Two news stories that caught my attention during the past few weeks were: "Government of Liberia, Firestone in talks on benefits for workers" (FPA, 08/05/2007). "On Mittal Steel, Liberty Party Addresses 'open letter to Government of Liberia' (FPA, 05/01/2007).

     I first want to applaud the Liberty Party for speaking out and alerting the Liberian people about potential labor issues associated with investors that cannot be ignored due to our desperation for investment. I also applaud the party for being proactive and farsighted in proposing possible solutions to these future labor issues. 

     For years, Firestone and other foreign companies have gotten rich off the sweat, blood, tears, and labor of the Liberian people, while almost all Liberians who have worked and still work for these companies have remained poor and uneducated. To add insult to injury, Firestone and other foreign companies have nothing significant to show the Liberian people from the billions they have generated in revenues and net profit over the last fifty plus years of operating and exploiting our people.

     Apologists and arrogant Euro-centric Liberians who believe that anything foreign/western is good for us, or anything that is proposed by a pale skin person must be a good idea or beneficial for us regardless of the consequences, are quick to point out that Firestone, LAMCO and lesser known foreign-owned or foreign-run companies have created jobs and educational opportunities for Liberians who would have never dreamed of such opportunities. 

     My questions to these Liberians are: How many Liberian millionaires grew out of these companies? How many mega Liberian businessmen or women can point to Firestone and other foreign companies for giving them opportunities to become mega business owners, or giving them a start to creating wealth for themselves and their nation?

     What technical skills and technologies have these companies transferred to Liberia? There is nothing of importance that I can immediately think of,  because Firestone workers are still using the same old method of rubber "tapping" as they did over fifty years ago. None of these companies have helped modernized our means of production or trade; instead are known to set up patterns of work based on a master, servant relationship and wealth transfer.   

     As Liberians and as Africans, we can no longer afford to be complacent, and cannot continue to accommodate foreign companies who are like predators out to destroy their weaker and defenseless preys. Due to the pace of global development and the interconnectedness of global trade, we must wake up, and wake up fast in order to learn the capitalist way of doing things for our own benefit.

     Liberian and African laborers continue to create wealth to benefit Europeans, Indians, Lebanese, and now the Chinese.  What about the Liberians? If we can't create wealth for ourselves, who the hell do we expect to create wealth for us? If we can't create opportunities for ourselves, who the hell do we expect to create opportunities for us? If we can't protect our people's interests, who the hell do we expect to protect their interests? 

     With revenues in the billions, millions of dollars in profit and over fifty years of exploitation of Liberia's natural resources – aided by their Liberian accomplices and agents- it is sad that workers of the Firestone plantation have remained trapped in poverty, and continue to work on Firestone's slave plantation with outdated modes of production.

     Walter Rodney stated in his book "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa", that "underdevelopment is not the absence of development, rather it is the "product of capitalist, imperialist, and colonialist exploitation." Development in Liberia, in my opinion is more than just the importation of luxury items, acting, thinking or behaving western, buying thirty thousand dollar cars, foreign bank accounts,  or photo copying and implementing foreign institutions that continue to fail us to this day, but gives us the allusion that we are "developing." 

     Development, my fellow Liberians, is about an opportunity to educate oneself without traveling half way across the world. Development, my fellow Liberians, is about social mobility of a majority of the people. Development is about wealth-building, and the equitable distribution of that wealth for the benefit of all, and not only the educated western trained elites or educated native elites. Development will only happen when Africans/Liberians can accept that we are capable of transforming and developing our own economies and natural resources through our own efforts, realizing that we have the capacity to create and manage great economies, because our forefathers did it. The Empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai all flourished in trade and commerce from the ninth century to the sixteenth centuries, before they made significant contact with the Europeans.

     I pray and hope that our leaders, with all their Master's degrees and PhDs, and western training will begin to put their training to real life situations in Liberia, and be more proactive in making economic decisions and creating economic policies to benefit our people. 

   With all the money Firestone and other foreign companies have made from exploiting our natural resources, how much of this wealth has been used to create wealth in Liberia? The millions of dollars in profit, Firestone, LAMCO and other foreign companies have made have not been used to strengthen the Liberian economy or empower the Liberian people economically. Instead, we have puppets perpetrating as leaders who are more concerned with enriching foreigners and serving their own selfish interest then the interest of their own people.

     In the name of investment, many African nations including Liberia have allowed foreigners to control our land, production, banks and other institutions as a result setting our people up to be sucked by these so called in investments opportunities. If our leaders don't put their greed aside and make sound economic decisions on foreign investments, our natural resources will continue to be exploited and exported by foreigners who make millions in profit, while most of Liberia's laborers who work for these so-called investors will remain trapped in poverty working as modern day slaves.

     As I've said before, we must be very careful about how we manage foreign investment in Liberia.  Let's not allow the lure of a few millions and Neo exploitation disguised as direct foreign investment to have us walking around with our eyes wide shut. We are not going to sit back and allow our leaders to lead us back to the same old things or the status quo. 

     Not everything that is foreign and especially European is for our benefit. Our former colonizers don't give a damn about our economic well-being, as long as their countries can benefit from our wealth or our chaos. We need to stop this vicious cycle of selling our natural resources to the highest bidder regardless of the conditions imposed by the bidders.