A year ago I was working on Jerusalem and now I find myself in a very different conflicted, although not warring, city Monrovia, Liberia. While it seems fairly accepted and certainly widely reported that the civil war, which by most accounts began in 1989 and ended in 2003, smacked of tribal divisions, this verbiage is almost non-existent today. Tribal ties are certainly discussed when speaking of the war but these divisions are not the crevasses that historians claim or are at least are no longer the dividers of the people. People can tell by last names and appearance the tribe that someone else comes from but there seems to be no real issue; it’s more like commenting about which State someone comes from or discussing the weather. The exception being the Mandingo tribe which is predominantly Muslim and thus has different clothing and customs, and unfortunately, as Muslims, they are lumped into what I do consider the division – foreigners and Liberians.
Seven years after their civil war, there is little progress in this tiny country of about 4 million people. While I did not see the total destruction of the war, I see the bombed out carcasses of homes, hotels and businesses, the stripped deteriorating frames of buildings, and the lack of publically-provided physical infrastructure. The country teeters on the brink of reemergence and chaos. Stability and peace are not foregone conclusions and rule of law is still establishing itself as the best alternative to resolving conflict. Tempers flare easily and physical violence sits perched ready to swoop in at a moment’s notice in any situation, although luckily this has not happened too much, perhaps in large part because of the large number of UN troops present.
Unlike Jerusalem, Belfast, or Nicosia, Monrovia is not divided physically into “sides.” People from all tribes intermingle in the capital, having been shuffled by the war. The more affluent people and the business class live interspersed with Liberians who could barely be considered to have a home. Small lean-tos and roof-less apartments are beside newer or repaired apartments and houses. The businesses show more of a spatial divide with the main drags having foreign-owned shops set back from the street and Liberian peddlers sitting close to the road in tiers of economic stratification, with the poorest being on the street weaving amidst the cars with just a few items in their hands to sell.
In part because of the large amount of UN troops and international non-governmental organizations (iNGOs) which pump money into the economy, Liberians are very dependant and enabled by most of the foreign assistance. The rural communities see the iNGOs and UN more as a hand-out or passerbys who are just temporarily in their country, while there is much more tension regarding them and the foreign business owners. Closer to the city, Liberians frequently group all foreigners together.
The vast majority of business owners are foreigners. Among these, larger businesses are almost exclusively foreigners, usually Lebanese or Indian. Only small gas stations & garages, restaurants, and local “entertainment centers” which show bootlegged movies are owned by Liberians. Almost none employ more than 3 staff members to work at the same time.
The Chinese are also very present, building hospitals and roads as part of their government’s foreign aid and commercial and residential buildings as investments. Two of the most famous hotels in the area have been “leased” through foreign governments to companies for development: one of which is Libya. It is this foreign ownership over the economy that has built a resentment and suspicion of the Liberian for the ex-patriots.
While many, if not most, countries have some segments of society with xenophobic fears regarding specific foreigner populations, Liberia’s uniqueness lies in this being centered almost entirely in the cities, particularly in and around Monrovia, and in that the economy is owned primarily by many small foreign national business and a few large foreign companies.
Liberia, like Canada, does not allow non-Liberians to own private property and only persons of African descent may apply for citizenship. A neighbor, who came to visit with me the other day, pointed out that those who run the economy through business get to decide what happens in a country, even if they can’t vote and aren’t citizens. She voiced what many people here have tried to vocalize: they know that Liberians are not taking the proper steps to own businesses and be entrepreneurs but they fear foreigners having control over that segment of the state. While they do not have answers to Firestone, Total gas stations, hotels, and large bulk sellers, and they themselves like to patronize those businesses if they can, they do not like or trust this intrusion. Many in fact, already see the government as frequently being swayed by the economic interests of foreign nationals and governments. They fear Liberia will become a puppet government where everyone but Liberians has a say.
Presidential elections are scheduled for next year 2011. This will only be the second government administration since the formal end of hostilities (Note: this does not include the interim government established until elections could be held in 2005). Liberians and foreign nationals alike have hope that the tentative peace will see them through this next election, but many business owners have backup plans and preparation for the riots, theft, and vandalism of last election. Monrovia remains conflicted but optimistically emergent from violence.
