What does that even mean?!

Post-conflict, reconstruction and recovery, fragile states – these are all big development buzz words that get tossed around with abandon so much that their meanings are often reduced to the point of uselessness.  The international development community’s dependence on buzz words is probably worse then other industries, although all disciplines have their own preferred vocabularies and peculiarities that make them distinct.  Words like post-conflict and fragile get used because they quickly and easily communicate complex, interrelated concepts and ideas and also establish that those using them are “in the know."  Plus it allows people to demonstrate their place in the club of development/humanitarian workers, so that is always useful.  But while these words establish a person’s “cred” within some circles,  for the vast majority of people these words elicit quizzical, understandable confusion.  So what does it even mean?  To say that “Liberia is a post-conflict country, that while still displaying aspects of fragility is making a confident transition from reconstruction and recovery efforts to full scale economic and social development for poverty alleviation.”  Most people do not need to really know what this sentence means; it is far more useful and interesting to understand this complex sentence by attempting to understand the equally complicated history of Liberia.  While this description will not due justice to the very complicated, vast, multifaceted aspects that has shaped Liberia, it will provide some context for what it means to be working on education in Liberia.  Without further ado, the condensed version...

Liberia’s history has been marked by tensions between Americo-Liberians, freed American slaves, and indigenous populations since the founding of the country in 1822. Basically, America thought that Liberia would make a great place to send all the free-born blacks and ex-slaves - returning them to their "homeland" would save America a lot of headaches and prevent free people from inciting slaves to rebel against their slave-holders.   So off many people went to Liberia and the Americo-Liberians quickly set about instituted their own version of racially driven oppression,  monopolizing the countries resources for an elite few and largely ignoring the poverty that had become a way of life for the many tribes that called the lands within Liberia home.  These historical tensions continued to color Liberian politics and social life, eventually exploding into two civil wars, largely provoked by ethnic factionalism and marginalization, which started in 1980 with the coup that brought Samuel Doe to power, through the 1990’s when Charles Taylor seized the country and onto the early 2000’s when multiple rival rebel forces and government forces tore the country into a million little pieces.  Finally in 2003 peace agreements that actually held were signed (thanks in large part to strong Liberian women who staged successful and effective peace protests) and the country prepared to make the long climb out of protracted conflict and started to piece together their once proud country.  

The conflicts were extremely brutal with many incidents of torture, looting, killing of civilians, widespread conscription of child soldiers (who were often drugged and forced to fight), and pervasive use of rape as a weapon of war.  Of the 2.5 million people living in Liberia before the wars, the United Nations estimates that over 270,000 people died in the wars, 750,000 people fled, and 1.2 million were internally displaced.  In addition to leading to utter economic collapse and the destruction of basic infrastructure, the wars exacerbated the already declining education system - destroying infrastructure, the teaching profession, and access to even basic schooling, let alone access to quality education.  The return to peace has caused a sharp increase in demand for education and children and youth have flooded back into schools, overwhelming the system and adding complex needs due the lack of education and the wide age range of students enrolled in primary education (there are often 8 year olds and 17 year olds in the same grade one classroom).

Following the end of the war in 2003/4, elections were held  that were largely considered democratic and fair by the international community.  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard University trained economist and seen as culturally, although not ethnically, Americo-Liberian, was elected to the presidency in 2006 and has led a popular democratic government that regularly displays high levels of political will to reform and improve the nation.  She is up for reelection this fall and is expected to have a good change of winning.  The country has made progress in her Sirleaf’s first term – roads have been built, electricity restored to the capital (it was absent for ten years), and she has laid the ground-work for economic recovery.  Despite the many positives, there are still many challenges including widespread corruption. These realities are partly to be expected in a country emerging from near total destruction, but the slow pace of reform has also led to frustration, as a lot of the work she has accomplished is not visible to the average citizen.  Roads are something the average citizen can understand, the magnitude of eliminating the country's debt with international financing institutions is not.

Liberia’s history of tensions along ethnic lines persists although ethnicity is rarely discussed and the the government is trying to instill a sense of national unity that transcends ethnic differences.  In addition to ethnic divisions, gender inequality and gender-based violence remains a painful reality for the majority of Liberian women - close to 80% of women have been sexually assaulted. Youth, especially ex-combatants, experience marginalization and exclusion in differing degrees and are seen as susceptible to recruitment to militias if not fully integrated back into society.  The vast majority of Liberian youth have never known a life without pervasive violence.  Machel (1996) notes the impact of sustained violence on children:

“many of today’s conflicts last the length of ‘childhood’, meaning that from birth to early adulthood, children will experience multiple and accumulative assaults.  Disrupting the social networks and primary relationships that support children’s physical, emotional, moral, cognitive, and social development in this way, and for this duration, can have profound physical and psychological implications.”

Education is often seen as a primary way to encourage youth to rejoin established social functions and expectations in a peaceful society, yet delivery of even basic education services is challenging throughout the country and is made worse by widespread poverty and a weak economy that holds little promise of formal employment.  “Civil war and lack of resources have had a dramatic effect on education managers and teachers, many of whom were displaced or forced to leave the country during the conflict.  Those who stayed have not been paid consistently since 1989.  In schools that continued to function teachers who left were replaced by teachers without formal qualifications or experience; an estimated 62% of the teachers currently in the system are unqualified.” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 7) 

As a result of these challenges, teacher attendance is low and when teachers are present in the classroom, the effectiveness of instruction is severely limited.   

            So that is the quick and dirty history and its education implications spiel – with lots left out and glossed over in favor of expedience.   There are many exemplary documentaries, non-fiction books, novels, and memories about Liberia that I highly recommend if you would like to delve deeper into the history of the country.  I highly recommend these two docs: “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” about the women’s peace movement and “An Uncivil War” that was done in part by Tim Hetherington, the photojournalist that was recently killed in Libya, who was embedded with different rebel factions during the fourteen year war.  While all of this can seem a bit intense, it is because it is.  Maybe that is an apt response to the "what does it mean: question proposed: post-conflict = intense.  But it also means hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  It also means amazingly strong and resilient Liberians that are fighting the peaceful fight for a better future and a better Liberia.  The people most invested in ensuring peace, are the very ones who experience the wretches of war.  The Liberians I have met so far are amazingly hopeful and optimistic, attributes that I think make the story of Liberia all the more compelling.