The library Without lights

MONROVIA, LIBERIA: 26 September 2012 Every morning during my long drive to work, I cue in what is beginning an unbearable traffic jam. My car radio is my companion. Today was identical, as Monrovia’s rain swept streets lived up to the City’s reputation as the world’s wettest capital.

In 2003, during the heat of war in Monrovia, a CNN reporter described hundreds of fleeing residents with the little personal effects they could salvage. He reported that it has been raining since he arrived in Liberia and it seemed in Liberia it rains forever. Then, the fleeing people were moving in the rain regardless, as their priority was safety.

There were no fleeing residents this morning. Liberia will soon celebrate a decade since its civil wars came to an end.

As I scanned one radio station to the other, it was the voices of Liberians expressing their views on all sought of things that caught my attention. There were irate voices, calm voices, and inflammatory voices – a vociferous conundrum unleashed by freedom of speech and new technology. In Liberia it is common for live radio broadcast to invite call-in from listeners via mobile phones. This morning, as always, these voices sounded to me as an outcry from layers of Liberian society calling for a rapid bridge in people’s expectations and reality.

The outlets by these citizens through the free expression of their views have replaced ricocheting bullets. They replaced an era when dictatorial regimes imprisoned, tortured, and even killed people for expressing their views.

The freedom of expression is anchored in a country’s democratic progress.  President Barack Obama in his Speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday said this about democracy: ‘True democracy demands that citizens cannot be thrown in jail because of what they believe… It depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear, and on the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people…. There is no speech that justifies mindless violence.’

‘Liberia is a Library without Light’ was how one caller described his frustration about the state of developments in the country. He was commenting on what he termed as misplaced priorities over report members of Liberia's Legislature, have allocated enormous sums towards their personal benefits.  The Frontpage Africa online newspaper reported in its headline: ‘Liberia ‘419’ Branch: Amid Abject Poverty, millions Awash in Legislative Budget.’

I wonder what tomorrow’s topical issue will be. These expressions are usually short-lived with no follow up.

It was clear that the caller was not speaking of a literary library. But he got me thinking about one. I visualized a library. In this situation books were provided, staff were appointed to run the library because the importance of reading and education was rightly prioritized. In the darkened basement of this building situate the library without lights. So it does not attract pupils or researchers, but rats, roaches and spiders. Soon conditions in the damp room will spoil the books. The staff will remain paid. The library will remain on the government budget each year. At least it was how it was understood to be, so many institutions unfit for purpose.

This library without light that is Liberia will serve little purpose. It could even be a lighted library without books. Both serve little value.

Liberia should get its fundamentals right. Reports of corruption and financial malpractice should be followed by stiff penalty, not paltry suspensions. The biometric system put in place to bring integrity to the civil service payroll should work effectively. The talk of ‘ghost names’ on the State payroll should be matter of history. The asset declaration should not be a window-dressing exercise that serves no purpose. The Freedom of Information Act should be implemented to its fullest as a tool to expose abuse and misuse of State resources and to increase citizens’ demands for accountability and transparency.

By Charles Tye Lawrence

Monrovia, Liberia

September 26. 2012