrooms," Sirleaf recently told reporters.