When Savior Comes
By Tarty Teh

I have worked with a number of Liberians in organizational leadership positions. And it is my sad experience that when we agreed on something, they never really thought they would be required to live by that agreement. I was perhaps naïve to think that they would carry out the terms of the agreement. As a result, I found myself fighting people over procedural matters which had moral implications.

Most times when we change leadership in Africa, there is built-in vengeance which often takes the form of freelance violence that is easily and perhaps glibly explained – although not so easily justified – in human terms. Of course there will be excesses if you allow a husband to avenge the rape of his wife, or a son to retaliate for the murder of his mother. These emotions are not peculiar to Africans – they are human in nature. A civilized nation is one that fully contemplates such emotions and has devised some means for handling them. The laws are the means.

We can debate all we want about whether a punishment fits a particular crime. But more often than not, there is no such thing as a perfect fit in the dispensation of justice for crimes. We must therefore settle for a decent attempt at settling the scores, because complete justice is almost impossible. If, for instance, someone stole your 18-cent ballpoint pen during a four-hour bus trip, you might get compensated only for the cost of the pen and what punitive damage a court might deem necessary against the thief. But talk all you want about your lost chance to start a novel during the trip because you could not jot down the childhood memories that came rushing through your head as the bus passed places you once walked as a child. You will not get what would be the true, and therefore just, value of the lost opportunity.

Simply put, memories are priceless. But anyone who steals a 20-cent item is probably not worth much more. Should we, therefore, make laws that would let you kill the offender for the stupid theft? No. There is no moral imperative for yielding to such demand. And even if the punishment met the demand for judicial exactness, such correction would still run counter to human sensibility. Anger subsides soon enough, but death cannot be corrected.

We cannot keep on making laws in anticipation – and for the total prevention – of all crimes. We can make sensible laws and count on the common sense of judges to apply the law with the necessary doses of wisdom. But as crooks test the limits of the laws, we strengthen the laws by removing the weaknesses, and then wait for the detection of new loopholes.

President Charles Taylor has given us an opportunity to test the Liberian Constitution. If Taylor is not a good enough reason for applying the provisions of the Constitution which empower the people to remove a leader who is dangerous to their lives, then we must admit to ourselves that we are cowards. I say this because I believe no one will ever abuse us the way President Taylor has abused us and continues to abuse us.

If we do not remove President Taylor then from now on we cannot complain about any person or president who has not surpassed Taylor’s mark of 220,000 killed in the pursuit of his personal glory. Taylor’s level of destruction will then become the new threshold for tolerance of abuse. I say we cannot afford it. But we can afford to get rid of President Charles Taylor, not only because we have reasons to hate him but because the Liberian Constitution gives us the right and the option of setting ourselves free of a president who has respect for neither the people nor the Constitution.

President Taylor is only a current problem. We have problems ahead. As I said earlier, we must agree – now – on what to do when we remove Taylor. Without any such agreement, we will have another big problem if someone removes President Taylor by violent means. Any violence that works against President Taylor will likely find some rationalized use against us. On top of that, we will be indebted to the next vengeful killer, comparatively speaking. But we deserve more than a choice between magnitudes of death.

Some of you have heard about what one engaging Liberian speaker referred to at a recent Liberian conference as "The Teh Model." Well, if calling it "The Teh Model" renders it more interesting (if not more familiar) for some people, I’m all for it. Otherwise, it’s in the Liberian Constitution. If the president has abused his authorities he should be removed and replaced by the next in line. That’s what the Constitution says. The Constitution didn’t say we should kill the president. Unless, of course, we convicted him of a crime for which the punishment was death.

So let’s get it straight. We have a vice president, Mr. Enoch Dogolea, who was elected with President Taylor in the 1997 elections. Vice President Dogolea is the person who is next in line. I don’t like the man, but the Constitution didn’t say that someone should ask me before the next person took the position called for in the Constitution.

I am simply calling for what would otherwise be the obvious. But the only thing that is obvious about transition in Africa is chaos. I am trying to help in avoiding chaos at least this once. My fear though is that someone will drive President Taylor out of office and look to us to regard him as our savior for stopping Taylor. There is a good chance that we will be consumed by euphoria and will, therefore, grant that person’s wish that we should regard him as our redeemer.

However, what will one redeemer achieve which a Council of Redeemers hadn’t tried? Lately, saviors have been very expensive. So let’s save ourselves this time. Remove the current and last savior, President Charles Taylor of Liberia. How? Let’s agree to use the Constitution. If it doesn’t work, then we can leave the door open for the next redeemer and find a place to hide while we read the Constitution – again. – Tarty Teh [Washington, D.C., April 19, 2000]