opinion

The class was about the politics of economic development. The professor preferred to keep the class's focus on the latest trendy theories and counter theories by people like Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs, but shied away from finding the roots and causes of underdevelopment in the formative period of colonialism. On one of the few occasions when she reluctantly called on me, I mentioned the US among my listing of colonial powers. "The US wasn't a colonial power" she quickly interrupted. "Oh no?" I retorted, then listed the countries that have been or even still are US colonies. "The Philippines? Puerto Rico? Liberia?..." She just gave me a long look, either unable or (more likely) not wanting to bother to argue the point.

Most people in the US today have no concept of the country as ever having had a colonial empire, past or present. The fact that it nevertheless was, however, was once well known by the public of previous generations. All sorts of literature and documentation about the acquisition of colonies, colonial policy, and the public debate before and after is freely available to the public. And yet as millions of people open their favorite daily tabloids, or sign onto their Internet provider's home page, and read that President Bush is seriously considering sending troops to Liberia, many are totally in the dark.

The high approval ratings for Bush and his war on Iraq, even in the face of the mysterious lack of weapons of mass destruction which he claimed threatened the entire world, show a domestic acceptance by the majority of a public moving steadily to the right of Bush deciding who are the evildoers in the world and using military force to deal with them and remake the world as he sees fit. But peacekeeping, especially in Africa, is another matter. In a population who had the still fresh images of dead soldiers in Somalia a decade ago reinforced after September 11, 2001 by the movie "Black Hawk Down," many feel sending US troops back to Africa is a flat out no-no. This is especially true for vague "humanitarian" missions into countries and conflicts they know nothing about.

With the moving this week of US warships near Liberia, the Bush administration is hoping to prevent a new source of international outrage by appearing to be addressing the US' post-colonial obligations while not antagonizing his constituency at home by really doing so. It's possible that he really does intend some military commitment, hoping that the public will understand US forces right off the coast being drawn into Liberia in response to some critical situation or other. But in the meantime people are dying right outside the US compound in Monrovia.

For those who don't understand what relationship exists between the US and Liberia, it's more than just a few ex-slaves from the US settled there as the major news outlets in the US would have us believe. Long before the abolition of slavery in the US, schemes for deporting the black population were being thought up. Possible destinations included Central America and Haiti. No less than the man credited with freeing the slaves, President Abraham Lincoln, stated that freed blacks could not remain in the US as equals and would have to be removed. Towards this end, the American Colonization Society was formed at the highest levels of society by such men as the fifth US president James Monroe, after whom Liberia's capital is named. Liberia has always been politically and economically dominated by the US and its companies such as Firestone, and during the Cold War it was a staunch US ally on the African continent.

Interestingly enough, Liberia's neighbor to the north is Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a sort of British version of Liberia, where freed slaves from the West Indies and off of the slave ships the British interdicted after they banned the slave trade were resettled. Similar to some extent interwoven with the conflict in Liberia, Sierra Leone was enmeshed in a vicious civil war until recently, and the end of that conflict and the beginning of the peace process saw the arrival of British troops. So it is not surprising that in the parallel conflict in Liberia, Liberians and the international community expect the same kind of attention and responsibility from the US towards its former colony. Bush should be honest with himself and his people and hurry to prevent any more civilians dying in Liberia.


The author, who traces roots back through Panama, is a student at Hunter College in New York.


Also in this section:
Bernal, Ethics and politics
RSF, Ríos Montt supporters attack journalists
Khan, Carribbean sustainable tourism summit
Cordova & Vance, Caribbean regional integration
Abd'Al-Malik, Owning up to a colonial legacy
Jackson, Panama City mayoral race

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