To pass through this area, go over the hill. There, you’ll find the rebels. Don’t ask what they look like. You’ll know them when you see them. They may be wearing wedding dresses. They aren’t crossdressers. They’re showing off the fact that they’ve stolen the best of Liberia. They will make you walk through a stream full of bodies. Once you’ve crossed it, they will shoot one of you as an example. If they choose you, don’t say goodbye to your kids or your spouse or they’ll kill them, too. If you’re lucky, they’ll let your group go.
That’s the kind of advice Dr. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley got during the Liberian Civil War. A professor at Penn State University and writer of six critically acclaimed books of poetry, Wesley Zoomed into the Bowers Writers House to talk about her experiences during her homeland’s bloody conflict. She also shared some of her poetry inspired by the war.
To figure out how Liberia tore itself apart, you have to look back to its history. Liberia was founded on the coast of Western Africa in the 1820s as part of the American Back-to-Africa movement. This organization believed that the best way to help freed slaves was to send them to their ancestors’ continent.
However, when a group of freed and free-born African Americans settled what would become Liberia, they came into conflict with the native population. Even though they were a minority of the population, American-descended Liberians remained the country’s dominant political and cultural group for nearly a hundred-forty years.
By the time Wesley was a junior at the University of Liberia in 1979, the nation was in turmoil. The increasingly educated natives were becoming more aware of the country’s inequalities. Wesley was one of them.
“I began wearing my African clothes as a child. I wore African clothes in college because I wanted people to know that my identity was African. Even as a child, I was an activist,” she explained.
To calm the waters, President William Tolbert hosted a banquet of hundreds of important Liberians, including some university students.
“I was invited to this meeting because I think they pegged me as a person of interest whom they needed to brainwash,” Wesley said.
Numerous speakers talked that night, but instead of honestly reckoning with Liberia’s issues, “They were being sycophants. ‘Oh Mr. President. I worship you. You are the king. You are in control of this country. Nobody would ever overthrow you.”
When it was Wesley’s turn to talk, she was having none of it. After a speech including lines like “This is a very corrupt country, and we are headed for destruction,” the President swiped back her microphone.
“‘Give me the mic, little girl! Get back to your seat!’” he exclaimed.
Just as Wesley was leaving the banquet, Tolbert’s security took her off her bus. The President arranged a meeting where he hugged her, thanked her for her opinion and asked her to join his political party.
That went nowhere. “No. Your party is corrupt.”
Not taking the hint, Tolbert asked if she wanted to help him talk to the young people when the banquet was held again next year.
Her answer: “I don’t know if you’re gonna be around next year.” Her prophecy was confirmed when Tolbert was executed in a coup five months later.
Wesley’s broader prediction for her country was also proven true. Samuel Doe, the leader of the coup, became Liberia’s first native president but was, himself, executed in a civil war launched in 1989.
The country descended into chaos as its people were left to the “mercy” of roving warlords. Many of these murderers gave themselves surreal names like General Satan, General Rambo and General Bin Laden (not of Al-Qaeda fame — he borrowed the name because it was intimidating). The rebellion was not even a united front. They broke apart. Warlords fought each other. General Mosquito’s brutal archrival was General Mosquito Spray.
“Rebels do not follow their leaders. That’s why they’re called rebels,” Wesley said.
More bizarre than their names were their methods. General Butt Naked was called that because he and his child soldiers charged into battle nude. That was after they sacrificed children, drank their blood and prayed to Satan (not General Satan — the other one).
Under these conditions, Wesley and her family had to make impossible decisions like choosing between fleeing to the relative peace of the city or the violent countryside where there was still food. She had to educate her children as missiles flew around outside.
A bureaucratic mix up delayed Wesley’s emigration to America, but she said, “Because we stayed those two years, we experienced something that has become a life lesson.”
She became intimately aware of the signs of rebellion.
Pointing to the storming of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, Wesley said, “When I saw Americans climbing walls, breaking the windows of the capitol, I thought, ‘Wow. That’s no different than Liberia.’”
Jesse Waters, the director of the Bowers House, agreed with his guest’s comparison.
“As long as this country takes a ‘hmm, wow’ kind of view toward what happened on January 6, I believe the potential always exists for things to reach a critical mass. And then before you know it, you turn around and ask yourself, ‘How could I not have seen this coming?’” he said.
However, Dr. Wesley added, “But the mistake [the rioters] made—they weren’t in Liberia. They were in the United States of America.”
Despite all she has seen, despite pointing out the very real historical link between Liberia’s chaos and America’s own divisions, the poet says she is optimistic for her adopted country’s future. America’s large size, constitutional system and international ties are all things Wesley said gives its stability a leg up on Liberia.
“But my biggest hope is in the young people. It depends on you.”
