US President Donald Trump has praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking “good English” and asked him where he went to school.
What Trump might have missed is that Liberia shares a unique and long-standing connection with the US.
English is the country’s official language, and many Liberians speak with an American accent because of those historical ties to the US.
It may have been this accent that Trump picked up on.
Here are six things to know about the West African country:
1: Founded by freed slaves
Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves in 1822 before declaring independence in 1847.
Thousands of black Americans and liberated Africans, rescued from transatlantic slave ships, settled in Liberia during the colonial era.
Former US President Abraham Lincoln officially declared Liberia’s independence in 1862 but the country retained a lot of US heritage, and it remained in the American “sphere of influence” during the colonial period.
Due to this integration, Liberian culture, landmarks and institutions have a strong African-American influence.
Ten of Liberia’s 26 presidents were born in the US.
The descendants of these freed slaves, known as Americo-Liberians, dominated the country for more than 100 years.
This was resented by some indigenous Liberians, and the last president from that community, William Tolbert, was overthrown and killed in a coup in 1980.
They account for about a quarter of the population, according to the Britannica website, which says more than two dozen languages are spoken in the country.
President Boakai is from the Kissi ethnic group and so would have spoken that as his mother tongue, before learning English at school.
2: The capital is named after a former US president
Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, was named in honour of America’s fifth President, James Monroe, who was a strong supporter of the American Colonisation Society (ACS).
The ACS was the organisation responsible for resettling freed African-Americans in West Africa, which eventually led to the founding of Liberia.
Not surprisingly, the early architecture of the city was largely influenced by American-style buildings.
Many streets in Monrovia are named after colonial American figures, reflecting the city’s founding and historical ties to the US.
The city’s main hospital is called the John F Kennedy Medical Centre (JFKMC), named after the former US president.
3: Nearly identical flags
The flag of Liberia closely resembles the American flag. It features 11 alternating red and white stripes and a blue square with a single white star.
The white star symbolises Liberia as the first independent republic in Africa.
The US flag, in comparison, has 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies and 50 stars, one for each state.
The Liberian flag was designed by seven black women, all born in America.
4: Ex-president’s son plays for US football team
Timothy Weah, the son of Liberia’s former President George Weah, is an American professional football player who plays for Italian club Juventus as well as the US national team.
The 25-year-old forward was born in the US but began his professional career with Paris St-Germain in France, where he won the Ligue 1 title before moving on loan to the Scottish team, Celtic.
His father, George, is a Liberian football legend who won the Ballon d’Or in 1995 while playing for Juventus’s Italian rivals AC Milan. He is the only African winner of this award, and went on to be elected president in 2018.
5: Former president won the Nobel Peace Prize
Liberia produced Africa’s first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
She was elected in 2005, two years after the nation’s bloody civil war ended, and served as president until 2018.
Johnson Sirleaf has a strong American background as she studied at Madison Business College and later went to Harvard University, where she graduated as an economist.
She has received worldwide recognition and accolades for maintaining peace during her administration.
Her story is pitted with remarkable feats of defiance and courage.
In 2011, along with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmān, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women’s rights.
In 2016, Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in the world.
6: World’s largest rubber plantation
The plantation, which measures 185 square miles (479 sq km), is owned by Firestone Liberia, a subsidiary of the US tyre manufacturer.
It was founded in 1926 to give the US access to rubber at a time when the product was controlled by the UK.
Firestone remains Liberia’s largest private employer, with more than 4,000 workers.
The company has been accused of human rights abuses going back almost to the foundation of the rubber industry in Liberia. In 2006, a UN report into Liberia’s rubber industry said: “Plantation workers are exposed to hazardous working conditions without adequate training or safety equipment.
“Many workers… do not receive fair wages or equal remuneration, and do not have the right to strike. Child labour is frequently used on the plantations,” it said.
Firestone has always denied such allegations and, in 2011, it was cleared of using child labour by a US court.
Rubber remains one of Liberia’s biggest exports, and the US its largest market.
What do Liberians make of Trump’s comments?
Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti denied it was an awkward moment, saying there was a “lack of understanding” around the world about the languages people speak in Africa, which she described as a “multi-lingual continent”.
“Liberia happens to have the American-English intonation, and I believe President Trump heard something familiar in the way President Boakai spoke, which is different from the way others speak on the continent,” she told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
“We were not offended at all,” she said, adding that away from the TV cameras, there was a discussion of the two countries’ shared history.
But there was a mixed reaction among other Liberians.
Accountant Joe Manley, 40, told the BBC that Trump should have been properly briefed before meeting Liberia’s leader.
“Liberia has always been an English-speaking country. Our president represents a country with a rich educational tradition.”
For human resources professional Henrietta Peters Magbollah, the US president’s surprise at Boakai’s eloquence reflects a broader problem of global ignorance regarding African nations and their peoples.
“From travel experiences and observations, most citizens of other nations outside Africa do not know a lot about African countries,” she said. “The few that know a little, their minds are clouded by narratives of war, poverty, and lack of education.”
However, lawyer and politician Kanio Gbala agreed with the foreign minister that no insult was meant.
“I believe President Trump’s remark was a genuine compliment on President Boakai’s command of English,” he told the BBC. “There is no evidence of sarcasm. Reading it as disrespectful may reflect political agendas.”
DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
