EDITORIAL: Our Independence Day Message to All Liberians at Home and Abroad

CLEARLY, LIBERIANS ARE divided in their opinions about Liberia’s 177th Independence Day celebration and what should be done and why. Visibly, some are not happy, not because they hate the day per se, but because they think the country, or those who wield political and economic powers, are a let-down, a disappointment. They are saying political leaders have kept them in the corner of destitution, rendering them unable to have a say and a pie at the national dinner table. Of course, we are not oblivious of the fact that some of the unfavorable views about the tomorrow’s celebration are underpinned by political thoughts, characteristically spined and screwed to make political points. But with the vulnerabilities to which the political regime is exposed due to a litany of self-inflicted defects, criticisms abound, making it difficult to distinguished between heartfelt assessments and politically motivated censures.

ON THE OTHER hand, some Liberians think the country’s National Day should be depoliticized and that each citizen must welcome its advent each year and grant it their adoration and heartfelt celebration. To this group of Liberians, it its folly to despise one’s natal day, or one’s parentage and origin only because fate has tolled over it to disbelief and expectation. They also say the following: Home is home; there is nowhere like home, they posit. That’s the mother of patriotic spirit. We might fall, we might be the bottom of the pit, but we shouldn’t waver, we shouldn’t lose hope. That’s resilience, they say, in nursing the population for whatever the national misfortune may be. We can still wake up, dust up, and strong firm.

WHATEVER THE CASE, whatever the views across the aisle, there is one fact: in the face of the disagreement, despite the hopefulness and hopelessness that clash whenever this National Day is being celebrated, July 26 is here to stay. The abhorrence for its celebration, as expressed, is by no means a repulsion for the essence of the day per se; it is a call for reawakening, a call directed at the political elites who are in the business of weaponizing governance to enrich themselves and keep the silent majority of Liberians in economic servitude and deprivation.

THUS, AS WE join other compatriots in the exchange of pleasantries and good tidings during the 177th National Day, we particularly pay tribute to the “masses of Liberian people” who, regime after another, find their social and economic conditions and welfares stagnant if not retrogressive from time immemorial. What these deprived majority of Liberians, from the slums of West Point, Doe Community, Logan Town, New Kru Town to the isolated villages in the countryside, are saying loudly is this: we have long lived a terrible, horrible life only burgeoned by our iron resilience and thoughtfulness; it is this that has kept us afloat and away from doing the unthinkable. Because, a look at current events in Kenya, Bangladesh and other developing countries—the uprising and thirst for unruly engagements with the status quos—the rule elite and every well-meaning Liberia must know that the apathy and strong will to remain calm amid sustained suffering in the face of rampant corruption and pillage by a few elite deserves decoration of the silent majority with a Nobel Prize.

IF THERE IS any reason to send greetings to any other segment of the society, particularly the civil society and the ruling elite, it is to remind them about the continued failure to pull the country from the valley of debauchery and stagnation in which it has lied under their watch. As civil society actors change from activism to public service and vice versa, in a circus, and the ruling elite continue in their own circus of critical opposition today and compromised incumbent leaders tomorrow and vice versa, this oldest African nation lies in filth and ruins, virtually nothing to be proud of. Meanwhile, as Liberia goes backward, forward our neighbors move, and higher the possibility for popular loss of faith in the status quo and a violent, irresistible revolt for real change.

THUS, AS WE CELEBRATE at 177 as a nation state, let complacency and blind loyalty not be our portion. Let’s all, mainly the government and civil society, see the urgency, the real and present danger of what lies ahead of the accumulation of years and age without progress. Let’s not treat the current silence of the masses as a weakness and patronage for continued loot and pillage of their country and their future. For there could soon be another point of reckoning, and with all the time, opportunity, resources and tolls available, there is not need to let that happen.

THAT’S OUR MESSAGE at 177, and our call for national ponder. Happy Independence Day!

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