Unsettling Conversations

In the short time I have been in Liberia, I have found myself privy to conversations and divulgences unlike anything I have been exposed to in previous travels. My first night out in Monrovia, for instance, I found myself having drinks with a group of Lebanese guys, an Israeli, a Liberian-American woman, and a coworker. After a few beers and a couple hookahs, the conversation turned to conflict diamonds. “Who controls the trade in conflict diamonds?” the Israeli, who works for a mining company, asked the group. "The Israelis or the Lebanese?" What ensued was a more or less gentlemanly debate--with one side arguing that the Israelis were in control because most of the diamonds are sent there to be cut, and the other side arguing in favor of the Lebanese because they were on the ground and had more control over the actual mines. Where the hell am I, I wondered to myself, to be sitting amongst people who can discuss an issue like conflict diamonds (the profits from which fueled the recent wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia) as if they were discussing something benign like mangoes or cell phones? When I was a student in South Africa, I remember trying to conduct research on conflict diamonds for a paper; I was just a lowly student—not remotely threatening—and yet, absolutely no one I called to interview would speak to me, not even to deny their involvement. Now here I was, in Liberia less than a week, and people were chatting away.

A few weeks later, I was at a bar in my town, having a drink with some Liberian coworkers and my Kenyan housemate after work. The conversation turned to the question of development since the end of Liberia’s fourteen-year civil war. How was President Johnson-Sirleaf doing after five years of relative peace? My coworkers represented a variety of viewpoints, some believing the president was doing well and that Liberia was moving forward, and others frustrated with the slow pace of change and development in the country. The discussion naturally touched on the past as well as the present, and it was interesting to hear people’s different perceptions of Liberia’s recent history—what had caused the war and how it had affected the country. Though I don’t know my coworkers’ politics, I have always operated under the assumption that not all of them were on the same side during the conflict. All the same, I found myself taken aback to hear a coworker state that, in fact, the best president Liberia had ever had was Charles Taylor, arguing that he was the only Liberian leader to do anything for the people. I mean, sure, I arrived in Liberia well aware that many people in Liberia supported Taylor (he famously ran for president on the slogan, “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”). But knowing this beforehand did not make it any less surreal to hear someone that I am actually friends with openly admit to supporting him.

The latest and perhaps most unsettling conversation took place at a recent dinner party held by a UN police officer working in Voinjama. The party was a mix of Pakistanis working for the UN and NGOs, a couple UN police from elsewhere in the world, two American friends and myself. As the conversation turned to the violence going on in Pakistan, one of the UN police made reference to employing something called “the third degree” in their work. As it turns out, “the third degree” refers to torture, which two of the Pakistani police officers at the party openly supported. Again, I found myself suddenly out of my element, wondering how I had ended up at a dinner party with men who admitted to having tortured detainees in their custody? They were all seemingly normal guys, courteous and friendly—the image jarred with that of interrogators willing to beat detainees, keep them awake for days on end, or question them while they lie on a bed of ice for eight hours (practices they mentioned when I asked what they meant by “torture”). And yet, no matter how they had seemed in our previous social interactions, they were admitting right before us to having employed just such measures. I did not know how to react. I didn’t want to smile and nod along with their statements as if I thought torture was no big deal, but I also wanted to hear what rationale they gave for their actions. Thousands of police and military personnel around the world engage in various forms of torture, but few people would open up about it with the candor of the Pakistanis sitting next to me. Moreover, in that context, I found myself incapable of really comprehending what they were telling me—the reality in front of me (nice, normal guys) seemed much more salient than the reality which they were describing (police commanders extracting confessions by force). Unsure how I should respond to their arguments, I kept relatively quiet, listening to what the men had to say about why they felt torture to be justified in their line of work, particularly given the threats and constraints they faced working in a country where the violence keeps getting worse and worse, and allowing my housemate Isabelle to take the lead in explaining why we nevertheless see torture as both immoral and ineffective. She didn’t succeed in changing their minds, and they certainly didn’t change ours, but it was a relatively honest conversation at least.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a neat and tidy way to wrap up this posting as I’m still sorting out my own feelings about each of these conversations. On the one hand, I feel uncomfortable socializing with people who have engaged in actions that I believe to be wrong; yet I also want to understand what pushes people to make these choices. For the time being, I think I’m just trying to listen to what people have to say and take things case by case, but I'm still pretty conflicted about the best way to react.

"My titty is for me"

November 25th through December 10th marked the international ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence’ devoted to raising awareness about violence against women around the world. Though such campaigns tend to go by unnoticed by those of us back in America, they are usually a big deal for NGOs in the developing world, who often use the time to launch advocacy and community involvement campaigns.

This is certainly the case in Liberia, and I was happy to get back from my trip home to the U.S. in time to attend the last day’s events, including a parade around my town organized by IRC’s Gender-Based Violence program. Having no idea what to expect for the day, I was nevertheless excited for something new—particularly something that would get me out of the office. The morning of the parade, I donned my “complet” that I had made for Siya’s wedding (my friend calls this my “African lady outfit”) and set out for the town square. There, I met up with my coworkers and the forty or so community members that had come out for the parade. Everyone received bandanas inscribed with IRC’s logo and “16 days of activism,” which most of the girls wore as kerchiefs over their hair, and I naturally followed suit.

After about an hour of waiting for everyone to arrive and get organized, my coworkers let us know that we were finally ready to begin. Two teenage girls with megaphones then started to lead a song about not beating your wife, and the parade started to move. After only a few minutes of the first song, however, the parade leaders decided to switch to something much more upbeat. As we moved in two single-file lines, everyone started dancing as they marched. I couldn’t quite make out the words at first, so I tried to listen harder. After some momentary disbelief, I burst out laughing. The words to the chant were as follows:

My titty, my titty is for me – Don’t touch it!
My tumba (aka butt), my tumba is for me – Don’t touch it!

After a dozen or so rounds of these lines, the chant leaders added something along the lines of “If you see my titty, it is not for you, you must pass by it,” and then “If you see my titty, and you want it, you must ask for it.”

Needless to say, this was pretty much the most entertaining song I have ever heard in my life. It was also obviously the crowd’s favorite, most of whom not only chanted along but also enthusiastically shook or gestured to the body part referenced in each line, quickly followed by a finger wagging to passersby as we came to the “Don’t touch it” line.

In addition to laughing at the song’s hilarious lyrics, I could not help but feel a personal connection with the words. This was because I was recently the victim of a “titty grab-and-go” of just the sort referenced in the song! While innocently chatting with friends at a recent party hosted by the UN in my town, a Pakistani peacekeeper came up behind me, reached under my arm, and to my great surprise, grabbed one of my breasts. He then quickly continued on his way across the room, in an apparent attempt to pretend it wasn’t him. Since I was not exactly expecting to have some random guy grab my breast out of nowhere, it took me a second to digest what had just taken place, and I stood there for a moment with a rather puzzled look on my face. Unsure whether I should smack the guy or whether I should just let it go, I ultimately decided the situation merited the former. Yet since I was not entirely sure that I wanted to risk a scene, what resulted was a very halfhearted and thus awkward slap that turned out more like a love pat than an angry, this’ll-teach-you-to-grab-my-breast-you-asshole slap. So much for being a bad ass I guess.

Looking back, I am more inclined to laugh at the incident than get upset by it (particularly since the guy wasn’t remotely threatening and actually was pretty pitiful-looking), but since I was not the first woman to suffer a fly by groping by an errant and under-sexed peacekeeper, the UN human rights officer made the commander of the Pakistani battalion have a talk with his men about what constitutes appropriate versus inappropriate behavior around Western women. Now that I have heard the titty song, however, I cannot help but grieve that the captain was not able to use the song’s words of wisdom to get his message across: My titty is for me—Don’t touch it!