The state of emergency is over in Liberia. After killing more than 10,000 people in West Africa, Ebola has faded. But that only means Liberians have one less burning emergency on their plate. The plate is far from empty. In fact, they still need a platter. Which is why, earlier this month, Liberia’s president called for a “Marshall Plan” for the long-suffering region, supported by the U.S. and Europe, modeled after the American contribution of aid to Europe after World War II.
We should listen, and we should help.
Why? Because this African nation, largely founded by freed American slaves, is a mirror of our own. Those founders wrote a Declaration of Independence. They created a constitution. They even designed a flag that looks much like ours. More Liberians have surnames like Adams and Clarke than African names like Mandela or Mugabe. They named their capital, Monrovia, after American president James Monroe.
We weren’t born into the richest lives on Earth because we’re smarter than everyone else. We were born in America simply because we’re lucky. Our own problems notwithstanding, we can afford to share some good fortune, especially with part of our own legacy.
I reported from Liberia near the end of devastating civil wars that lasted from 1989 to 2003. Since then, more has stayed the same than gotten better. That’s because in the wake of a war, international aid doesn’t immediately flow once the last gun is fired — especially for a nation like Liberia, which is not strategically significant. And even when aid finally does trickle in, reconstruction itself is years more in the planning. That’s why only now, 10 years after the war ended, they’re just beginning to fix the hydroelectric dam that once supplied everyone’s electricity but was destroyed in the fighting. So, most people still don’t have electricity. Which means, no power to pump water. Which means, no fresh water, either.
Or, for good measure, garbage removal, which makes the streets in this stiflingly hot place smelly. And they’re dangerous, because Liberia lacks resources to restore infrastructure. Potholes in the roads, few of them paved, are big enough to swallow an SUV. The roads are obstacle courses that could kill drivers at night, and sometimes do.
And jobs? In a nation once rich with rubber, gems and ore before it was raped and ravaged by warlords, lucky Liberians nowadays make maybe $1.50 a day, and most make nothing. Many of the jobless squat in the shells of war-torn buildings that haven’t been cleared, let alone replaced, living on cracked concrete, exposed to equatorial rain pouring through bullet-riddled roofs.
Finally, the children. Everywhere you look, you see homeless kids with no roof at all. And the half with homes have no schools to attend. Many still die from diseases we can cure in our own country with a pill.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told me near the start of her presidency, “We can make life here a model as it was meant to be.” It hasn’t happened. Most Liberians still live dirty, destitute existences, and in the dark. The Ebola epidemic just piled it on.
Liberians deserve credit for trying to dig themselves out. When they had their first free election, I saw people walk miles in bare feet to vote. They turned in their bullets for ballots. They re-established democracy by ending a war, not starting another. They deserve better.
But theirs is a rough place even in the best of times, and these aren’t. Those who survived the epidemic endure a living hell. Stopping Ebola, then fixing everything else, has been a colossal job, and it isn’t happening fast. What’s worse, international investors fled when Ebola started spreading. Now, if we don’t help, it won’t happen at all. Foreign aid isn’t popular in many quarters of the U.S., but in my book, foreign agony is even worse.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television’s “World Report.”
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
