Throughout history, it has been proven time without numbers that only a conscious, determined, courageous and united people can become triumphant over forces that tend to impede human progressivism.
The people of Vietnam, determined, conscious, and united demonstrated such axiom when they overpowered and crushed the most sophisticated army in the world- the United States of America during the Vietnam War that lasted from 1955-1975. It also took the spirited, cognizant and cohesive people of South Africa to have put an end to the exploitative and discriminatory system of Apartheid.
The masses fusing together and supporting the Cuban Revolution led by Brother Fidel Castro in 1959 which saw the ousting of the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Baptista is another victory of the common man that proves the strength in a conscious, determined and united people.
The successes of the struggles for liberation in Africa whether in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Guinea, Tanzania, or Zimbabwe were predicated upon the uniformity, determination and consciousness of the people. The economic miracle of the Asian Dragons is also another clear demonstration of victory of a conscious, determined and united people. The people of Venezuela determined and conscious, initiated a social democratic governance which has led to serous economic transformation for the masses of the people in that South American Country.
When the people are conscious, they understand their collective roles in the historical and political development of their land. When they are determined, they persevere performing their roles in order to achieve their aims and aspirations that take into consideration the culture and tradition of the land.
When the people are united, they remain together in achieving their goals no matter the circumstances. They become soldiers in the service of their motherland. They become the fighters of economic and political justice. They dedicate their services to promoting and upholding the dignity and decency of the people. They promote solidarity which calls for feeling the misery and agony of another brother.
Fellow comrades, I reason that you understand the malady our country has been facing since independence in 1847. I thought to remind you of a major few. Since independence, we have a copied and pasted political system that refuses to take into consideration the devolution of power in the rural areas that will enable our people have a direct involvement in their development. Our national legislature is occupied by micro-nationalists who only represent their tribal and personal interests.
There are no representatives of the trade unionist, youth and students’ movement, the workers union, the teachers association, people with disability, etc. in our national legislature. Since independence, we have a borrowed economic system that has refused to improve the material welfare of the people.
There is no country in Africa, Asia or Latin America at the developmental stage that has embraced an economic system that promotes free enterprise, competitive market and non-government intervention/participation and achieved economic growth and development. Embracing such a system as an emerging economy will only lead to the exploitation of the labor of your people and the exhaustion of the natural wealth of your country like was done and is still being done to Liberia.
This wretched state of political and economic affairs of the West African nation brings nothing but horrendous circumstances to the masses of the people. After one hundred sixty eight (168) years of existence as an independent country, our capital city is an “appalling ghetto”. Liberia remains at the top of negative human development indexes.
Despite the vast natural resources, we are still spending in our annual budgets what we did not produce. Our educational system is a “messy one”; the backward state of our health care delivery system was exposed by the recent deadly Ebola crisis that took away more than four thousand (4000) lives of innocent Liberians.
Vast majority of the young people who make up approximately sixty-five percent (65%) of the country’s population are unemployed and without technical and sub skills to survive in the partially booming non-tradable sector of our economy. Industrialization which contributes the highest employment in any economy is not alive and well in Liberia. We have concession companies that extract our natural wealth (Iron ore, rubber, timber, gold, etc.) and give us in return little taxes and rents that are unable to improve our educational, health, security and infrastructural sectors.
Economically, we have being eaten up by the Dutch Disease. Our richest men and women are those who occupy (ied) public offices. This is as the result of the ruling class throughout the History of Liberia always mortgaging the resources of the country to foreign interest, and the kleptocrats walk away with the little given in exchange of the natural wealth of the country.
The end result is the exploitation of the people’s labor at the mining pits and rubber plantation own by the foreign monopolies, the shops and stores own by the Lebanese and Indians on Randall Street and Waterside in Monrovia and the offices of government officials who lack political consciousness. To paraphrase the words of Tony Blaire- the former British Prime Minister, Liberia remains a scare in the conscience of humanity.
Comrades, this is the tragedy of the motherland. The clique whose privileges are acquired as the result of the tireless efforts of the people masquerade with the understanding that the people will never rise up to the occasion to demand an overhaul of the retrograde socio-economic system. They believed that the masses will continue to flounder in their inelastic state of destitution. After World War II, it took a conscious, determined and united working class to demand a substantial share of the wealth produce by the capitalist economies of Europe and America.
As a response to the demand of the working class, colonial territories in Africa, Latin America and Asia were exploited of their resources in order feed the welfare programs (social security, higher wages, better working conditions, professional training facilities, etc.) of the capitalist economies. So too if the people of Liberia, united, honest courageous, conscious and determined, can call for an overthrow of the economic and political status quo that have kept them down the economic and political ladders.
In history for any country to transcend the scourges of backwardness and initiate a quantum leap from the cesspool of economic conundrum, their minds knew a revolution and a reform. For China, in three hundred years, to position itself as the second biggest economic in the world, the Chinese minds knew a considerable leap. I dare say for Singapore to transcend from a third world country to a first world country in a single generation, their minds knew a revolution and they think outside the trappings of private capitalism and conventional economic model.
Given the current economic model which is extracted from the bastion of capitalism, and sadly, only allow us to obtain rent and reinter for our natural resources, and promotes the culture of overreliance on our two traditional commodities—iron ore and rubber, which prices are constantly fluctuating and plummeting as a result of the shift in the economic paradigm of the global market, one can only safely say that this system is moribund and decadent. It is transparent that this system cannot engender macro-economic stability and growth for Liberia as an emerging economy.
Our current system argue that the private sector must be the engine of growth in the economy without strategic government protectionism and interventionism, which even the United States of America and Great Britain, that pride themselves as the purveyor of private capitalism did not used to engender socio-economic growth and macro-economic stability in their catch-up periods . They bring unto us these theories which are extremely idealistic and impractical and we jump and accept them. This is the tragedy of Liberia.
The question is: how can we extricate and liberate ourselves from the chains of economic bondage and deprivation; how can we bring the masses to the centerfold of economic prosperity and social economic transformation; do Liberians know what they want?
There is no shortage of examples, as clearly articulated by this paper, on how other countries have engendered economic growth and development simultaneously with egalitarianism. These countries did not subscribe to the pretentious economic indexes released by the World Bank and IMF. They took deliberate practical steps in some useful direction, which in turn solve problems that conventional economic models have been struggling to solve for years.
Can this be done in Liberia? It can be done and it must be done if we are to improve the standard of living of our people and provide basic social amenities such as free education, free healthcare, etc. We therefore propose to the masses of the people to embrace social democracy as we prepare for our first post-war democratic transition in 2017. This system has an economy method which allows for the government to control strategic means of production by imitating protectionism and interventionism- state capitalism.
If this model is applied in Liberia, proceeds generated from rubber, iron ore and other primary agricultural products will be used to provide basic social services and diversify the economy from a two commodities based economy to an industrialized one.
Government will have not more than 50% shares in large corporations that are involved in the exploitation of our natural resources. The necessary capitals will be mobilized to allocate to our developmental agenda without always looking up to the Brenton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank) to fund our capital intensive projects like roads, bridges, airports, energy, education, health, etc.
There will be capital surplus which will allow government to provide subsidies to our local entrepreneurs. This system will make Liberia economically viable to compete with other economic big guns. This can be done and must be done in other to make a quantum leap from the chain of lethargy and economic docility. China, America, Great Britain, Brazil etc. will not do this for you. This is because, on the international stage, countries are involved in absolute gains. They do what is in their national interest.
The people of Liberia should be their own liberator. Economic rights will not be guaranteed by those who exploit you. It must be demanded by the masses of the people who are the direct victims of the exhaustion of our natural wealth and the exploitation of the labor of our workers. It is being done in Rwanda, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, etc. it can be done right here in Liberia. At their developmental stages, it was done in America, Great Britain, China, etc. it can be done in Liberia at our developmental stage. This is a clarion call to Liberians.
An analysis on the political system of Social Democracy is coming soon.
About the Author:
Moses Uneh Yahmia is a senior student of the University of Liberia. He studies Political Science and Economics with emphasis in International Relations. He is a Pan Africanist par excellence who believes in the thoughts and philosophy of Edward Wilmot Blyden, Edwin J. Barclay, Albert Port, Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Professor Dr. PLO Lumumba, Dr. Dambisa Moyo, Dr. Osagefo Kwame Nkrumah, C.L.R James, Marcus Garvey, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, etc. He values the Republic and its honor more than the friendship he has with any individual. His role models are the market women who struggle on a daily basis in the trenches looking for income to finance the education of their children.