Pray The Devil Back To Hell

Pray The Devil Back To Hell

It's often been said that women would be better at running the world (or the country) than men, often said and more often scorned. The US in a coice between the first woman or first black President opted for the latter, despite the evidence that Hilary Clinton was almost certainly more experienced for the role of Commander In Chief. We have few women politicians, and certainly fewer good female politicians, but I do wonder what could happen in the world if women were in the primary positions of power. And let me be abundantly clear, I don't mean agenda-driven feminists, just real women. There have been many women's movements of the last century or so, but few that can say they've really made a significant difference. Let's look at one in particular, based in Liberia, West Africa.

Liberia has a population of 3 million people, the country founded in 1847 by freed American slaves whose descendants formed an elite class that dominated the more indigenous ethnic groups for nearly a century and a half. Rising tensions between these group escalated and finally broke out into civil war in 1989, and there followed a prolonged period of violence and casual brutality. By 2002 over 200,000 people had died and one in three persons had been displaced with no end to the conflict in sight.

And then something fantastic happened.

For a long time, entire families found themselves on the run from the fighting and the escalating rape and abuse from both the rebel and Governement forces, whilst also trying their utmost not to starve to death. Ordinary women who had tried to bring up their families during this chaos suddenly decided that they'd had enough. From humble and brutal beginnings, an amazing peace movement was born. Initially Christian based, it wasn't long before Muslim women began to help in the cause. Critics of the two religions working together were often told that bullets didn't distinguish between religions and so resistance to the movement began to fade. The start of the protest was a large group of women sitting in white t-shirts at a local market that just happened to be on the route that President Charles Taylor, a megalomaniacal dictator, travelled along every day. For a long time Taylor chose to ignore the women, but eventually he was forced to recognise them as the force they were. The movement also worked on the rebel side as well, pushing for peace talks when both sides just wanted to destroy each other. Besides the distinctive white t-shirts, the peace movement also encouraged a sex ban and it may well be the latter that had the most effect.

Eventually peace talks were organised to take place in Ghana, but despite the presence of both sides and a large number of the peace movement, neither the Liberian Government or the rebels seemed to be taking the talks seriously. The rebels in particular seemed to be treating it as a holiday, being in nice hotels and fed nice meals after their time in the jungles and woods. The women realised they had to raise the pressure or risk losing it all, so calling on local reinforcements they effectively barricaded the talks, causing a lot of disquiet amongst the men (but not the negotiators, who at this point were exasperated). An attempt to remove the women by force then inspired one of the women to take the most drastic action available to her as a women, she threatened to strip naked. Whilst this may seem trivial-ish to Western eyes, in Africa the sight of a naked mother in public is thought to be cursed and this one action finally focussed the attentions of all present and the negotiations continued to a natural conclusion.

The peace talks ended in 2004 with the result that Charles Taylor was voluntarily exiled to Nigeria and a transitional Governement was put into place with support from UN Peacekeeping forces, with many of the ex-rebel warlords being rewarded with positions of power. Whilst the latter was not something that the Peace movement approved of, they did approve of the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Liberia's first woman President on January 17, 2006.

The documentary of this very important story is called Pray The Devil Back To Hell and covers all of the events described above with interviews with a number of the women involved plus a number of the men involved. It's mainly the women's story, but some of the men help to put it into perspective by elaborating on how determined the women were and the effects of their actions on the male protagonists. One of the most pleasing things about this documentary is just how eloquent, polite and self-effacing these women are as well as fatalistic. They had no idea if they would actually make the breakthrough they were seeking, but they were going to try everything in their limited power to achieve it, little realising just how much power they really had in the end. And when you consider the cultures of some of these Afirican cultures, you cannot help but be amazed that none of them were killed during their protests.

Liberia was the same as some other African countries where male children as young as 9 or 10 were fed drugs and given AK47's, joining and fighting for either the rebel or Government factions. The general male culture is one of pure machismo with firearms proudly brandished and fired in public without a thought for safety, and casual brutality being the norm for anyone who gets in the way. Despite this, the culture also has the utmost respect for women, especially the elder women and this was the key in the end to transforming a country ravaged by never ending war into a peaceful nation full of hope for the future.

A superb documentary of a story that deserves to be retold...