1980INo. 41 Africa LIBERIA: THE DISSOLUTION OF PRIVILEGE Part Ill: The Challenge of New Leadership by J. Gus Liebenow With the problem of internat~onalrecognition for the Doe regime receding, the real challenge to the People's Redemption Council, which took over Liberia's government in April 1980, is the need to forge a new national identity. [JGL-3-'801 lSSN 01 61 -0724 The American Universities Field INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS American Staff, Inc., founded in 1951, is a non- University of Alabama profit, membership corporation of Brown University American educational institutions. It California State Universities em~loysa full-time staff of foreiqn UniversityIFullerton area specialists who write from abroad and make periodic visits to California State UniversityINorthridge Field Staff member institutions. 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They combine long residence source of firsthand observation of abroad with scholarly studies relat- political, economic, and social trends ing to their geographic areas of in foreign countries. Reports in the interest. Each Field Staff Associate series are prepared by writers who returns to the United States periodi- are full-time Associates of the cally to lecture on the campuses of American Universities Field Staff the consortium's member institu- and occasionally by persons on leave tions. from the organizations and univer- sities that are the Field Staff's spon- sors. THE AUTHOR Association and a member of the Fellow at Harvard University; and re- Executive Council of the International ceived his Ph.D. in Political Science African lnstitute in London. from Northwestern University in 1955. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Professor Liebenow began his field work Kappa Phi, he taught at the University of in Africa in 1953, and he has spent 6 of Texas before coming to lndiana Univer- the past 25 years doing research, teach- sity in 1958. He was the first Director of ing, and service in tropical Africa. He is African Studies at lndiana (1960-1972) the author of Liberia: The Evolution of and served as Dean for International Privilege; Colonial Rule and Political Programs (1968-1972) and Vice Presi- Development in Tanzania: The Case of dent for Academic Affairs for the the Makonde; African Attitudes towards lndiana University system (1972-1974). Agriculture, Education, and Rural Trans- formation; and of numerous journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. Dr. Liebenow is a specialist on the prob- lems of local government; urbanization; management of the African environ- ment; politics of migration; and feder- J. GUS LIEBENOW, Professor of Polit- alism. ical Science at lndiana University, is one of the pioneers in the study of politics in Dr. Liebenow received his B.A. (summa 01980, American Universities Field sub-Saharan Africa. He is the immediate cum laude) and M.A. from the Univer- Staff, Hanover, NH Past President of the African Studies sity of Illinois; was a Goodwin Memorial 19801No. 41 by J. Gus Liebenow LIBERIA: THE DISSOLUTION Africa [J G L-3-'801 OF PRIVILEGE Part Ill: The Challenge of New Leadership National Identity ernmental operations had brought been substantially modified. The Over the long haul, the major task settler and tribal descendants into suspension of the Constitution facing the People's Redemption more meaningful and lasting rela- challenged some of the basic Council (PRC) and its coalition tionships. This was particularly true assumptions of settler supremacy. Cabinet will be the creation of a of the students who had gone The death or imprisonment of most new national identity, while at the abroad for study. Representatives of legislators obviously put that institu- same time avoiding the interethnic both major groups were sharing in tion out of operation for the time bloodshed which has characterized the new wealth and the new expe- being. Similarly, the judicial sys- the postindependence periods in the riences. Equally, the poverty of the tem-which temporarily ceased to Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, and Uganda. urban slums was being shared by function-was reconstituted as a The task of nation-building in the lower echelon settler families and series of "people's courts" with the new Liberian society will be a for- tribal immigrants alike. Similarly, appointment of a mix of judges with midable one. Not only is there the when it came to political oppression Americo-Liberian and tribal back- overt as well as latent hostility at the hands of dominant elite, many grounds. between the Americo-Liberian Americo-Liberian families shared minority and the tribal majority, but the same fate of exclusion or dis- The political party system was also there are as well the variations in crimination meted out to tribal fam- drastically changed. The True Whig cultural and other norms that had ilies. Party, which was formed in 1869 been perpetuated within the tribal and had not lost an election since majority itself. Several things appear Despite the blurring of the lines, 1875, was perhaps shattered for- certain. First of all, fashioning new when it came to really crucial issues ever, its leading patrons dead or national norms will-as in most of power, to the really significant headed for prison. Other parties- other areas of Africa-take place acquisition of wealth or educational including those represented in the within the artificially created inter- opportunities, or to having the coalition Cabinet-were placed in national boundaries. Secondly, the security of enjoying what you had, limbo until the new constitution had new national norms will not be a the distinction between settler and been promulgated. Another institu- mere continuation of the previously tribal antecedents remained im- tion with decided political overtones imposed Americo-Liberian culture. portant. The rising young tribal was also dealt what may have been Admittedly, that culture had been lawyer seldom made it on his own; a mortal blow. I refer to the Masonic substantially modified by tribal he succeeded by attaching himself Order, which served as a semi- norms of diet, dress, speech, and to a Monrovia-based law firm. The religious guardian of Whig privilege. art; nevertheless, the main thrust of dominant institutions in all phases of One experiences a strange feeling as integration was in the direction of national society were settler in origin you pass the Masonic Temple on acceptance of settler norms. In any and settler-oriented and controlled. Mamba Point. The now-sacked event, on the social plane it had be- At least, that was decidedly the way building stands silent, its windows come increasingly apparent over the things were until the coup of April and doors ajar, the big wrought iron past two or three decades that there 12, 1980. gate around the courtyard standing was a blurring of the once rigid lines half open, and not a soul is in sight separating Americo-Liberians from While acknowledging the frequency on what had been its once well- tribal persons. Marriage (not merely with which observers have histori- secured grounds. It appeared to be informal liaisons with "country cally applied to Liberia the French totally irrelevant to the new Liberian wives") had become fairly common expression regarding: "the more society. Yet, at the same time, the and socially accepted between things change, the more they building seemed to pose the same those whose origins were primarily remain the sameu-April 12 has lingering menace to further tres- settler and those whose antecedents made a difference. Some of the passers that might be attributable by were considered tribal. The expan- settler-controlled national institu- a Gola or a Mende tribesman to the sion of the economic enterprises, tions have been irrevocably shat- wounded spirit protecting a dese- the educational system, and gov- tered, while others have perforce crated sacred grove of the Poro secret society.1 Its power may be announcement that "Methodists are Agriculture of his administrative finished, but do not risk fate by also citizens of Liberia." The sur- duties because of his abusive treat- further abusing it. viving Methodist Church hierarchy ment of a janitor. Although Presi- took immediate steps to divest dent Mary Grimes Brown Sherman The Christian churches are similarly Warner of his post as bishop and had very respectable settler ante- undergoing adjustment to the placed him in "involuntary retire- cedents (as well as tribal origins), search for a new national identity. ment." It may be that the liberation she was confronted by Speaker Although settler and tribal persons of the churches could make them Richard Henries and the other were nominally members of the more vital forces in achieving a new trustees with the demand for Dean same broad Christian fold, in Liberia national identity. On the other hand, DeShield's reinstatement. On this one entered the Kingdom of Heaven the collapse of support from the issue President Sherman had both in different chariots. Some of those political center could make the the solid and outspoken support of chariots were distinctly ethnic in Christian churches more vulnerable her faculty. In a dramatic showdown character, such as the Lorna to challenges from Islam or even involving Speaker Henries and Church, the Bassa Community from a rejuvenated set of Poro others a few days before the coup, Church, and the churches which leaders.