26/07/2024
A Radical Agenda for Re-imagining Liberia
National Oration by Dr. Robtel Neajai Pailey
177th Independence Day Celebration, Republic of Liberia July 26, 2024
[SALUTATIONS; ALL PROTOCOLS OBSERVED]
As someone who loves this country with every fiber of my being, I feel very honored and privileged to address you today.
When I think of Liberia’s birth as a nation, I often picture fists of all shapes and sizes raised in the air [like this]. Because our declaration of independence on July 26, 1847 was a revolutionary act of defiance.
Back then, when blackness was synonymous with bo***ge, we Liberians dared to be free. Inspired by our Haitian sisters and brothers, who had led the first successful slave revolt in history, we dared to reclaim black personhood. Decades later, when our beloved continent was being carved up in the European ‘scramble for Africa’, swallowed whole by colonialism, we dared to be sovereign.
In fact, our very existence as Africa’s first black republic inspired a “race benighted”. Lest we forget, our declaration of defiance happened nearly a century before independence movements began in earnest across this continent. So, Liberia’s Independence Day should be called In Defiance Day, because 177 years ago, our foremothers and fathers defied the odds.
They attempted to prove that black self-rule was not only possible, but also undeniable. They embraced black internationalism long before this form of solidarity became an act of resistance. Our amalgam of identities and cultures— West African, West Indian/Caribbean, Central African, and North American— was a radical affirmation of Africa meeting its diasporas. This exceptional legacy is our destiny.
Yet, when we talk about ourselves today, in the narratives that we pass down from one generation to another, we tend to forget about the magnitude of 1847. We forget that this “glorious land of liberty” was founded on abolitionist principles. We forget that dignity once defined us.
Somehow, somewhere, someway, we lost touch with our common humanity. We created citizenship tiers based on ethnicity, class, gender, religion and race. We mortgaged our resources to the highest bidder. We placed profit before people and planet. We silenced and suppressed dissent. We mistook autocracy for democracy. We failed to preserve and protect the cultural, artistic and scholarly traditions that fill our hearts, enliven our souls and sharpen our minds. We fought brutal, protracted wars that left death and destruction in their wake. And in the aftermath of such carnage, we achieved ‘negative peace’, the absence of direct physical violence, when we should have pursued ‘positive peace’, the absence of ‘structural violence’.
Understandably, for many, July 26th symbolizes not defiance but defeat. Not rupture and regeneration but regression and retreat. Not inclusion but exclusion. Not cooperation but contestation.
From 1847 onwards, our negotiations over land ownership, political participation, identity, and belonging yielded both productive and destructive outcomes. Our nearly two-century-old history as a nation exposed both collaborative and combative elements of who we are.
Despite adopting a Unification and Integration Policy one century after independence, we never actually united against a common, existential threat until the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016. For the first time, in that moment, instead of attacking each other, we stepped into our collective purpose and showed that “in union strong, success is sure, we cannot fail”. We proved that what started out as a 19th century experiment in black self-determination had grown into something larger than we could ever have imagined.
In this, our 177th year, I urge us to re-imagine what it means to be “one nation indivisible”. Oh, how “sweet” this country could be if we only rebuilt it for all of us to enjoy. We must believe that there is sufficient space to accommodate our differences and our shared experiences. That there are enough resources to supply our basic needs and cultivate our God-given talents. And, so, we must narrow wide gaps between the poor and prosperous, the powerless and powerful, women and men, girls and boys, young and old, rural and urban, domestic and diasporic.
Every 26th should be a time of national reflection and reckoning: have we dared to be defiant in the previous year? Have we treated each other with civility rather than cruelty? Have we upheld high standards of accountability [including respecting time]? Have we reduced inequality and redistributed wealth to enable everyone to thrive, not just merely survive? Have we developed functioning systems that will outlive us? Have we taken full responsibility for our socio- economic transformation?
My challenge to us on this IN DEFIANCE DAY is to BUILD BACK BETTER. My challenge to us on this IN DEFIANCE DAY is to BUILD BACK DIFFERENTLY.
I have travelled the length and breadth of Liberia’s 15 counties and the 16th county of our diaspora, and one
