LIBERIA: A BRIEF OUTLOOKGeographyLiberia is situated in the West coast of Africa surrounded Westwards and Southwards by the South Atlantic ocean, Northwards by Sierra Leone and Guinea, and Eastwards by Ivory Coast. It comprises a territory of around 110.000 km2 and shares with most of central Sub-Saharan countries a tropical climate that provides high temperatures and humidity throughout most of the year.

However, being in this part of the world also means that there are certain natural hazards such as the Harmattan, a West African trade wind which, from November until the middle of March, blows from the south of the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea. The Harmattan can cause several economic and also health problems, such as a great number of diverted flights, loss of crops and increasing of meningitis cases. It is a very dry wind, and in combination with tropical monsoons it can cause severe problems due to the great drop in humidity, and thats why around 30 km of land had to be irrigated in 2003.

Liberia also houses a great part of the remaining tropical rainforest in the Earth, which are also endangered due to the harmattan but above all because human development in this part of the world which produces problems such as industrial deforestation and the pollution of coastal lines.

The human population of Liberia is formed by sixteen main indigenous ethnic groups, being the Kpelle the biggest group, and roughly a 5% of the population is formed by Americo-Liberians and Caribbean immigrants. Liberia has the third highest population growth rate according to the United Nations World Population Prospects.

HistoryThe republic of Liberia was founded as an independent state in 1847 by a political majority of African- American colonists. However, the territory of this new state was already inhabited by indigenous people who in fact comprised the 95% of the population. European explorers found that this was an inhabited part of the world already in the XV century and founded some trade post there although there was not a great deal of communication between Europeans and Indigenous inhabitants. However, between 1821 and 1847 the Americans, through the American Colonization Society, decided to create a new colony there in order to give land to freed african slaves in a similar way as the british in the colony of Freetown, in nowadays Sierra Leone.

Although the name of the country could makes us believe that the ideas leading to its creation were all positive and human, the main ideology behind this kind of efforts is nearer to Thomas Jefferson idea of the black person as inferior and negative to the development of the new United States of America. This ideology, united to the great disregard to the indigenous population of the territories comprised by the new colony which where occupied by conquest or economic deals, is the source for many of the problems that the Republic of Liberia suffers:

First, the indigenous people and the new African-American colonist did not share the same religion, languages and background, after all, most of the black americans have not even been born in the continent. The African-American brought with themselves an American way of thinking that maintained the beliefs in the necessity of Catholicism and Civilization.

Moreover, the change from White rule under the American Colonization Society to African-American was brusque and due to the economic bankrupt of the society rather than to the African-American capabilities to sustain an independent government.

Beliefs The beliefs of Liberian people are heavily influenced by the American background of the African- American elites that maintained (and still maintain in a great degree) the cultural and political institutions of the country.

Although the indigenous people had various religious beliefs when the colonization started, ranging from muslims to native tribal beliefs, the majority of the population is nowadays catholic due to the conversion policies taken during colonization. The African-American elites share with the americans a concept of civilization that included catholicism as its first tenet, and so the natives where forced ideologically to change their religion.

However, there are still muslims in the country and some rural tribes still maintain old beliefs, forming between them almost the 14% of the population.

In politics, the tradition since the colonization has also maintained much of the values and institutions that where present in America at the time of the colonization, and Liberian politics have pretty much traditionally imitated the changes and ideas of the United States.

However, since 1980 Liberia has suffered continuous transitions between military and transitional governments imposed by the United Nations. The ethnic approach of some politics such as Samuel K. Does has led to dangerous tensions in the population and hostilities between traditionally opposed ethnic groups which united to the decline of living standards since 1970 has led to a common sense of distrust to politics, arising extremist parties and military factions and even two civil wars in 1989 and 1999

CultureEducation in Liberia has commonly been high compared to other African countries, although it has severely decreased after the two civil wars. The decent literacy rates that this implies has allowed Liberian culture to grow greatly, specially in the golden years of the sixties. The indigenous oral tradition united to the literary tradition that follows occidental values on education has permitted the creation of a culture that is wholly Liberian in the sense that it combines these elements to create a singular and autonomous culture. In food for example the Liberian cuisine mix ingredients that are typical of this part of Africa, such as the cassava and okra, with others taken from American culture, such as the potatoes. Clothing is another cultural trait that has evolved from a huge distinction between the African-American elites which copied clothes used in the USA and the indigenous tribal clothing, to more mixed tendencies. Specially since African awareness in the 50s and 60s, in which many African-American throughout the world started using clothes that reinforced themselves as Africans.

In music, there is a great number of styles. In one hand there are several indigenous kinds of music, even inside same ethnic groups, and in the other there have been more occidental sounds since the arrival of the colonizers, and specially since the 50s and 60s where musical fusion started to enhance its possibilities in genres such as jazz and rock, creating wholly Liberian popular music genres such as the HIP-CO.

This can also applied to visual arts, where Liberia has produced important works such as the cotton silk works of Ann Ricks and the indigenous ceremonial craft works.

LiteratureAs in every culture, there has always been a huge oral tradition in Liberia but an important written literary tradition did not really appear in Liberia until the 19th century, being Edward Wilmot Blyden its most famous author.

Edward Wilmot Blyden was actually born in the US Virgin Islands and lived in another former colony of American-African founded by the british, Freetown, Sierra Leone. He wrote several articles for African newspapers, including a famous column in the Liberia Herald (edited by himself) called A Voice from Bleeding Africa. As professor of Greek and Latin at Liberia College he had a knowledge of the classic occidental canon and also politics as Secretary of the State and Minister of the Interior.

Still regarded by many as the father of pan-africanism his most known work is Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, centered on the development of Africa through the lenses of race and religion.

In novel, the best known work from Liberia is Murder in the Cassava Patch, written by Bai T. Moore. Seemingly centered in the death of the lover of the protagonist, this short novel deals however with most general themes, specially the clash between indigenous tradition and the occidental materialist culture. Full of humanism, the novel is not a simple anti-occidental pamphlet, but rather a heterogeneous vision of people in times that are changing. Prejudice, slavery and moral missbehaviour are not a product of a specific culture but rather human (universal) traits.

Another novel and short story writer is Wilton G.S. Sankawulo, also a college professor, who published during the 70's collection of stories and novels that were very famous at that time. His first novel, and one the most famous, is The Rain and the Night. The main interest in this novel is in the fact that it is wholly centered in the story of two confronted african tribes, without any interference, beyond small references, of western people.

However, his best known novel is Sundown at Dawn: A liberian odyssey. Here the title itself (odyssey) suggest a reference to western culture, and it is so because it deals with themes that are nearer to postcolonial authors, specially the conflicts arising through the contact of western and african worlds. This clash of cultures is reflected allegorically in the changes of name that the main character undergoes through the novel which reflect the different stages of his life as representative of the African world under colonization.

In poetry we can find also great Liberian authors such as Roland Tombekai Dempster who wrote several poems, being Africa's Plea his most famous work. In Africa's plea, the author deals with the problem faced by colonized africans in order to achieve independence, not only political, but psychological and cultural:

'If I were you'

but you know

I am not you,

Yet you will not

Let me be me