Liberia (Part 1): The origin of Africa's "Little America", the tragedy of a man-made state

Located in west Africa, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, Liberia covers an area of 110,000 square kilometers and has a population of about 4.9 million. The country is poor, with an unemployment rate of 85 percent and fried rice and bread at weddings. Considered a rich man.0 But apart from poverty, Liberia is very similar to the United States in other respects, hence the title of "Little America of Africa". What is the relationship between Liberia and the United States?

In 1467, the Portuguese first discovered Libya, which was called the Pepper Coast because of its abundant pepper, and because Europeans called pepper the food of paradise, it was renamed the Grain Coast over time. But Europeans don't just do serious business. They did a lot of illegal business, such as the slave trade to the United States. By the end of the 18th century, the United States was independent, and a large number of slaves were liberated and regained their freedom. But at that time, there were too many black people in the United States, and the economy was not so developed, so there were two voices in the United States. One is that blacks are Americans and should stay in the United States, and one is that blacks are forced to come to the United States from Africa and should be sent back to their hometowns. On the surface, it looks grand, but in fact, both factions have their own small calculations. The left-behind believed that blacks could be groomed to be good industrial workers, that blacks could do twice as much work as whites for cabbage, while repatriations believed that there were too many blacks, crowding out white jobs, and it was best to go back wherever they came from.

In the end, repatriation prevailed. But it would take a lot of boats to send so many blacks away. Who pays? There is a U.S. congressman named Coofi. He proposed sending African Americans to Sierra Leone in West Africa and then shipping back some local produce to offset the cost. In 1816, Sufi organized a fleet of 38 black men who wanted to return to Africa and crossed the ocean to Sierra Leone. But before he could load the souvenirs on board, she contracted the plague and died the following year. It's cool, but someone has to execute his plan. A member of Congress named Miles stepped forward. He approached the Scottish Presbyterian Church in the hope of support. The Presbyterian Church also had a small plan. He believed that most black Americans were Catholic so that they could return to Africa to develop more Christians. So the two sides hit it off. At the end of December, American abolitionists formed the so-called American Colonization Association in Washington, D.C., with the intention of helping hundreds of thousands of blacks return to Africa and avoid being bullied by whites in the United States. As for success.

Many Americans don't want to donate. After years of busy work, they only raised $50,000, which wasn't enough food. Or did President Madison set aside $100,000 in public funds to shed some of the richest people with slaves in their homes? Just after the New Year of 1820, the Elizabeth sailboat returned to Africa with 88 black people, but it was not long before 25 people, including 3 black people, died of yellow fever. But no amount of difficulty can stop the enthusiasm of white Americans to help blacks return to their African homeland. In December 1821, another group of ships went to sea. This group of people is much more brutal. American Lieutenant General Stoker pointed a gun at the forehead of the tribal chief.

Chief Be sold him an island of 100 square kilometers for only a few quilts and tattered guns, and it was more than $300 plus a piece. Later, the desert island, called Shefjord, became the first home of more than 300 African-Americans, Liberia, now the capital of Stoke, Monrovia. Cheated an island, other films also followed, the name of the black settlement, in fact, is robbery and tossing. When the money was about the same, U.S. President Monroe allocated $100,000 to these people to help black people. But the United States is only concerned with repatriating blacks here, and there are a lot of blacks there. Who will protect their interests? Thus, indigenous blacks and black people from afar began to struggle, and the so-called American Colonial Society was criticized as a new era of colonial robbers. There is no way out. The United States had to cut money to repatriate blacks. But problems always have to be solved. Seeing two groups of blacks fighting, a well-meaning American said, "If you don't fight, you won't get married."

Let's live together. At the same time, the UK also noticed the place and wanted to be a part of it. The United States cannot wait any longer. On July 26, 1847, the Colonial Society declared the Black Homeland a victory for the people and designated it Liberia, meaning freedom and liberation. However, the formation of colonial associations had nothing to do with freedom and liberation. They just planted their own flags in Africa in order to build a British flag first. Speaking of the flag, Liberia is fully committed to imitating the Founding Father of the United States. The upper left corner of the American flag has 50 white-red pointed stars, representing 50 states, while the upper left corner of the Liberian flag has only one white five-pointed star. From this point of view, Liberia is like a state of the United States, an uncompromising imperialist man-made state. After that, some slaves were sent from various States in the United States. Over the past 50 years, the American Colonial Society has sent 16,000 blacks, whom they are known as every Liberian. These black people who drank American foreign ink decided to fully beautify Libya.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the military, defense, cultural, and economic systems are the same as those of the United States. In this way, Liberia has become almost a small America in Africa. Although Liberia is a black African country, the black people who control the country have no sense of national interest. In order to hold the thighs of the American father, the government constantly betrayed the national interest. For example, the American Company of Firestone Tires leases 4% of Liberia's land to grow rubber. The cost is only $5 million, but the lease is up to 100 years. In Liberia, 15,000 black Italians administer 750,000 local blacks, and the natives have no say. Americans spoke English, maintained a way of life in the American South, controlled estuaries, enjoyed educational resources, and used native blacks as slaves. Because both the oppressors and the oppressed were black and no one accused them of racial discrimination, secret colonial rule in Liberia continued until the late 1970s. In 1979, Liberian President Robert Tolbert announced that rice prices would rise by 50 percent.

The bloody demonstrations that suppressed the local blacks made the local blacks who had been oppressed for more than a hundred years intolerable. A sergeant major named Samir Doey, however, had more than a dozen men storm the presidential palace and kill the president and a large number of senior government officials. U.S. rule in Liberia finally came to an end, and the tribal native Hadoi became the dictator of the republic. On the American side, whether you are Of African Descent or Indigenous African American, as long as you are willing to be my brother, you cannot be indebted. As soon as he failed his boss's expectations, he opened up the port territory to loyal opposition Soviet troops, allowing U.S. troops to station and establish bases. In 1984, under the persuasion of the United States, TOEIC forged a democratic election. Before the election, he sent troops to arrest all the main opponents and killed many protesters. More than one cruel rule made the indigenous blacks increasingly dissatisfied. Dododo's former comrades led an army to rebel, but soon Dodo suppressed the uprising and slaughtered his own tribe. By the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union was in full retreat and it was cold.

But it's basically over. At this time, it is not so important to have more pairs of Americans. In late 1989, an armed force called the Libyan National Patriotic Front (IRA) beat Liberia to death from Côte d'Ivoire. Its leader is Charles Taylor, who was once a dubious partner. He was later wanted for embezzling $1 million. Now he's back for revenge. Neither this Taylor nor Doe are good people. Wherever their soldiers and horses went, they burned and looted those who were suspicious and supportive of each other. Soon, half of Liberians left their homes and became refugees. The diamond in the film is based on Taylor. To get more ammunition, he targeted diamonds in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone was fighting a civil war, so Taylor supported a rebel in Sierra Leone, while he imported cheap arms from Eastern Europe, exchanged diamonds with Sierra Leonean rebels, and then exported diamonds to make a lot of money. This evil activity of bloody diamonds has turned West Africa into a huge arms market and killing fields in order to combat it.

In the struggle of the opposition, Taylor grabbed young people running through the streets and was understaffed. He even arrested the children to make up the numbers and injected them with drugs to keep fighting. However, it was such a brutal dictator who was elected President of Liberia in 1997. Of course, the people chose it because they had long been afraid of and disgusted with it. In 2003, a rebellion broke out in Libya against Taylor, and West African peacekeepers joined the fight against Taylor. Coupled with the fact that my own father, the United States, had long wanted to draw a clear line with Taylor, so he was hinted at taking the initiative to step down. Under various pressures, Taylor was forced to resign. After several trials, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison on September 26, 2013. Later, the United Nations peacekeeping force took over Liberia, disarmed the various factions, and the political situation in Libya gradually calmed down. Liberia today remains extremely poor. Instead of bringing this tiny African-American to prosperity, the American model has brought humiliation and suffering to the country. Next time, Liberia.

However, suffering from war, a world-famous football star was born in this war-torn poor country. Before Taylor's downfall, his position among the populace threatened president Taylor. The king of world football is also the current president of Liberia. From the soccer king to the president, his story is more legendary than the movie.