“We sought the Lord, and he heard us,” Bishop Johnson told the crowd. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Liberia, a Christian country founded by freed American slaves in 1847, has had little but faith to sustain it in recent years. Thousands of its citizens were killed during civil war from 1989 to 2003, and thousands of women were brutally raped.
With that as a backdrop, it seemed especially fitting to celebrate the rise to power of Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated mother of four sons and six grandchildren.
“Let us first praise almighty God, whose omnipotent hand guides and steers our nation,” Johnson Sirleaf said in her inaugural address. “We are a God-fearing people.”
Johnson Sirleaf, known as the “Iron Lady,” was elected in a November 2005 run-off election against former soccer star George Weah. Observer teams from around the world came to Liberia to monitor the election process, including those from various Christian denominations and ecumenical partners of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
A distinguished-looking woman with a broad smile, Johnson Sirleaf is an economist whose resume includes positions with the United Nations and the World Bank.
A former Liberian finance minister, she also has been active in her homeland’s struggles. She was imprisoned twice, once by onetime Liberian dictator Samuel Doe, and again by Doe’s successor, ousted president Charles Taylor.
“I know the struggles because I’ve been a part of it,” she said.
Since Taylor’s departure from the country in 2003, United Nations troops have been permanently based in Liberia. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) also has maintained a steady presence, working with local partners such as the Concerned Christian Community (CCC) and the YMCA of Liberia.
To all those who went to the polls to vote for her not once, but twice, Johnson Sirleaf said, “We know that your vote was a vote for change.” Speaking to thousands of Liberians by radio and television, she said her election was “a vote for healing and leadership.”
No one can deny the destruction caused by the war, she said: “The individual sense of deprivation is immense, but we are a strong and resilient people … able to survive.”
The challenge now, she added, is to “transform adversity into opportunity.”
Although Johnson Sirleaf offered no concrete outline of how that transformation might take place, she said her priorities include helping refugees return home, rooting out “the debilitating cancer of corruption,” and rebuilding the economy.
Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia, has been without electricity since 1990, and running water is considered a luxury. The shimmering waters of the Atlantic Ocean, visible from downtown Monrovia, are a jarring background for its bombed-out buildings.
Peace can only be sustained, the new president said, “if we bring development to our people.”
“The best days are coming,” she said. “The future belongs to us because we have taken charge of it.”
That was good news to Liberian resident Wadei Powell, who was on hand to see her new president inaugurated. Powell moved back to Liberia permanently three months ago after living for more than a decade in the United States.
Powell said she joined many other women in working for Johnson Sirleaf’s election.
“I really feel hopeful about the new government,” she said, expressing a belief that Johnson Sirleaf is going to make a difference.
“I’d like to be a part of that difference,” she said.
|
