LIBERIA

[Guest]

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[charity]

I recently got an email from the San Francisco chapter of Women for women International, letting me know about a screening they will be having of a film called "Pray the Devil Back to Hell."  The website and trailer is at: http://www.praythedevilbacktohell.com/v3/

Before this, I knew nothing about Liberia or it's history, but from what I gathered from the movie website, and reading a few other articles about Leymah Gbowee, one of the women involved, the film is apparently about a group of women who, using peaceful demonstrations, got then president of Liberia Charles Taylor to agree to attend peace talks to try and end the civil war that raged from 1989 - 2003, with only a small break.  They then followed him to Ghana for the peace talks and stayed outside the room and refused to let the warlords leave until they reached a peace agreement.   

A clip of Leymah on Colbert Nation says that part of the womens group original strategy for trying to end the war was to call on all women to withhold sex until the war ended.  Leymah had not heard of Lysistrata at the time:  http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/233532/july-14-2009/leymah-gbowee  In the interview she also talks about how Liberia was set up as a colony for freed American slaves, but that there were already native people living there, and the abuses that occurred from that.

Also, apparently since then, Charles Taylor has been exiled and is being tried for war crimes, and there is a new female democratically-elected Harvard-trained economist as president.  Apparently Liberias Chief of Police and Deputy Chief of Police are also currently women.  The woman who is now Deputy Chief of Police also played a big role in organizing women during the war and is in the movie. 

The whole story sounds amazing, and I would like to see the movie, but it is not out yet for individuals to rent or buy (I was able to 'Save' it on Netflix though, and was still considering possibly going to the San Francisco showing, even though it's on a weeknight so far from me!).  So when are there going to be more loans from Liberia? 

[charity]

There is a Kiva Fellow in Liberia, who posted his first entry today:
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/08/07/kiva-in-liberia_tpgfb/

He doesn't say a lot yet, but talks a little about Liberias history:

It is one of the few countries in Africa without roots in  European colonialism.   Liberia did not exist as a country until it was colonized by freed American slaves in 1847, forming a government based on the US system.

This government was overthrown by a military coup in 1980, which marked the beginning of 25 years of brutal civil war that left an estimated half a million people dead (out of a total population of just 3.5M)   A CNN report concluded that 90% of the female population was a victim of sexual violence during the war.

       

[charity]

Here is a link to an hour long PBS special on the women fighting for peace in Liberia:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1157137218/search/liberia

I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it was good!

[charity]

I just watched the hour long PBS special about Leymah Gbowee and the Womens Peace Movement in Liberia (http://video.pbs.org/video/1157137218/search/liberia), and it was very good.  There were several clips from the movie "Pray the Devil back to Hell," as well as interviews with Leymah Gbowee and the film producer, Abigail Disney.  Leymah Gbowee says she is headed to Zimbabwe next, to 'walk with' the women there... 

[waywardcats]

Articles in the SFGate (San Francisco online news) today: 

Post-civil war Liberia at a crossroads


This 9-month-old boy was abandoned by his mother when she took him in for an immunization at Monrovia's Old Redemption Hospital. He is being cared for by the mother of a young girl who is hospitalized there.

'For us Liberians, land is life'

Where rubber meets reality in Liberia