Liberia
On December 11th, 1979 - the day Pink Floyd reached number two in the hit parade with Another Brick in the Wall (part two) - I made my one and only visit to the Palace of Westminster, on a school outing. In the House of Commons, I heard Humphrey Something make a boring speech about Northern Ireland, followed by declamations from a Protestant loon below the viewing gallery, out of sight. We walked through the House of Lords too, and my friend picked up a pin from the floor. He kept it for years after, becoming a politician himself eventually; a Tory. I should have stuck the pin in this temple.
We also looked around Westminster Abbey. It was dark. But there was a film crew with bright lights. A clergyman moved us on saying the President of Liberia was on a tour of the building. The film crew were following him. I saw the lights pan up and down a tomb.
Five months later, back in Liberia, there was a coup. I remember the TV footage of the [elected] government ministers being held on a bus in the midday sun as stakes were driven into the ground. They were then led out, tied to the stakes and shot. It was all filmed. A young soldier emptied a magazine into soft flesh, holding the gun away from him, above the shoulder, shuddering with the kicks of each volley; virile, triumphant. The President himself was tortured to death.
A dictator of familiar brutality took power. Reagan’s administration, perhaps with Oliver North including Liberia, along with the Sultanate of Brunei, among “the Democracies”, provided the new government with $500m. Curiously, this is not mentioned by the New Criterion, whose blog prompted my memories (along with the latest news of course). They prefer to blame Jimmy Carter for his initial support for the coup. Quite rightly; Carter was already implicated in genocide because he continued US support for Indonesia’s terrible invasion of East Timor under the Ford administration. His reputation as a caring liberal is, like Clinton’s, ridiculous. It also suggests that a different US President would have made a different choice. It seems unlikely, as demonstrated by Reagan. Strange then, that The New Criterion expresses what, without the false opposition of Republican-Democrat, would otherwise be dismissed as “anti-Americanism”. But maybe that’s the veneer of democracy showing its age.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Another book in the wall
- Get Carter
- Paul Foot in yer face Good for Paul Foot. His …
- Yesss! President Beckham it is then!
- Dedicated to Democracy
