With all due respect many Liberians have miserably failed to come to the realization that “every generation out of relative obscurity must discover its mission, fulfil it betray or it” as propounded by the black existentialist and revolutionary – Frantz Fanon. The progressive forces in the 70s, 80s, and 90s in Liberia struggled within the context of their time just as any other revolutionaries with respect to the unfolding issues of the day.
These men struggled with all the fibber of their bodies to redeem the people from the shackles and yoke of oppression and massive poverty that enveloped the society where the masses of the people lacked political and economic freedom but were duped into believing that they could elect their own representatives. For years the masses of our people (indigenous) were held under the chains of kakistocratic regimes that treated them as colossal servants and pitiful echo-chambers and cannon folders.
The progressive forces were inspired by what was happening in the third world when oppressed people all over the globe were taking arms to redeem themselves. They admired Amica Cabral and his revolution in Guinea Bissau, Moses Samora Machel and his revolution in Mozambique, Moa Zedong and his revolution in China, Che Guevara and his revolution in Cuba, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Modibo Keita in Mali, Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso,Patrice Lumumba in Congo etc. etc. The progressives came home after years of study to struggle not in search of jobs but the emancipation of the suppressed and maligned people of Liberia which is a true embodiment of every man who feels the injustices perpetrated against his people.
Most of the histories of Liberia or so that were written by subjective and right wing writers-writers that write in accordance with their personal view and opinions disregarding the true nature of what transpired, has been plastered with misconceptions and false vilifications of the men and women who ensured that the sons of the people could have a voice in the political space of our country; the people can sit on the radio stations today analyse or criticize, the newspapers writes independently without the knock of the mid night police, at the level of the national legislature both the upper and lower houses the sons of the people are represented. This is what the progressives fought for!
Many conservatives over the years have had the guts to tell the Liberian people that the progressives are responsible for the chaos and destruction of the Liberian society. But what they dare not tell our people is why is it that after a hundred and sixty eight years of so-called sovereignty, there is not a single history of the people? Why is it that from the A-Z of your national history there is no history of the peasants, no history of the workers, no history of the shoe shine boys, no history of the rubber tapers and equally there is no history of our national heroes?: Edward Wilmot Blyden, Abert Porte, Juah Nimely, Sao Boso, H.Boima Fahnbulleh Sr, D. Tweh, Baccus Matthews etc. etc.
It would be unrealistic and a dishonour to blame the progressives for radically confronting tyranny for “whenever there is injustice, there will be young men and women conscious enough to confront injustice” to quote Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh Jr. It would be a disservice to call men of conscience who struggled for our socio-economic redemption failures; men who struggled for the liberation of our people from the dungeon of economic stasis and skulduggery but were never afforded the opportunity of taking state power by the very people they fought for! The Liberian people have never given them the luxury of leading the country relative to the highest seat of the land.
In the 1997 General and Presidential Elections, Dr. H.Boima Fahnbulleh Jr, who at the age of 18 became an avowed revolutionary and dedicated his shortcoming for the restoration of the lost heritage and dignity of his people contested elections, but the Liberian people out of ignorance told Charles Taylor “you killed my ma, you killed my pa but I will vote for you” We refused to give this young nationalist and convinced follower of Kwame Nkrumah the opportunity of transforming the country but voted a fugitive bandit with no ideological orientation and no history of revolutionary struggle in our national history and body politic.
In 2005, Tipoteh who had been the leader of the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA); a vocal institution that was critical in sharpening the contradictions in the country contested but again, the Liberian people were seen in paraffin gear and speed voting for George Weah and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
We must refine our thinking and stop shifting blames for what happened to this society for the Liberian people themselves have one way or the other contributed to the pitfalls of our country.
The Cubans over the years after the July 26 movement have honoured their national heroes; Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raul Castro including the peasant guerrillas with so much respect and dignity, the American honours theirs; Patrick Henry and George Washington, the Mexican does the same for their liberators, the Congolese pay homage to Lumumba, the Egyptian to Nasser, the Guinea Bissauans to Cabral, the Tanzanians to Nyerere, the Ghanaians to Nkrumah and so on.
What have the Liberians done for theirs? Insults, blackmails, vilifications and other naive and inane names! We have rewarded them with nothing but to call them failures! Even Che Guevara would have been told the same had he been a Liberian!
The necessity of a revolutionary agitation in Liberia
In history no terror and injustice against the people has gone with impunity. The masses of the oppress people across the world have always from the dawn of human history been the liberators of themselves drawing from the fact that none but ourselves are the makers of our own history. Injustice to the peasants is historically a heresy that must be resisted by any means necessary for they have “nothing to lose but their chains”.
The masses have always marched in history with valiant sense of resuscitating and restoring their God given rights (freedom) as the fundamental backbone of any society.
The peasants as the working class without whom the society is doomed must at all time in history strive for the control of state power that which necessitated revolutionary struggles in North America, Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia etc. There must be fundamental changes in power or social structures that deprive the people of their inalienable rights.
Evidence of this is the Haitian Revolution of 1971 under the leadership of a black slave Toussaint Louverture, the Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Cuban revolution under the astute leadership of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the Chinese Revolution under Chairman Mao Zedong, the Russian Revolution under cde.
Vladimir Lenin, the French Revolution led by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Mexican Revolution with Emilio Zapata and many other revolutions and resistance against oppression and dejection of the masses of the people.
Considerate of the African scenario where for centuries blacks were subjected, pillaged, tortured, humiliated, raped and mishandled, it took men and women with courage to take arms and redeem their people from the stasis that had been created by white colonialists and imperialists.
The progressive forces in Liberia were only upholding to the revolutionary traditions that had been initiated and stimulated by our revolutionary fathers: Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Marcus Monsiah Garvey, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Malcolm X, Samoral Machel, Steve Biko, Chris Hani and many of our African heroes that placed their lives online against hostile social forces.
In the 70s, 80s, 90s the Liberian society could not have remained as it had been for years with power in the hands of an arrogant few minority that treated the people with so much arrogance to the extent that it became unbearable to their sons and daughters that were conscious enough to see the contradictions and decided to act upon it.
Our reading of history tells us that from the declaration of the so-called independence by the settlers extending to the 1980s, the sons of the people were kept down the trash box and could rarely feel the positive impact of power but it negatively affected them which thereby forced thousands of our people into slums and ghettoes that exposed them to deadly animals and dangerous things.
This is justified by the fake treason trials of so many Liberian agitators including the scholar H. Boima Fahnbulleh Sr., the tortured and incarceration of D. Tweh, Juah Nimely, Kollie Tamba and many others. The imprisonment and intimidation of student leaders, the muzzling of the press and the hounding and victimization of critical intellectuals that were still fresh in the minds of the progressive forces.
The insane imprisonment of ”Telmon Harris, Emmet Coleman and Quingar Harris for being fanatical of Kwame Nkrumah” were among the many mistreatment of agitators who felt something must be done to remedy the tragic conditions of our people. Whenever the peoples’ grievances are not satisfied within a given society, the masses always yearn for radical change that which has to be revolutionary!
In establishment of the facts relative to the agitation of the progressive forces, the struggle that led to the death and overthrow of the wretched oligarchy was initiated by students who themselves were fed-up with the conditions of the people on various campuses of the University of Liberia and the Cuttington University.
The Revelation newspaper published on the campus of UL and the Cuttington Echo on the Cuttington University campus were some of the many students’ democratic rights agitators in the 70s.
The progressives struggled for state power as a means of transforming the objective conditions of our people knowing for the fact that transformation comes only at the helm of power. That is in accordance with positive societal betterment and transformation. This was a struggle geared towards the upliftment of the masses.
Unfortunately the quest for power was met by extreme resistance by people who couldn’t let go power for they had subscribed to that ideology where they and only they must continuously be the rulers of the people. Tyrants are fools and that is why they never outgrow their narrow belief!
What must be understood for a simple historical fact is that the progressives were not or did not constitute Clara Town, West Point, Buzzy Quarters, New Kru town, Vai Town, Smell no Taste; neither were they in the ghettoes and slums in Monrovia. The progressives only explained and interpreted to the world what the people felt but could not say, they did what the people wanted to happen but were somehow afraid for there were no political education available to the masses of our people at the time.
Any political education at the time for the people was a sham-education! The progressives in Liberia were persistent in pursuing their positive goals and were undaunted by setbacks and obstacles-the emancipation of our people. Even today, they hold such belief of throwing their lot with the people in times of uncertainty.
They are consistent, reliable ideologically, logical, authentic in their assertions, well-adjusted and emotionally stable. Injustice in itself is a deprivation of the fundamental entitlement of the individual who’s been look down upon.
Not even God has been supportive to tyranny and oppression. God himself has been extreme in dealing with injustice against the masses of his people. We learned from the Bible that God destroyed Babylon for her wickedness against the children of God, for killing saints (same as the oligarchy destroyed the sons of the people), for cracking down on decent and the peace loving people of God (same as the oligarchy cracked down on peaceful protestors in 1979), hate and intimidation of the people were the sins of Babylon (same arrogant behaviour exhibited by the oligarchy that treated the people as nothing but pitiful cannon folders).
Babylon was warned but couldn’t listen and destruction was last the only alternative and so it was. The Oligarchy warnings came from courageous men who had been inspired by humanitarianism that the only way forward to this oldest African Republic was to give everyone a genuine sense of belonging to participate in the body politic of our common patrimony-Liberia.
Edward Wilmot Blyden warned that the only necessary means for raising the country from economic backwardness and the protection of our national boundaries was to fraternize with the natives. That portrayed that only hands in hands as one people where we could “rise and fall together” shall this country live the “true meaning of its creed” “the love of liberty brought us here”
The oligarchy refused until the coup on April 12, 1980 which became a new beginning of our countrymen.
About The Author:
Ansumana Konneh is a young Pan-African nationalist who believes in the elimination of the colonial boundaries in Africa. He’s a devoted and convinced follower of revolutionary struggles and movements meant for the emancipation of the black race. [email protected]