Liberia has been tugging at my heart since I left that country nearly two decades ago. But lately, I have been thinking about returning home to Liberia with greater frequency than ever before. These thoughts have been the mark of a painful search for the complex strands that have linked me so profoundly to my homeland. I have been thinking about how the war scattered us all over the world. I have been thinking about the many multitudes of dreams that the war shattered. I have been thinking about Liberians being forced to return home to a land that they love so dearly, and yet still must even have second thoughts because they have formed roots in another land – their children, investments, invisible and subtle linkages to their place of refuge and so forth.
So too, have I been thinking about the powerful men and women that used their power ruthlessly to damn many Liberians to a disgraceful life of displacement and second class existence in continents from Western and Eastern Europe to Asia, Latin America to Africa and North America to the Arab world. I have talked to friends who have visited Liberia and returned and this deep longing for returning home only overwhelms me at each interval. There is a vacant lot inside me. I have not been able to fulfill this yearning since I took the flight that landed me in Tulsa Oklahoma nearly 20 years ago, where I begun my story of refuge.
A Sense of Imprisonment
There are days that the only thing that I feel is a
sense of being in prison and wanting to catch a glance
of freedom. The way that I feel is like a lump in my
stomach and a sickness of despair; and it sometimes
anguishes and angers me. It is not that I am angry at
a person, but there is a deep longing that just cannot
be satisfied. There is something in Liberia and in being
Liberian that keeps me lusting after my homeland. Liberia
needs me and I need Liberia even more, to be fully human
again. I am re-searching for my Liberian identity that
suffered a gash years ago when I was forced by instability
and warfare to leave and to stay away for so many years.
I do not belong to any other nation, but Liberia, and
I am having a hard time fulfilling my desire to reunite
with my homeland.
Unease of Abandoning the Ties to Refuge
I have gotten older and put some sticks in the ground,
had children, and cannot just abandon these obligations
without immense consequences. But I know that America
is not Liberia and will never be Liberia. There is no
day that goes by that something does not happen to remind
me that I am not an American. Those who tore up my roots
to Liberia and have caused me so much of a craving have
yet not realized the costs of their crude actions. I
see them in public spaces every day through the mind
eyes. No pain is more acute than having a dream that
puts me back in Yekepa where I grew up or Ganta, my
hometown with childhood friends talking about the things
that we wanted to do when we grew old.
There are some of us who might even be feeling that we have achieved a place in the tedious and repetitive life that brings a level of material satisfaction that is relatively less gruesome. But perhaps it is even more painful to realize that the dose of reality – that you are not an American; a real American comes flashing when a person with less than stellar credentials screams in your face – “This is my country and not yours.” All it does is to pull the rug from underneath you. You fight so hard to hold on, and then convince yourself that it will be over one day, when you can go home again. And being home will give my life the meaning that being displaced has taken away from me.
Deep Yearnings
I wake up confused with a heavy heart and a wound so
deep that all I can do is toss and turn many times.
My family tells me that the nightmare can become so
real that I talk to myself. Perhaps, it is this deep
ache and yearning that cannot stop me from seeking solutions
to our problems or expressing my disappointment at those
who think that they still must continue on the self-indulgent
pathways that caused the level of suffering that many
of us feel. I have also often wondered about the naïve
anticipation of my brothers and sisters who often call
wanting me to help them come to America.
No amount of telling them that they need to at least complete college before even considering the idea of coming to America. And their reply is often a sense of disappointment that I am so strong in my determination that they come prepared to endure the sense of not belonging to America that being here delivers. It is a dull life, I try to tell them. You do the same thing over and over and again, and even if you are tired of it, you have to do it repeatedly because your survival hinges upon it. Those of us here only wish that we had the Liberia of old and the many things that we failed to appreciate then.
Would going back home restore the craving for my homeland that I feel? Is there a place for me in my homeland? When I return home, would the exhaustion that I feel everyday in refuge be replaced by strength to serve my fellow Liberians? While at home, would my sense of self be humbled by a refuge experience that has rendered me a second class person to give, rather than take away for selfish purposes as others have done in the past? Would I be one that diminishes the efforts of others measuring it by false yardsticks that make no allotments fro the textures of their lived experiences in war? What would convince me that Liberia is not dead, that it has vitality and it might just take my sense of pride in it to revive the resources that predators have depleted, thus rendering it a collapsed state? Could it be that the turmoil and confusion that is going on inside me is a matter of a voice seeking to reinvigorate and spur a new vision for reconstructing Liberia?
Overcoming Setbacks
Why should I be angry at those Liberians who placed
us in exile? Yes! We faced a setback or series of setbacks
from the founding era to the Doe and Taylor eras. Personal
bickering and self-seeking aims overwhelmed some of
our elders and these lopsided ambitions; we could not
stop from endangering the state. There will always be
Liberians dripping wet with the false sense of themselves
and sinister in their wickedness and bigotry against
others; using those as backdrops for wanting to spike
conflict. We cannot liberate those kinds of people from
their decadence. What we have control over is challenging
their narrow-mindedness with a stronger belief in Liberia
to bounce back and give us the meaning that they robbed
us of. The most critical step that each Liberian citizen
or anyone who loves Liberia can take is to stand firm
and demonstrate their faith in Liberia and its rebirth.
In each Liberian or friend of Liberia, I want to look
and find a love for Liberia and an accompanying moral
fiber so strong enough that it can break the chains
of self-affliction and in some cases, self-hate that
has caused us so much pain and agony.
Conclusions
What is it that has caused me so much misery since I
left my homeland? Yes! I want to be back on the soil
that is physically called Liberia. But it is more than
that. The place called America is a physical space where
I have settled and gained assets that my own country
was unable to give me. My quality of life has improved
since leaving Liberia, but all that do not compare to
what being home could deliver. Nonetheless, my humanity
might just be feeling out of alignment because something
irreplaceable was cut out of my existence when I was
forced to leave Liberia. That imbalance is explained
in part by many events, which occurred since I left
Liberia. I have been unable to see my father for over
18 years. I could not be by my mother’s bedside
as she was dying and could not bury her. I was unable
to bury my brother and sister who died during the war.
I lost many childhood friends to the war and have no
idea how they were buried. I still walk around naming
names of people who have been dead, until someone says,
they died several years ago. Some professionals call
it closure – putting a psychological lid on one’s
agonizing past. Many of us have yet to experience closure
and will remain haunted by it until we made the rounds
full circle.