The Editor,

These are my thoughts on Weah’s “racism against footballers” speech. I believe it is an indictment of Liberia’s educational system, and its failure to educate every child regardless of family finances and status.

I saw the video where Senator Weah referred to discrimination against him as a footballer, and termed it racism.

Following that statement many of his surrogates came out to defend him, claiming racism applies to football, religion etc.

I even understand that the Minister of Education George Werner and others tried to justify what Senator Weah said; and someone even presented a philosophical paper on “the various types of racism,  as opposed to the anti-racist”.

Of note is that none of those papers talked about discriminating against footballers as being another form of racism, but instead the writer mused about the fact that beyond race, one can discriminate against cultures within different races. 

Now let’s move to my thoughts on the issue.

I realized that those who found the statement to be used in the wrong context, found it funny and chose to use it as another opportunity to laugh at Senator Weah and presented as a reason why he shouldn’t be President.

Well the reality is that you can only be as good as the sample size you are taken out off.

I believe those laughing at Weah are laughing at their nation, more or less like an observer looking in would do.

However the reality is that the  joke is not on Weah alone, but instead the joke is on Liberia, Liberians, our educational system, our Ministers of Education over the years; and our society which is divided along the lines of rich and poor, haves and have nots, with no middle class, or anything in between.

We have a system where the level of how well you read, speak and write a foreign language which has been adopted as our official language; is based on who your father or mother happens to be, and what kind of school they can afford.

Interestingly enough our government officials keep their kids and wives in America, because they understand this simple fact, “that your ability to succeed in the USA, is limited only by your IQ, not who you know, or what your last name is”. 

The Public school system in the US is free from K-12 grade, standardized to ensure that all children throughout the United States have to read at grade level and pass standardized tests in order to be accepted into colleges and Universities; as opposed to going into the military, Technical and Trade schools or Allied health care training programs.

Ours is a sad commentary!  I feel sorry for Weah, but I feel sorrier for the nation of Liberia. After 170 years you still have a society stuck in the 1800’s antebellum South slavery mentality of the “house nigger”, and the “field niggard”.

Senator Weah just happens to be a “field niggard” whose country thought was only good enough to play football for Wells Hairston’s varsity team, IE and Barrolle club teams and the Lone Star national team.

Whether he got an education or not, was not their concern. He was supposed to go from office to office or home to home begging for rent, school fees and hospital bills. As fate would have it, his talents took him far and made him millions. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

The moral of the story is, “educate all of our kids on the level of CWA, St Patrick’s, J.J. Robert UMS, Cathedral, ACS and BWI etc.”

Any schools below the standards of the high performing schools need to be phased out; or have MOE ensure that faculty and staff of the good schools bring the poorer performing schools up to speed.

The reason being, a democracy presupposes an educated and knowledgeable group of citizens. In addition it ensures that anyone, or as we say in Liberia “Any Joe Blow or Tom Dick or Harry has the ability to be President, Representative or Senator.

Therefore it’s left with us as a nation to educate our citizenry with top notch education at the Primary, Secondary and Undergrad as well as the Graduate level. If not we will continue to get the jokers that we have in our Legislative branch, and guys like Senator Weah will continue to “pose a concern” for our democracy.

Bartum Kulah, MD, MBA,
kulahb40@gmail.com

Close to the end of this year, Liberians will go to the polls to vote in Presidential and legislative elections.

This is the time for the Liberian people to send a message to the country and the rest of the World regarding the direction of the country. I do not believe the ruling Unity Party’s Government or its associates should be allowed a third term. My reasons are not limited to the followings:

 1.  Ellen wrote off a huge chunk of the Liberian population

Here, I am not talking about the Southeastern region of Liberia which includes Grand Gedeh, Maryland, River Gee, and Sinoe Counties, a major part of Liberia the Sirleaf’s government has paid little or no attention to throughout her presidency. The region’s deplorable road network, depopulation, and alarming unemployment rate have become so pervasive that citizens in that part of the country have resigned to the fact such is their destiny. As dire as their plight is, Southeastern Liberia is not the population that I am focused on in this work. That will be reserved for another time.  The government under Sirleaf has neglected our brothers and sisters who, not by any fault of their own, are stranded in refugee land across West Africa. Even before the ECOWAS mandate which ended their status as refugees, the government of Liberia has already written off those Liberians who were catching hell in deplorable camps. From Camp Kola, Gbeke, Yomou in the Republic of Guinea to Oru, Ijebu Ode in Nigeria, Liberians continue to languish in refugee camps while their President tour the globe and reward herself and her cronies very fat salaries.  Throughout Mrs. Sirleaf’s presidency there was no sustained effort to return, repatriate or resettle Liberians. Even at the time when Liberians were being mistreated and murdered in refugees’ camps, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf did not crack her teeth. She acted like those people did not exist or that their lives did not matter.

2. Failure to acknowledge the war and heal the wounds

For fourteen years Liberia was plunged in one of the worst wars in human history. Of a population of less than three million people, over 250,000 of our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, friends, classmates and loved ones were killed, some in the most brutal and gruesome manner.  Even the sitting President at the time was mutilated to death. It was the election of Mrs. Sirleaf that marked the closing chapter of the brutal war. Her government is the most stable and longest lasting of post war Liberia. Sadly, throughout the nearly 12 years of Madam Sirleaf’s presidency, she pretended that the country has had no war thus she made no attempt to acknowledge that the country and its people have been hurt for over a decade of wars and needed healing and reconciliation. She did not acknowledge that thousands of mothers, fathers, and families have lost loved ones and there is a need for some consolation from their leader, especially the one they have called Ma Ellen. One will expect that a President of good conscience and empathy will rally the country and work to heal the wounds and build the hope that such nightmare will never happen again. The only group President Ellen Johnson thought was victims were the children of the thirteen former ministers who were killed following the coup of 1980.

3.  Ellen’s arrogance and disdain for the majority

President Johnson Sirleaf has presided over the country as if she is omniscient. Even in situations where she has sought the input of the general population through national conferences, she has treated the outcomes of the people’s voices with disdain and failed to act on their recommendations. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee Report and the Gbarnga Constitution Review Conference are just few of the examples where the Government of President Sirleaf demonstrated a clear disdain and disrespect for the views of the majority.

4. Failure to build a system that may outlive her

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has failed to put into place a system that will outlive her presidency. There is no genuine policy or doctrine that she has contributed to the country which can be attached to her legacy. As the result, after twelve years in office, Liberia remains a trial and error nation. Now she wants her Vice President to continue with such junk policies that will continue to render the country impoverished and as she described the education, a mess. This trend has been ongoing and seemed unabated. It gets even worse and disheartening when one considers that this nation is turning 170 years since the declaration of independence. 

5.  An economy in shambles

If the economy of Liberia goes well, everything goes well. Liberia like any nation on Earth needs a vibrant economy to build roads, hospitals, schools, improve education, feed the people and perhaps make progress on almost everything. Sadly, after nearly 12 years of the acclaimed Harvard’s economist presiding over the country and its economy, it remains in shambles. The economy still largely depends on foreign aid, handouts and solicitation. For 12 years, government has been unable to resolve which currency to use.  Government under the leadership of Madam Johnson Sirleaf has failed to pay attention to the pillars of the Liberian economy which include small businesses (e.g. market women and men, tailors, weavers, farmers, etc.) The Liberian taxation/revenue systems are misguided and served only the needs of the elites. The same can be said about the oil and mining industries which account for no economic inputs for the country but as milking cows for the President, her relatives and her cronies. Under the Sirleaf’s leadership, there is the working elite government’s class and the scraping poor. There is no sustained attempt to create a middle class or encourage private sector emergence and growth. The case of the National Bank of Liberia and its inside loaning process or the PSDI Loan Scheme at the Finance Ministry will be another area that I will address at length in another work.

 6.  Unemployment at near 0%

Some time ago a key person in the Liberian government was boasting that Liberia’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the World. He said the number of people actively searching for jobs indicates the number of capable people that are not working. So, if the unemployment rate is near zero, it means that there are more people working so they are not looking for work. Really Mr. Bigshot! It means there is no work to look for so nearly 95% of the able body men and women in Liberia have no jobs and must toil with brute force to feed themselves and their families. For nearly 12 years the government remained unable to link standards of living to being employed and seemed incapable to establish mechanism for job creation. The government seemed incapable to connect roads and building constructions to job creation for Liberians.

7.  Disregard for the separation of power and check and balance system

Liberia is one country where the President exercises unfettered powers across every branch of government. Under the President Sirleaf’s leadership, there have being visible Presidential overreaches which use money and cronyism to influence the fragile system. The President actively took advantage of the high rates of incompetence and impoverishment among members of the various branches of government especially the Legislative Branch of government to usurp her power and influence.

 8.  A divided nation

Under President Sirleaf’s leadership the nation is divided than ever and she does not seem to have interest in fostering unity and cohesiveness across the country. She has helped to foster a culture of tribal embrace and alienation to keep the nation divided and perpetuate the rule of her tribe (the Congau). President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf failed to reconcile the nation and foster a spirit of people coming together for the good of the nation.

9. An educational system in mess

Needless to write much about this because in her own words, she described the educational system of the country she leads as a mess. And she was right. And even at the end of twelve uninterrupted years of peace, the story is still the same. From kindergarten to tertiary levels, the Liberian educational system is a total disaster and those in positions of responsibilities seemed to lack the capacity and will to make meaningful changes. The trend of mass failures at the University of Liberia and other institutions of learning are just tip of the iceberg. Even when one considers the creation of the community colleges as a plus but on close observation the attempt is misguided and ill-conceived. The various counties are financially distressed and do not have the human capacity to sustain themselves. The smarter approach is to allow and equip the University of Liberia to expand into the various counties. 

10. The scourge of an East African disease

Under the leadership of President Sirleaf, Liberia has experienced the worst disease ever in its nearly two hundred years of existence. It was under her leadership that Liberians were falling in the streets with blood gushing out of them as they perish in droves. The havoc of EBOLA is a testimony to her administration’s failure to revitalize a failed healthcare system. (This is how you will know that a country does not have a healthcare system when it must take foreigners to teach or remind people how to wash their hands). What have they been doing since they took power and staffed the Ministry of Health? Maybe this is why someone once stated that the E in Ellen stands for Ebola.  This is the President and Vice President, in fact the government’s legacy which they must own.  This must be disquieting and disqualifying for a third term in Boakai and Nuquay.  

11. The death traps they call roads and highways

The evidences are found across the country and even in the capital city. Maryland, Sinoe, Grand Kru, Lofa, Bopolu Counties and other parts of the country are considered no-go zones. They are cut off from the rest of the country especially during the rainy season due to broken roads and bridges. Recently a higher up in the Liberian government shamelessly stated that government was trying to bring the roads up to pre-war level. How sad, that after almost 12 years in office that the desire state should be a prewar level! No, (I told him) you are not bringing the roads to pre-war level; you have kept them at pre-medieval level.

12. The Boakai-Nuquay factor, a recipe to perpetuate the chaos state

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the number one person in the Liberian Government. Joseph Boakai is the number two person in the government and the Margibi lawmaker and Speaker of the House Mr. Emmanuel Nuguay is the number three person in the same government. At the same time, the number two person (i.e. the Vice President) is constitutionally the head of the Liberian Senate. This is the government which its own auditor, Mr. John Morlu characterized as 10 times more corrupt than any government in Liberian history. For nearly 12 years the legislative Branch of the Liberian Government has served itself with fat bonuses, luxury cars, gas slips and other amenities while the people it is supposed to serve swim in abject poverty. In fact, in one of their proposed bills, they dished out benefits for themselves and their families even to the point that when they die, their wives and children will continue to rake checks from this impoverished nation up to three generations. And let us not forget that this very legislative branch has not written a single substantive bill on how to create a vibrant economy and enact laws that will protect the interest of the struggling population. Where do they expect the money from to pay their wives and concubines and service their gluttonous lifestyles?

Mr. Joseph Boakai has conceded the notion to continue with this legacy. So, he picked the third person in line as his running mate. By such choice, Mr. Boakai has endorsed the failed policies and corrupt practices that have thrived under their leadership. Mr. Boakai did not give Liberians any assurance that he will think outside of the box but has wrapped himself wholly and solely with this failed legacy and a chaos state. If Mr. Joseph Nyumah Boakai thought he did not support the failed policies of the government, he would have long cut away from Ellen Sirleaf by resigning from her government. Or he would have picked a running mate who seemed to think and act outside of the corrupt circle to take the country in a different direction.

My fellow Liberians – brothers and sisters, on October 10 of this year (2017), I appeal to all of us to end the system of impunity, corruption, nepotism, incompetence, and disdain by giving the Unity Party’s government a knockout punch. Knock them out in the First Round! This will be our time to punish slothfulness, divisions, apathy, negligence, and a sluggish economy. Let us not reward those who have failed to serve their country with distinction.

In Liberia, we do not kill chicken for a student who has failed his/her class. We say in Liberia that there is no food for a lazy person. The people of this country gave the government 12 stable years to perform and deliver. Our neighbors and the international community and lavished good will on the Sirleaf regime with a high hope that the government under Sirleaf and Boakai will deliver. It failed. Let us not give them an additional minute to continue the dismal performances.  May the Lord bless us all and save our Country!

Happy 26!

Dave Toh Jah, Contributing Writer,
Philadelphia, PA 
sirdavejah@yahoo.com/215-342-2876

Once again I bring to the community of Liberia scholars the sad news of the passing of a renowned scholar of the Liberian experience. Professor Svend E. Holsoe, an expert on the Vai people and an avid and unrelenting collector of things Liberian passed away at a Philadelphia hospital on the morning of May 4, 2017 after a protracted illness at age 78. His partner, Mr. Reuben Mollo James, survives him.

Svend’s parents, Torkel and Birthe Ambt Holsoe took him as a youth along with them when his father was both a forestry advisor to the Liberian government and a part of the United States Navy team supervising construction of the Free Port of Monrovia (now the National Port Authority).

So a part of his early schooling was in Monrovia in the late 40s and early 50s. There he began to form acquaintances and develop a “feel” for things Liberian. Though he would later go on to study Anthropology with focus on the Vai people, he developed early a broader interest in the history and culture of all the peoples of Liberia. It is this broader interest that led him to become perhaps the largest single collector of documents and artifacts on or related to the country. 

Born in Morgantown, West Virginia on March 16, 1939, he was educated at Haverford College (B.S., 1961), and Boston University (M.A., 1963; Ph.D., anthropology with minor in African History, 1967). With a dissertation entitled “The Cassava Leaf People, An Ethnohistorical Study of the Vai People with Particular Emphasis on the Tewo Chiefdom,” Holsoe went on to become a significant researcher and teacher.

Before becoming professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Delaware in 1995, Holsoe served as assistant professor of anthropology and director of the African Studies Center at DePauw University (1967-70), assistant, then associate professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware (1970-95).

He also lectured about Liberia at many venues in the United States, Africa and Europe, incurring in the process the burden of unsolicited consultations from many pioneering their own study of Liberia. Governmental entities, corporations and international agencies to provide expert opinions on Liberian affairs frequently called upon him.

Two notable awards he received were the Liberian Studies Association Annual Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1999 Indiana University’s Chancellors’ Medallion in honor of his unique contributions to scholarship and donation of his valued Liberia collection papers.

I first came to know of and subsequently met Svend not long after I arrived in the United States for graduate studies in 1967. Incidentally, this was the effective beginning of my own journey into understanding my country and its peoples.

No doubt I travelled with Svend on this journey for my first exposure to his then already large collection of books and other material on Liberia at his home in Delaware sparked my interest and developed in me what in time became by own passion for Liberian history and culture.

This was in 1971 as he hosted the annual conference of the Liberian Studies Association. It was there in Newark, Delaware that I learned of Svend’s pioneering role in the creation in 1968 of the Liberian Studies Association and founding editor of the Liberian Studies Journal the same year.

He served as editor 1968-80. Both association and journal remain the single surviving institutions devoted to Liberian studies anywhere.  It was my fortune to serve as editor of the journal for a decade, 1985-95.

My friendship and association with Svend led to much collaboration including our joint compiling of the first edition of The Historical Dictionary of Liberia (No. 83, 1985), and an aborted attempt to edit for publication his manuscript on President E.J. Roye.

To assist me and my family shortly upon our arrival in the United States following the 1980 overthrow of President Tolbert,  Svend schemed with the Roman Catholic Fathers at Tenafly, New Jersey in compensating me for copying important documents I had acquired during my six-year service in the Tolbert administration. 

There were as well scores of Liberians who benefitted in diverse ways from his friendship and assistance. In the interest of brevity I will cite but three. The first is Hon. Morris M. Dukuly, Sr. (former Minister in the Sirleaf administration) who should have preceded my own for the association came earlier and was deeper.

Morris recounts to me in an email message the details of how he met Svend in Liberia and the impact he came to have on Morris’s life. After doing very well in elementary school his prospects were uncertain for continuing his education due to family circumstances.

Svend entered his life in 1967 while in Liberia to do field work for his dissertation. He provided the financial means for him to attend and successfully complete High School. In minute details Morris recounts Svend’s many other acts of kindness toward him, adding  ‘I wanted to share this personal story with you to know how profoundly and indelibly Svend impacted my life, and the lives of members of my own family.’

And then he added: “I want to share that because Svend literally and singlehandedly transformed the course of my life, he gave me the opportunity to fulfill my potential and become who I have been in this life. ..” “Hopefully, this personal story will let you in on the depth of the sadness and sorrow that I and my family feel.

Svend will remain irreplaceable in my life. He will always be the father I never had [father died when Morris was age 6]. His love of Liberia will remain indelible and exemplary. He was a non-Liberian Liberian patriot. His name in my family will remain forever.” 

The second case I cite is that of Dr. Al Hassan Conteh (Liberian Ambassador to Nigeria) who speaks for himself as follows: “Svend took me and my family under his wings when I arrived at Penn in 1983 for graduate studies.

He became my mentor and academic advisor. This contributed in no small measure towards my academic success at Penn. For a few years, before he moved to Lansdowne, PA, he was our distinguished neighbor on Chester Avenue in Philadelphia.

I benefitted immensely from studying some of his massive collections on Liberia in his personal Library, and at the Institute of Liberian Studies, which was then located around the corner from Chester Ave. We later became “colleagues”, collaborating on matters pertaining to the LSA and Liberia…

I believe after the late Professors Gus Liebenow and Warren d’Azevedo of blessed memories, Svend became the Doyen of Liberian Studies. As the saying of the wise goes in Nigeria, where I’m currently serving, another ‘Iroko Tree has fallen’ in the Liberian Studies Community. May God Almighty have mercy on him, and may his soul rest in perfect peace.” 

The third case is that of Eugene Peabody who in tears read to me on the phone the following: “A beloved friend and brother, a Liberianist, a faithful and devoted son of the soul of Liberia: After my university years at Cuttington College he schooled me in the use of the English language by pronunciations and enunciations. His methods of research in Anthropology gave me the privilege to attempt to enter the realm of other social sciences.

We penned the Liberian Studies Journal for several years at the Department of Anthropology of the University of Delaware while I studied graduate economics. We lived together. Your general knowledge of African culture and specifically of the socio-cultural history of Liberia is evident by your vast collection diminutive only to the U.S. Library of Congress.

You were a beloved family friend. As a street philosopher once said in Gbarnga: ‘Man’s ingress into this world is naked and bare. His journey through the earth is fraught with trials and tribulations. His egress is to a place no man knows. If you can make it here you can make it there.’ Sleep Svend! You’ve fought a good fight. We will always remember you. Your Brother, S.T.E. Peabody.” 

And there are scores of others who would have volunteered testimonies were time our friend. I will sneak in here part of an email message I received from Dr. Emmanuel Dolo: “I recall how Svend was generous with his knowledge and time. He took time to share documents with me during research on the manuscript for my book and to write a statement endorsing it….He added an immense value to the knowledge base on Liberia.”

Svend was a member of the Friends of Liberia (FOL), a group of American returned Peace Corps Volunteers who formed an association that grew to include Diaspora Liberians and other Americans interested in Liberia. These people came together to help the people of a country in civil war.

He was a Board member of the organization 2007-2013, contributing as well to the establishment in 2008 of the association’s small grants fund to finance small educational and social projects. Members of the group, including Svend, visited Liberia in 2009. This may have been Svend’s last visit to Liberia captured in a photograph with him in a tête-à-tête with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. 

There are many dimensions to Svend’s scholarly work on Liberia. Apart from the fieldwork he did in Cape Mount County for his dissertation, he started early collecting all sorts and conditions of materials on Liberia.

Probably beginning with documents he secured from his father’s work in Liberia, he was allowed entry in 1965 into the Liberian National Archives then housed with the Department of State (now Foreign Ministry) under the leadership of the late Mr. Augustine Jallah. This entailed some controversy as the unorganized documents contained some classified materials and was not open to the public. At any rate Svend gained access and proceeded with the cooperation of Jallah to organize the documents.

The late Professor Tom Shick later produced a listing and categorizing of the work Svend had initiated. Svend copied perhaps the bulk of the documents dating to Liberia’s founding circumstances in the early 19^th century up to and including the early 1960s. This would become the core of his Liberia collection, but he was far from done.

From that date perhaps up to the outbreak of civil war in 1990, Svend visited Liberia frequently collecting quantities of government published documents such as the annual reports of the various ministries and other government agencies.

He became what you might call obsessed with securing absolutely all he could on Liberia, resorting at times to buying expensive out-of-print items on the Internet. It is these materials, his books and other documents, that he donated in 1997 to Indiana University.

The Svend E. Holsoe Collection include copies of the Liberian government Archive Documents between 1824-1983; extensive genealogical records, including analyses and family trees developed from these records; political, institutional, social and cultural surveys from the 1980s Liberia Rural Radio Project; field notes and oral history tapes of Vai and Bandi research; Vai script materials, and slides and photos spanning decades and covering many geographical areas and activities.

Following a hiatus when discouraged about the protracted civil war, Svend relented in his withdrawal from work on Liberia, and about two years ago he sent an additional 100 boxes of the Holsoe Collection to Indiana University that he had collected/produced after the first large consignment went to Indiana in 1997.

Due to massive destruction of the Liberian government archive during the civil war, the Holsoe Collection may contain the only surviving copies of important Liberian state papers and historical and cultural documents. 

Perhaps one of the last major public addresses on Liberia was his testimony on September 2, 2008 in Monrovia at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings.

He titled his paper “Troubled Boundaries,” as he spoke to what he considered an environment of tension induced by cultural dualities/contradictions that the old regime could no longer contain. He opined the necessity that any new post-war political structure acknowledges “regional political and social differences.” 

Among his numerous scholarly publications on Liberia are:

1. “The Condo Confederation in Western Liberia,” Liberian Historical Review, 1966.
2. A Standardization of Liberian Ethnic Nomenclature, Institute for Liberian Studies, 1979
3. The Historical Dictionary of Liberia, first edition, compiled by Holsoe and D. Elwood Dunn (Series No. 83, 1985)
4. A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture (Holsoe co-authored with Bernard Herman & Max Belcher, (1988)
5. African American Explorers in West Africa: Four 19^th century Diaries (edited by Holsoe, Fairhead, Geysbeek & Leach, 2003)
6. A number of unpublished manuscripts including “A Biography of Edward James Roye”, Fifth President of Liberia.
7. Liberian Studies Monograph Series.
8. A Social Survey of Grand Gedeh County, Institute for Liberian Studies, (1979)
9. What Liberians Call Themselves and Each Other, Depauw University, African Studies Center, 1970
10. Twenty-seven other articles related to Liberia for numerous publications

Svend had many other interests and hobbies in his long and fruitful life. His scholarly interests extended to West Africa, Africa in general, and the genealogy and history of slaves and slavery in the Virgin Islands.

But it is the Liberia dimensions of his work that I seek to underscore, a dimension that absorbed the bulk of his time and talent. He was a decent and friendly man. He was also a humanitarian who believed in giving back to sources that elevated him.

He said as much to some of his Liberian friends and acquaintances. It was perhaps this character trait that led him, following his fieldwork in Liberia, to so completely devote himself to the collection of massive Liberian documents and artifacts.

It is even ironic that the controversy of his access to the Liberian archive in 1965 pales when compared to the holdings he has donated to Indiana University, holdings that any government in Liberia has access to in part of in whole.

In a sense Svend’s Liberia legacy is three-fold. I consider the archives to be of monumental importance for it contains very simply a huge part of the story of the Liberian past, and that past remains critical to charting a future course. The second legacy is the Liberian Studies Association and the Liberian Studies Journal.

There were attempts to undertake such institutions in Liberia itself and elsewhere, but the efforts were ad hoc where the LSA and the LSJ have endured for half a century and seem poised to go another half century if not longer.

The last though not the least part of Svend’s legacy concerns his ethnographic work not only among Vai-Liberians but other Liberian ethnic communities, inclusive of the cross-border groups.

Svend has here initiated important scientific work that awaits vetting, alternative perspectives by scholars who are themselves a part of the ethnicities under study, not to speak of Liberians in general. Svend has made his contribution.

The challenge remains for Liberian scholars schooled in the various disciplines such as anthropology, political science, history and sociology to now step up to the plate and deepen our understanding of the country both in its particularities as well as its generalities – regional Liberia and national Liberia.

Svend will be memorialized at a service to be held on June 24, 2017 at the Quaker Friends Meeting House in Lansdowne, PA, USA.

Thank you Svend; Rest in Peace!

Elwood Dunn, Contributing Writer