Whenever anybody tries to share knowledge for the good of others and many people still do not get the correct understanding of the knowledge being shared, it is always good to find better ways to help people to understand correctly the knowledge being shared. In this Commentary, I am trying yet again to find a better way of sharing knowledge about the Progressives.
By Togba-Nah Tipoteh, [email protected], Contributing Writer
Who is a Progressive? Like any other character, there are persons who call themselves with one name but engage in actions completely opposite what they call themselves. Some of us call ourselves Christians or Muslims but end up not caring about other people and such action is against the teachings of either religion, which call for loving Allah/God first and loving your neighbor as yourself. A Progressive is any person who takes action to improve the living conditions of the Oppressed, the Poor sustainably. There are two types of people who call themselves Progressives: one type is money-driven and cares only for themselves and not for others. the other type cares about other people. When persons who care only about themselves get into State position, they take care of only themselves, as has been well observed by the Youth of Grand Cape Mount County in an Awareness Assembly held in Madina, Grand Cape Mount County, when they concluded correctly that some people who call themselves Progressives get elected to public offices but upon their election, they forget about the interest of the voters who elected them. Clearly, these persons who are money-driven must not be called Progressives but most of them are still being called Progressives and the other Progressives are being blamed for all of the bad things that continue to happen to Liberia.
Bad State management in Liberia continues to promote the dominance of the production of raw materials for export, which leads to poverty generation rather than poverty alleviation. There is no focus on value addition, which leads to poverty alleviation. The poverty generation has resulted in the violence-oriented system of poverty generation where the rich are getting richer while the poor become poorer. Reliable evidence about poverty generation goes back as far as the 1950s when less than one percent of Liberia’s population accounted for more than sixty percent of Liberia’s income and wealth (Robert Clower et al. 1966).
This poverty-generating phenomenon has come to be known as economic growth without economic development or growth without development for short. Elected officials such as Legislators have access to at least USD 1,000 a day and their foreign friends/partners in the commercial sector have access to at least USD2 million a day while over 80 percent of the people of Liberia have access to at most less than USD2 a day. Yet some Legislators say that they are not getting enough money and they continue to give themselves more money. Most public figures who call themselves Progressives are in this bad State management system but want to be respected by the oppressed people and so they keep rubbing shoulders with the Progressives, who Walk the Progressive Talk, in order to Hold Canoe and Shore (what foreigners call having your cake and eating it too). I do my best, as Founding Leader of the Movement for