Another book in the wall
Coincidence #834. It’s almost 25 years to the day that, as a youngster, I made my first and, so far, only visit to the Houses of Parliament in that there London. It was the day Pink Floyd got to number one in the hit parade. They were my favourite band at the time. We also visited Westminster Abbey and saw a film crew. Some official leaned over and said it was the President of Liberia’s personal film crew.
Four months later President William Tolbert was dead following a coup. I remember the TV scenes of elderly men climbing down from a bus after a two hour wait as the execution ground was made ready. Then they showed men with machine guns pumping lead into bodies off camera.
I’ve always wanted, in an indifferent kind of way, to learn more about this time. I knew there was a book - Stephen Ellis’ The Mask of Anarchy - but it wasn’t in any library I had access to. However, on Monday I found it for �1 in a remainder store! On the negative side, it starts nine years after the coup.
Ellis reports that the population is very suspicious of the CIA and that there are lots of conspiracy theories surrounding the organisation’s activities in Liberia. Funny how these theories crop up so often when the Agency is involved. I’m sure a rational mind could offer a good reason. However, I don’t think Arts & Letters Daily would link to it, even if it wasn’t on a blog.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Liberia
- More Recently Arrived Books
- Thorne in My Side For the last couple of years,…
- Holiday in Falluja
- No new messages
