I’m continually on a never-ending journey of acquiring as much knowledge as I can until my final days on this Earth. I come across something new on the daily. This week, the topic at hand is Liberia.
I came across a bio that mentioned the “First Liberian Civil War” and became curious. I was familiar with the Rwandan Genocide and heard about various wars and genocides within the continent of Africa, but I wasn’t familiar with this one.
The First Liberian Civil War was the start of a deadly war in 1989 that eventually died down around 1996-97. The war was reignited in 1999-2003 and known as The Second Liberian War.
I don’t believe that predominantly African countries really get much coverage here in the United States. Media has presented a false an unfair narrative when it comes to African countries. I believe the proper term is media bias.
Every place has its good and bad. The United States has its fair share of corruption and slums, but you rarely see those sides of America because media usually presents America as a rich and just country. So whenever we hear an African narrative in the US, we’re not thinking beautiful beaches, rich cultures and booming economies, we’re think poverty, malnutrition, and chaos. If you ask me, that narrative sounds fairly close to certain areas of the US.
We as African decedents whether in the Americas or in Africa, are all going through the struggle in various ways, but some of us really need to humble ourselves and be happy for the lap of luxuries we have. Clean water, a place to live, a bathroom. These luxuries we take for granted. We cross paths with people who don’t have these lap of luxuries on a daily and wouldn’t even know it. With that being said, realize that war is not an easy thing to recover from and can take decades to revive a country. Liberia and various African countries have had their hardships, but we also need to bring awareness internationally about what these countries have experienced from a raw perspective, and not ignore the issue as if they do not exist.
Check out Vice’s documentary The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia. This documentary might give you some understanding to how bloody this war really was and how the country is still effected by the aftermath years later.