By James Koluko Fasuekoi

Posted to the web 30 April 2008

 

 

Apart from the manic of terrorism, race and religion in recent years have proven to be two main explosive issues worldwide-so explosive that they sometime result to death and destruction when these issues are taken to extreme level. But there is also another hot topic that resurfaces every now and then and in some cases holds potential danger with severe consequences if taken to the extreme too. It is culture.

Bong and Lofa Counties are living testimonies. Nearly some twenty years ago, the central Liberian city of Gbarnga came to a standstill with a bloody clash between two tribal groups. Able bodied men from both sides (no interest in naming tribes), armed with machetes, ran outdoor in bush hunting style, in search of their rivals. When the melee ended through the intervention of the local national army detachment and Chiefs of Zoes in the area, one person was reported dead and a hundred more injured some critically. The incident had come as a result of sheer “cultural misunderstanding;” when a loose behavior by someone from the other tribe was mistakenly misinterpreted by the other tribe as a deliberate violation to its cultural norms.

The year 1998 saw the upper Lofa County region reaching a boiling point. The unmannerly behavior by a few members of one tribe to disobey a ritual procession by another tribal group was seen by members of the offended tribe as the general belief and action of the tribe of the instigators, and as a result, a large scale machete battle ensued, leaving several dead and many wounded.

These are just some of the most recent cultural missteps in our history, which indicate how sensitive cultural matters most especially those concerning secret societies can become in Liberia. Just in no time people would see the offended side snap at their opponents as were the Bong and Lofa situations during which men descended upon one another using all sort of war-like materials they could lay their hands on to defend and protect their cultural heritage.

 

Like religion or race, cultural issues are so delicate that people must be careful how to treat them in order to avoid any misinterpretation of the actions by an individual as representing the beliefs and actions of a tribe or a group of people. But thanks to God that those fights didn’t reach greater proportion; that cordiality now exists today among the tribes that were involved.
 
While those Poro and other issues may have been laid to rest, there is another sensitive issue, more of a cultural nature that has in some quarters become a “difficult to discuss” matter. Since some speakers and writers have associated this issue with Liberian female secret societies thereby treating it as a tribal custom, we too will therefore treat it as such but this shouldn’t be an indication that we are in agreement with their assertion. Whether they are on track in their belief or not, we can’t tell!

The phrase, Female Circumcision, is quite familiar especially among Africans. Many believed that this culture has been around as long as some four to five hundred or more years ago, and practiced even beyond Africa by various groups.
 
Two weeks ago, the theme again came under the limelight when a Liberian woman who just returned home from the UK, Manegbeh Donzo opened a media frenzy over Female Circumcision, claiming her life was in grave danger for what “family members” said was her “exposing the secret of female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom” while attempting to seek an asylum there few years ago.
 
While it is not our intension to dive into any discussion pertaining to Female Circumcision, all strictly due to our own cultural backgrounds as well as rules and regulations governing those schools, we would however attempt to share a little light on the topic as it relates to Liberia and other countries. We shall in a larger sense take a look at the motivating factors behind most such claims of cultural persecution and what the Liberian Government could do in her own rights to prevent people using FGM as a ticket to seek asylum in the future.

The practice of Female Circumcision is reported to be prevalent in East and West Africa among women and has often during the past decades come under severe criticism from the West, like the United States and Great Britain. These countries have expressed serious concern over what they called health risk connected to the practice such as “infections” which they argued, could result into “infertility” and sometime death. Various groups have been organized and funded in third-world countries with supports from the West aimed at discouraging and killing the culture. But it remains to be seen whether these crusades have in any way impacted the targeted groups since such campaigns are mostly only limited to press releases and sometimes the sheer dramatization of what presumably takes place behind closed doors rather than seeking dialogue with leaders and members of those engaged in the culture.

 

In order to give the world an idea about how stressful and painful this practice is thought to be the U.S. based Cable News Network CNN in 1994 is reported to have paid an improvised Egyptian family to demonstrate the ordeal live on camera so people could understand what would be initiates go through.

“When I saw it on CNN I was so happy about it. But I felt sorry for that little girl” said Meme Ramsey, a popular Egyptian woman known for her campaign against FGM, in an interview with West African Journal magazine.

The airing of the ritual resulted into public outrage with many calling on those involved in such cultural practices to halt or modify them in the interest of humanity.

According to a survey carried out by the Minority Rights Group International more than a decade ago, and published by the Liberian-California based West African Journal, Female Circumcision otherwise known as “Female Genital Mutilation” is widely practiced in the East African countries of Somalia and Djibouti at a hundred percent rate while Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea thread at 90% each.

Kenya is the only East African country along with several West African countries such as The Gambia, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, accordingly found in this age-old practice at a low percentage, 60% and 70% respectively, except for Mali and Sierra Leone each of which carries 90%. Liberia, Guinea, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria were not highlighted on the MRGI’s map even though the culture according to various writers, exist in those countries.

While cultural practices may defer from country to country and from region to region even within a country, there is so far no Liberian tribal culture especially in modern day Liberia that requires mandatory membership of every member of a family or a tribe. Most of those being initiated like   adults for example, into bush schools, do so on their own volition without pressure. And this is where some of us are confused when someone like Manegbeh Donzo raises such alarm that certain family member in the community wants her kidnapped and taken to the “bush to be circumcised.”

In her explanation to the media, 24-year-old Manegbeh Donzo expressed deep fear of being forcefully initiated into the cult, something she said, led to her escape to Great Britain in 2006 to seek asylum, but was denied and had to return home after two years due to lack of money to fight her asylum case.

While we do not want to question the validity of her claim at this time because of its grievous nature, which accordingly, involved “death threats” over her life as a Liberian citizen, we also find it quite compelling to take a deeper look at the issue from a general standpoint.

The case of Manegbeh Donzo’s may seem strange to some at home and within Liberian communities abroad, but it isn’t a new phenomenal. Since the collapsed of Taylor’s despotic regime due to rebel and diplomatic pressure followed by his forceful departure from the country in mid 2003, some female Liberians leaving the country have the tendency of using “cultural persecution” or Female Circumcision as reasons to seek asylum abroad.   

 

In recent years, this write has been approached twice and separately by two young female Liberians to help with their applications, using the fear of FGM as reasonable cause for not wanting to return to their home country. And because I do not judge my fellow Liberians many of whom are war-victims like me, I was prepared to provide the two with some assistance only if they could change their topic. But with Taylor gone with his bad human rights records and a promising democracy taking shape in Liberia, what other claim could possibly open one’s way to paradise?

 

Few months later, one called to inform me that she was successful. An immigration lawyer, she told me had helped pushed her case. Thanks again to the U.S. for being so sympathetic to people who are believed to be victims of “cultural persecution.” Perhaps, had our sister Manegbeh been lucky to reach U.S. soils, the humiliation she endured in London would have been just a fairy tale.

 

While everyone is urged to pity the plights of our sisters, we will not certainly be doing justice if we fail to point out here that the underlying factors contributing to many fleeing the country during the past few years are mainly due to the ever increasing mass poverty and a surge in armed robbery in and around the capital, Monrovia.

 

While it may be true that many may be escaping the hash economic pinch brought upon our people by the civil wars, many low and middle income earners lived in complete fear in a state of general lawlessness; all at the mercy of armed gangs roaming the capital at night. Although there is a heavy presence of United Nations peacekeeping troops in the country which is bolstered by a strong police force, the security situation has degenerated to a point that some have begun to question the legitimacy of the present Ellen Johnson led Government due to its failure to protect its people.

 

There is the story of a former U.S. Military General on a peace mission to Liberia who was murdered in his bedroom at the Mamba Point Hotel. Then came the armed attacks (twice) on Grand Kru County Representative, G. Wesseh Blamo in the Paynesville community last year. And then there was also another armed robbery attacks against Montserrado County Junior Senator, Hannah Brent and her Fiancé Arthur Pyne, (Public Agenda, September 24, 2007). Senator Brent told local reporters that the attacks on she and her fiancé were politically motivated because, the robbers did not touch two female passengers riding with her. Good point! Are all these attacks coming from armed robbers?  Please read this alarm found in the opening paragraph of Julia Thompson’s latest commentary on armed robbery in Liberia, published in the April 25, 2008 edition of The Liberian Journal.

 

“The escalation of armed robberies in Liberia is troubling. Many of the online media that cover Liberia are regularly reporting robberies and other vicious crimes including physical injuries to the victims. I recently read about a series of armed robberies at Popo Beach located on Bushrod Island and another in Caldwell. There was also an occurrence at Jallah Prall’s Community on the Old Road, Sinkor. I have also read of armed robberies not only at private homes but also at hotels! Worse still and most disturbing, an alleged robber was found carrying a police ID.”

 

There is no need to say how disturbing are these reports, especially for people coming out of bitter civil wars. This only goes further to prove the inept of the standing government at bringing challenging situations such as the armed robberies under control. If the Sirleaf led government cannot use the country’s security forces as Commander In Chief to put a halt to the madness of trigger-happy robbers, what will she do when the United Nations troops leave Liberian soils?

 

One of the primary responsibilities of any good government is to be able to provide, if not sound security, at least, some reasonable amount of security for all its citizens and those residing within that country, and not just only for a president and that president’s family members which appears to be the case in Liberia.  

While it would be quite unreasonable for anyone to suggest a quick fix to the mass poverty and soaring armed robbery, there are a few things the Sirleaf led Government could do to minimize the scourges of mass poverty and armed robbery in the country.

 

1.   The president must lobby the parliament to enact laws that would provide a death penalty to anyone caught and found guilty of armed robbery. It must also make education available to a large number of ex-combatants as promised by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf during the start of her 1997 presidential campaign in Sanniquille, Nimba County, since they are believed to be the main source of the armed robberies going around the country.   

 

2.   In a society teeming with thousands of unskilled workers, (many of them former child soldiers), a lot could be achieved providing the incumbent government is willing to use some of the country’s gross earnings and other sources to open up large scale farming across the country which would provide some sort of employment for the less fortunate. Such endeavors, like providing little incentives to ex-fighters, young and old farmers to engage in a “feed yourself program,” could as well inspire many to help feed our population in the face of growing food crisis worldwide.

Unless we begin to take these little steps to help ourselves, many people would continue to flee the country in this peacetime, using the fear of “cultural persecution” in search of a sound security and better life abroad.

 

Note: watch out for our next topic on the sale of Liberia's mother cultural village of Kendeja. 

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James Kokulo Fasuekoi is a freelance reporter-photographer and cultural artist. A former AP stringer stationed in West Africa, he covered guerrilla wars in his native Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone . He presently lives at Whitehall , Penn. , and can be reached at boiyeadu1@hotmail.com