The historical reality is that from its inception, the Liberian state was built on brutality and exploitation, all in a crusade of politics as means of personal wealth. Thus, Liberia has always been a state erected on the pillars of Tammany Hall politics, rewarding its adherents with beastly power and therefore material wealth in a sea of poverty and illiteracy. The novelist Graham Greene noted this during a visit to this enclave of primitivism sold as civilization. Almost every other man is a lawyer and every other man politicianCorruption does not make for simplicity as might be supposed. Nothing has changed since then, only that these values are now more cemented than imagined.
Ideas are offensive.
Look, I am no Angel of Death and I am going to prove it in this town. Matthews, now a Taylor-appointed PR officer for the Malaysian timber company Oriental Timber Company accused of indiscriminate deforestation, was only saved by West African troops who ferried him into hiding as the warlord's child soldiers looted his home, wearing his underpants and daring him to show head out. In the past, fighters would rip out people's intestines and use them to string up roadblocks, or cut off people's heads. Tens of thousands jumped on leaking boats for refugee camps to leave the city to the Angels of Death, with the Archangel Taylor in command. But the ruthless contest over the state and its meagre resources has left most elite families incapacitated and in the wilderness of despair.