Liberia was once called the ‘Switzerland of Africa’, a
prosperous and stable country, small and not known for causing trouble. President
Johnson Sirleaf writes in her autobiography: “Liberia had been a golden
opportunity, a country with a great endowment in both its people and its land
and with the possibility of becoming a beacon to the world. And we had
squandered it.”[1] When talking
about Liberia today, ten years after the long and brutal civil war ended,
people associate Liberia with child soldiers, mutilations, rape, destruction,
cruel militias and cannibalism.
Yet, much more often in fact, I find that most people I tell
about my summer plans do not associate anything at all with Liberia. For them,
it’s a blank spot on the map. Explaining that Liberia is situated between
Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire usually doesn’t make things better, which is why
I have at times resorted to “between Senegal and Ghana”. I would never explain
the location of Germany by saying that it lies between Russia and Spain, but sadly
enough Africa is still a continent largely unknown to many Europeans and North
Americans.
The good thing about explaining something to someone with
only little idea of what you are doing and where you are going is that you are
challenged not to a) fall into jargon and b) assume that everyone agrees on the
importance and meaning of concepts such as strengthening civil society,
advancing gender mainstreaming, advocating non-violent dispute resolution or
generally engaging in development cooperation in countries far from our homes.
Why should I support a project working toward the democratization of a
post-conflict country in West Africa rather than using my skills in my home
country? Why do Western states fund the work of so many NGOs in far-away places?
Do they have (future) economic interests and want to befriend the government
and people in time? Do they fear that an instable state will destabilize the
region and become a haven for increased organized crime or even terrorism that
will ultimately affect their own territories and citizens? Are they really simply
acting out of altruism?
I have no answer to these questions and can only guess that
the most accurate response would be that indeed it is a mixture of all of these
motivations and that their relative weight will differ depending on who you ask
in the long line of decision-making and implementation. However, what I do
wonder is why we ask these questions and not others. To me, a child of the age
of rapid globalization and a student of international peace and conflict
issues, the question should almost be posed the other way around: Why would we
confine our work to the countries we were born into if we live in a world that
is so intertwined? And if the economies and political developments of our states
are so interdependent as they are today, why should we not care about what is happening to other countries? We know for
example all too well that the international trade with resources and thus
ultimately our consumerism is a key reason why civil wars are started and
perpetuated in countries that have many and easily lootable resources. Once we
realize how closely our own behavior and that of our states is connected to the
developments of countries like Liberia, it can no longer be “some random
far-away place”. Lastly, if we can be (almost) as well informed about what is
happening in countries on the other side of the globe as we are about what is
occurring in our own country, there is practically no excuse not to know.
In a world characterized by increasing economic, political
and social interconnectedness, as well as by the rapid spread and wide accessibility
of information, how come we still think in the paradigm of nation-states when
it comes to politics (e.g. in the form of development cooperation) while we rarely
question the globalized character of the present-day private sector or ponder
about the absence of national boundaries in the virtual world? Flying to
Liberia will take less time than taking the train from one side of Germany to
the other. Skyping with my friends while sitting in Monrovia won’t differ much
from skyping while in the US or Europe. Much of the food I will eat in Liberia
will probably be imported from South Africa, Dubai, Argentina, the US and
Europe.
I am curious to see how the effects of globalization on the
economic, political and social spheres are evaluated by the Liberians and the
other expatriates I will meet, how they perceive foreign-funded peace and
development projects in that light, and to what extent their identities are
shaped by their nationality or rather by other collectivities below or beyond
the nation-state level.
The Summer Field Program is supported and organized by the
Georgetown Conflict Resolution Program. Please visit our website at http://conflictresolution.georgetown.edu.
[1] Johnson
Sirleaf, E. (2009). This child will be
great – Memoir of a remarkable life by Africa’s first Woman President. New
York: Harper Perennial, p. 60
Beautifully written. I so appreciate your insight here.
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