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WASHINGTON, DC / The Washington Post / Arts & Living / Books / May 9, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
By Alexandra Fuller
THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT
Memoir of a Remarkable Life
by Africa's First Woman President
By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Harper. 353 pp. $26.99
The first thing to be said about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's "This Child Will be Great" is that it is exceptionally well written, a true story that seems as much a thriller as it does the remembrances of an ambitious and brave woman. The narrative begins in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in the ramshackle town of Monrovia, Liberia, with young Ellen and her family living in a "two-story concrete structure with cocoanut trees growing in the yard." It ends with Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration on Jan. 16, 2006, as Africa's first elected woman president in that same city, now, "the bruised and battered capital of a bruised and battered land."
The intervening years were unimaginably unkind to Liberia. By the time Johnson Sirleaf stood before her people and promised to uphold and defend the Constitution, the country had known nothing but corruption and brutality from its leaders for 26 years.
On April 12, 1980, a 28-year-old master sergeant named Samuel Doe killed President Tolbert in his bed and "went on television to address the nation . . . wearing his green army fatigues, an army cap, and sunglasses, with a grenade dangling from his pocket." Liberia was thrown into a period of surreal violence (the under-appreciated 2005 film "Lord of War" captures this mayhem superbly), which spilled over into the rest of West Africa, threatening to destabilize the entire region.
Courtesy: MapsOfWorld.com
Johnson Sirleaf enjoyed a generally happy childhood, in spite of one "Slumdog Millionaire" experience: "The toilet . . . , with its rough plank boards stationed around and above the hole in the ground, was less pleasant," she writes of the family's lavatory, "especially the time I fell inside." But those carefree days were cut short when her father suffered a stroke. This was one of several blows to befall the young woman, including marriage at age 17 to an abusive husband. Through it all, she refused to be a victim but took each insult and injury as a call to rely on her own strength.
Much later, when Doe's henchmen imprisoned the outspoken woman -- by now a prominent economist -- Johnson Sirleaf drew upon the same resilience to save her life. Arrested because of her unspoken criticism of Doe's regime, she found herself being driven to a notorious jail. "Prodding me with their fingers, the soldiers ordered me from the Jeep," she writes. "I turned and looked at [one soldier], straight into his eyes. I was trying to connect with him -- as a person, as a human being, as a woman old enough to be his mother or his aunt. I wanted him to really see me; for soldiers in a war, it is so easy not to see."
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
(born 29 October 1938) is the current President of Liberia
Johnson Sirleaf is candid and clear-eyed in apportioning blame for the collapse of her country, and there is plenty of blame to go around. She writes that "Doe got greedy and the people around him got greedy too, and collectively they began to feed off the state's largess like a pack of hyenas." President Ronald Reagan, seeing Liberia as an important cold War ally, propped up the murderous Doe for years, going so far as to invite him to the White House in 1982, where he was "warmly greeted by the president as 'Chairman Moe.' " Charles Taylor and Prince Johnson -- the two warlords who fought for supremacy in the void of Doe's corrupt leadership -- are described here as undisciplined, homicidal maniacs. Taylor, especially, is portrayed as a brutally efficient recruiter of child soldiers. His commanders gave boys as young as 9 drugs "to fuel their ferociousness. They gave them . . . guns and the permission to take whatever they wanted, and then sent them out to village and countryside to loot, rape, fight and kill."
Shockingly, Taylor -- when he wrested power in an obviously fraudulent election in July 1997 -- received support from former President Jimmy Carter who, according to Johnson Sirleaf, "went so far as to declare the process and resulting transformation of Liberia from a war-torn land to what he suggested was a functioning democracy 'almost a miracle.' "
This timely book, essential for anyone who hopes to understand West Africa in general and Liberia in particular, is a lesson in courage and perseverance. This reader finished it hoping that the rest of Africa's troubled nations will find their own versions of "Mama Sirleaf."
Alexandra Fuller's most recent book is "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant," out in paperback this month.
© Copyright 1996-2009 The Washington Post Company
THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT
Memoir of a Remarkable Life
by Africa's First Woman President
By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Harper. 353 pp. $26.99
The first thing to be said about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's "This Child Will be Great" is that it is exceptionally well written, a true story that seems as much a thriller as it does the remembrances of an ambitious and brave woman. The narrative begins in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in the ramshackle town of Monrovia, Liberia, with young Ellen and her family living in a "two-story concrete structure with cocoanut trees growing in the yard." It ends with Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration on Jan. 16, 2006, as Africa's first elected woman president in that same city, now, "the bruised and battered capital of a bruised and battered land."
The intervening years were unimaginably unkind to Liberia. By the time Johnson Sirleaf stood before her people and promised to uphold and defend the Constitution, the country had known nothing but corruption and brutality from its leaders for 26 years.
On April 12, 1980, a 28-year-old master sergeant named Samuel Doe killed President Tolbert in his bed and "went on television to address the nation . . . wearing his green army fatigues, an army cap, and sunglasses, with a grenade dangling from his pocket." Liberia was thrown into a period of surreal violence (the under-appreciated 2005 film "Lord of War" captures this mayhem superbly), which spilled over into the rest of West Africa, threatening to destabilize the entire region. Courtesy: MapsOfWorld.com
Johnson Sirleaf enjoyed a generally happy childhood, in spite of one "Slumdog Millionaire" experience: "The toilet . . . , with its rough plank boards stationed around and above the hole in the ground, was less pleasant," she writes of the family's lavatory, "especially the time I fell inside." But those carefree days were cut short when her father suffered a stroke. This was one of several blows to befall the young woman, including marriage at age 17 to an abusive husband. Through it all, she refused to be a victim but took each insult and injury as a call to rely on her own strength.
Much later, when Doe's henchmen imprisoned the outspoken woman -- by now a prominent economist -- Johnson Sirleaf drew upon the same resilience to save her life. Arrested because of her unspoken criticism of Doe's regime, she found herself being driven to a notorious jail. "Prodding me with their fingers, the soldiers ordered me from the Jeep," she writes. "I turned and looked at [one soldier], straight into his eyes. I was trying to connect with him -- as a person, as a human being, as a woman old enough to be his mother or his aunt. I wanted him to really see me; for soldiers in a war, it is so easy not to see."
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
(born 29 October 1938) is the current President of Liberia
Johnson Sirleaf is candid and clear-eyed in apportioning blame for the collapse of her country, and there is plenty of blame to go around. She writes that "Doe got greedy and the people around him got greedy too, and collectively they began to feed off the state's largess like a pack of hyenas." President Ronald Reagan, seeing Liberia as an important cold War ally, propped up the murderous Doe for years, going so far as to invite him to the White House in 1982, where he was "warmly greeted by the president as 'Chairman Moe.' " Charles Taylor and Prince Johnson -- the two warlords who fought for supremacy in the void of Doe's corrupt leadership -- are described here as undisciplined, homicidal maniacs. Taylor, especially, is portrayed as a brutally efficient recruiter of child soldiers. His commanders gave boys as young as 9 drugs "to fuel their ferociousness. They gave them . . . guns and the permission to take whatever they wanted, and then sent them out to village and countryside to loot, rape, fight and kill."
Shockingly, Taylor -- when he wrested power in an obviously fraudulent election in July 1997 -- received support from former President Jimmy Carter who, according to Johnson Sirleaf, "went so far as to declare the process and resulting transformation of Liberia from a war-torn land to what he suggested was a functioning democracy 'almost a miracle.' "
This timely book, essential for anyone who hopes to understand West Africa in general and Liberia in particular, is a lesson in courage and perseverance. This reader finished it hoping that the rest of Africa's troubled nations will find their own versions of "Mama Sirleaf."
Alexandra Fuller's most recent book is "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant," out in paperback this month.
© Copyright 1996-2009 The Washington Post Company
