18 October 2008
Prominent Liberian educator and former Foreign Minister, T. Earnest Eastman says President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has an enormous task to execute, if she wants to be like Nelson Mandela to be considered as one of the greatest leaders of the 21st Century.
Mandela is the first African leader who has won the title for his exemplary leadership capability and dexterity. Having left jail in early 1990s where he spent 27 unbroken years, he was elected as president of South Africa and relinquished power in 1999.
Hailing her for her achievement as the first female president to be elected in Africa, and one of the outstanding in world politics, he retorted that she should not be carried away by accolades and ignored the task of bringing Liberians together.
In his testimony before commissioners of the TRC at the ongoing Thematic and Institutional Public Hearings at the historic Centennial Pavilion, Mr. Eastman said the president was doing well though, confronting some of the challenges she inherited, there was a superseding need for her to focus on bringing Liberians together.
His statement presupposes, according to observers, that Liberians are still ingrained with bitterness against one another and divided over inconsequential things, as a result of the events of the decade-long conflict and that reconciliation was far-fetched.
Whilst asking the president to ensure that Liberians are brought together, he at the same time indicated that the country needs nothing less than "commitment, sincerity, and patriotism."
Observers also say that this also means that he is craving the involvement of ordinary citizens in the task of reconciling the country and healing the wounds created as a result of the civil conflict.
Mr. Eastman, who worked with the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe as Foreign Minister brushed aside giving recommendations to the TRC, as done by others who appeared before him, on grounds that Liberian history has rich reservoirs of recommendations, which applied and followed, the country can excel.
Another important aspect of his testimony is the call for politicians to do away with acts that could endanger the country, but urged them to work with the president because "only one person can be president."
He reminisced that politicians of old did not undercut their leaders during the period of their political activeness, and as such politicians of today should also not trek that path.
But what he, as a renowned politician who has worked in the mainstream of government, is doing is yet to be seen, observers say. At the same time, the aging knowledgeable Eastman debunked critics' wrong assertion of the Tubman era that he (former President William V.S. Tubman) did nothing for the country.
According to him, the former president played an extraordinary role in putting Liberia on the path to democracy, unity and reconciliation, and those who harbored that notion were unfair to him and the sacrifice he underwent.
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What have the previous governments done to bring Liberians together? Liberia, a nation just slightly larger than the size of the American state of Tennessee, doesn’t have roads to link its 15 counties. Liberians are not together; that point is truth. We need to bring our people together, not just in thoughts but physically, too. Just words will not do it; we need action, which had been elusive from the very creation of the state of Liberia. People in government should serve; put the people first!
It is going to take more than just the President to bring than… [Read Full Text]
Why is it that people keep comparing the Sirleaf's government to previous ones? What past administration do you guys have in mind when you make statements like this? Is it Taylor's, Bryant's, Doe's, Tolbert's or Tubman's? Wasn't the war a violent referendum that previous administrations have failed? The Johnson-Sirleaf's Administration wasn't suppose to be like no other in our nation's history, that is the point. Should we applaud the Sirleaf's Administration because it's not practicing ethnic cleansing or we should be happy because it does not have a secret police unit terrorizing its citizens? Comparing… [Read Full Text]
Slam dunk, dude: ALL SOUPISTS ARE THE SAME IN A PERCUSSIVE STREAM OF INSUBSTANTIAL, EPHEMERAL AND MENDACIOUS 'DIFFERENCES.'
Kindest Felicitations.
Effacing the substantive issue of Sirleaf's efforts at 'nation' building, may I suggest that in polite, bourgeois circles one does not refer to a symbol of authority's "behind." And "kissing it" is obviously way off the top, rocking in land looneydom or plain old ill breeding.
One has to be sensitive with critiquing female public figures, and I am not here being paternalistic: I am sure the Lady can defend herself, in THE PROPER CONTEXT, WITH VERBA PROFANE. The point, rather, is that one does not refer to a woman's derrier as an intentional object of "kissing."… [Read Full Text]
Mr. Komoh Winn, let me apologize first for using your comments to lash out on all the comparisons of the Johnson-Sirleaf's Administration to previous ones. I must also say that my comments were not necesarily directed towards you specifically but to all those previous authors making those comparisons. What I get from those comparisons is that somehow we all should be happy because the Ellen's Administration is not as abusive as the others that have come before it. As far as your statement about how previous administrations had not done enough to bring our people together by not building roads,… [Read Full Text]
Mr. Jallohlaw, your communication through Allafrica.com is what I refer to as impossibl or what a school colleague of mind use to refer to as student companion type-presenting large proportion of words without clarity. Generally, the essence of communication is making the speaker's audiance to understand what is being said. For you Mr. Jallohlaw, your presenting is vail, with words, that the average reader on the net do not understand what you say. Please, Mr. Jallohlaw, come down to the level of us all so we will flow with you. Leave your university philosophy courses behind and speak to the… [Read Full Text]
on making sense: Thank you for the advice. I am using my Webster's Dictionary, just to understand his point.
On bringing the Liberian people together: The point I made, which was tossed out of context, is very important and warrant re-stating. Taking care of the people in action, not just by words, has been the way previous governments largely conducted business. Action has been elusive. Just tossing words around will not bring people together in the true sense of the word, unless I am the only Liberian who believe that physically linking rural and urban Liberia is a vital way… [Read Full Text]
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Mr. Eastman, stick with what you know (whatever that may be), but comparing Ms Johnson-Sirleaf to one of the greatest statesman the world has ever known is just ridiculous. It goes to show that you don't know enough about either of them. What has Sirleaf ever sacrificed besides the lives and well-being of her own country men and women to foster her own political career? It is sad to see that the TRC has been relegated to a platform by washed-up politicians seeking employment to kiss this lady's behind. It's just a shame.