This article is an attempt to contribute to how Liberians philosophize.  Liberia has had many of its own people who study Philosophy as their way of life, or for professional purposes.   I am not one of them.  With their knowledge, I have not read any philosophy books - not just a book that discusses philosophy as an area of scholarly inquiry - but a philosophy that helps us live and survive.  What I am doing here is simply laying the groundwork for others who might want to develop a philosophical model or framework for Liberia as an African nation-state and as a society.

            Liberian philosophy begins in our responsibility and accountability to each other, to the society, and to humanity.  In 1847, as a result of our independence from the “slave masters” (American Colonization Society), we adopted a form of government that would demonstrate to the world our sovereignty and humanness.   At the time, some white slave owners in the United States, and colonizers from Europe, such as England, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Portugal, doubted that peoples of African descent could govern themselves in a democratic political system.  By then, most of our African sisters and brothers were under colonial control in one form or another. 

Since 1847, our sense of vision, our commitment to human dignity, upholding African values, traditional customs, and individual human dignity that emanate out of mutual respect, have been ignored, if not dead.  (Mind you, I do realize that mutual respect begins in self-respect and self-love.   One cannot love another person when one doesn’t love oneself).   But the fact remains that today[1], nearly two hundred years since we claimed independence, we still lack basic mutual, and in some cases, self-respect.  

The crises in Liberia begin here – in this lack - and spread into corruption, greed, begging, stepchild mentality, and all sorts of vices creeping in and sucking out the nectar of our human pride, national pride, self-pride, and hard working abilities.  Liberian Philosophy then is something that engulfs and transcends academic scholarship, theory and practice.   It encompasses ideas, notions, views, and opinions, but also pragmatic activities, such as submitting to the rule of law, where everyone is equal before the law, including government officials.  It also means that everyone has to be vigilant against the current wave of armed robbery, mass killings, stealing, and robbing the country of its natural resources. 

Liberian Philosophy encompasses a new way of perceiving, concentrating, thinking, figuring out those things that set us back; things that we don’t think about, people we know but don’t want to deal with, and the “Suanvene” or “big shark” mentality – all of these are things we should think about as we philosophize.   We should consider the good times and bad times in Liberia, outside Liberia - in Trenton, Newark, Atlanta, New York, Brooklyn Park, St. Paul, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Monrovia, Buchanan, Kakata, River Cess, Harper, etc. - everything we are, and everywhere we are, should be part of this Philosophy. 

Liberian Philosophy should lead us to engage in a cultural exegesis that begins with or that dialogues with our sense cultural pride, so as to create a distinction and conjecture - in the hope of recreating a process that incorporates a new way of life, as authentic, less dependant on our “former masters” and employing and applying more of our gifts and graces given us by God, by Allah, by the Ancestors.    

            Before the 1800s, the area we now call Liberia had intelligent, wise, civilized, thinking, and hard working people.  It is a big mistake on their part that the Americo-Liberian settlers chose not to wholeheartedly embrace our Native peoples’ ways of life.  The claim that Native ways of life were “uncivilized,” unchristian,” “unIslam" and “heathen,” is not only ignorant, but pure fallacy.  This historical propaganda is also an attempt to create classicism and sectionalism.  As such, the settlers (Americo-Liberians) who came back from the United States, thought that the coastal areas they had settled on would be their masters’ plantations outside the United States.  And, in an attempt to make this “Master – Slave relationship,” possible and plausible, they perpetuated class as the norm, and totally refused to develop and respect African (Natives’) ways of life in Liberia.  

Many countries around the world – Thailand, China, Singapore, among others – did not neglect their native culture over the foreign ways of life that came.  In Liberia, and with the Americo-Liberians, we could only be another America in Africa, before being the African nation in Africa that we really are.   Oh what a sadness!  Yes, is this madness?  By this failure of the Americo-Liberian dominant settler group to develop the “Native People” culture, and by describing and condemning as “Satanic,” “uncivilized,” “backward,” etc, anything outside this western (American) model, we almost lost an opportunity to be who we really are:  Africans in Africa, rather than Africans whose only ambition in life is to learn and adopt American ways and customs.  Anyway, this mistake is something many Liberians continue to overlook, and perpetuate, if not institutionalize. 

Liberian Philosophy recognizes this gross historical mistake and provides a solution that will lead us on.  Instead of developing Liberia along Western Philosophy-only basis, we can adopt transforming the political structure by building a state system, and decentralizing political authority.   Liberian Philosophy should not simply be a way of debunking the past, but also a way of building on the past to create a better future while we can.  The society we call Liberia has to be economically viable enough to feed and to protect its entire people – all who live in Liberia as well as in exile.  That might look like a tall order but it can be accomplished, it can be achieved.  

Some Liberians in exile who consider returning home need to return to a Liberia they can recognize as home, and where they too can contribute their expertise.  Liberians at home must learn to develop an open mind toward those people considered “other,” because they may not be “Christians” or “Muslims” or “Konkor.”  We have to develop a philosophy that embraces and erases.   We can embrace those aspects of life that parallel our own lifestyles, and we can erase those vices of America that we sometimes dearly cultivate.  I refuse to provide examples of vices we may borrow from America.  Just look around you, and you will tell. 

Someone else, not Liberians, after 160 years as an independent country, our laws, philosophy, history, theology, economy, culture, and even our thought process, etc., continues to define us.  We have never developed the consciousness, the will and the ability to define or redefine ourselves.   Look at our economy, how Lebanon, another unstable country in the world, controls it.  Liberian economy is the Lebanese economy.  We have not always defined ourselves, and so we do not govern ourselves.  Some people have also sold out, and therefore they in turn “sell” us, like Judas did Jesus Christ, for thirty pieces of silver, or like Brutus did to Caesar:  “Mon deh-ke Brutus,” (Et tu Brutus)?”

I remember Marcus Garvey and Liberia in the early 1920s.  I also remember the Blyden Days before that.  I also remember practical and realistic Liberians who cried and continue to cry out for us to be Africans again, to be Liberians first.   I consider many of these people to be among the many Liberian Philosophers in their own right, but we know little about them.  People like Albert Porte, William Gabriel Kpolleh, Chea Cheapoo, Abdullah M. Tunis, Bai T. Moore, Didho Twe, Wilton Sankawulo, Ruth Perry, Sheikh Kafumba Konneh, Wilhelmina Dukuly, Mai Roberts, Tonea Richardson, Annie Logan Early, Bennie D. Warner, Dinks Potter Summerville, Imam (Mr.) Sherrieff, Helen Summerville, Kate Juwle, Thomas Flo Darvin G. Lewis, Julius Bacchus Greaves, Philip V. Saywrane, D. Elwood Dunn, Mobotou Vlah Nyenpan, Thomas Du, Joanna E. Bropleh, Rev. Sepeidei Giahquee, Wiwi Debah, Nelson W. Setro, among others, I categorize as Liberian Philosophers.  

Some of them have written their ideas, while others have merely spoken their ideas.   Put together, their ideas, and the ideas of others not listed in this category, is unique in his or in her own right.  I remember these Liberians as “Philosophers” (some are more recent than others).  They taught, wrote, spoke, and fought for a Liberia that we all, (so called “Kongos” and “Natives”) can live in harmoniously, lovingly, nationally, consciously, willingly, curiously, as one people, one nation under God, under the Supreme Deity, under Allah, under and by the guidance of our Ancestors. 

In the 21^st century, we should start drawing out a philosophical framework that will carry us for the next 160 years.  What will Liberians 161 years from today (July 26, 2008), have to look up to?  Will they live in a desert, because our generation will have exploited all our limited mineral recourses, sold them to multinational corporations, under the guise of “national development?”    Are we even considering a future or are we just living from day-to-day?  Will we continue to buy “pussava” rice from America?  Will we be able to feed, heal/cure, and educate the nation?  Will we continue to beg the world for what we can produce and manufacture?  Will we continue to believe that we are “America’s Step-Child?”  Or will we continue to flourish as the Republic of Liberia?  These are all rhetorical questions, but each of us knows the answer, and we will answer them by what we do, and by how we live and relate to each other as Liberians from now onwards.  

            Liberian Philosophy should be focused on our common destiny as human beings living in our country, regardless of our blood and fraternal/sorority relations.  It should be defined by how we elect and select our leaders, not by the bullet, but by the ballot.   Nothing can go wrong in that direction, if people act equitably and justly.   It should also be that we help the government (any government), and our leaders, to succeed.  It should also be to respect ourselves enough so as to respect those who put us in authority, as well as those we put in authority.

Liberian Philosophy should include our family – external, extended, or not – our people, ethnic group, but we cannot limit our philosophy or interaction to only these relations.  We should transcend these relations and be able to embrace a common idea of our nationality, our people hood.  If we can work together; tolerate each other; live together as people, regardless of our religious beliefs, shortcomings, drawbacks, and regardless of our human frailties, we will be defining and living a Liberian Philosophy. 

Happy Independence 2008! Peace and blessings!

Pianapue Kept Early, a Liberian, teaches Theology and World Religion at Virginia Union University’s Proctor School of Theology.  He resides in Richmond & Charlottesville, Virginia.  His email address is:   Pkearly@vuu.edu.