A War on Women: Rape, Brutality, & Terror

        In the Los Angeles Times article "A War on Women" by Ann Jones, the author discusses the ongoing terror that women in Liberia face every day. While Liberia is no longer considered a war zone, it is "so fractured, so traumatized, and so devastated and impoverished that it cannot be said to be securely at peace." The consequences of the 14-year long civil war still affect the society today, but out of all of the civilians, women have faced the most brutality in their everyday life.
        The 2005 World Health Organization had a study that estimated "a staggering 90% of Liberian women had suffered physical or sexual violence; three out of four had been raped." These startling statistics are more than just numbers for the women who have undergone such traumatizing experiences; over 75% of the women in the distraught country will never lead the same life because of the horrendous ordeals they have endured due to the disorder in their nation. Ann Jones refers to the horrid behavior towards women as "mass femicide" and that the "murderous aggression cannot be turned off overnight." The savagery that comes with war is still haunting the slowly recovering nation today and the author predicts it is not something that will disappear quickly. Because of the prolonged, bloody civil war, the women have faced much more devastation and brutality and it will sadly continue to burden them for years to come.
         Although the war ended in 2003, the terror persists. The dangers and threats that women in Liberia face every day should not be considered normal occurrences for them.These atrocious human rights' violations and acts of "mass femicide" should be addressed on the world stage and solutions to them should be sought after. 

The Ivory Coast and Liberia: Present Day Tensions

           Today in Liberia, more than 22,000 refugees have fled the Ivory Coast in fear of the breakout of Civil War in their country for asylum in the neighboring country of Liberia. The Economist article "Fear of Contagion; Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia" speaks of the recent surge of refugees across the "porous border" between the two distraught nations. In fear of another civil war, Ivorians have left their country to try to find safety in another but if this rush persists, the protection may not hold. People look back to events that occurred in the 90s between Sierra Leone and Liberia as a warning of what may once again reoccur. Tensions in both of those countries "oozed across the borders in the 1990s" causing civil war and the atrocities that came with it.
          With old Liberian political parties like Charles Taylors' National Patriotic Front of Liberia and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) reviving in order to get involved in today's conflict, many are scared to see how these rebel groups plan to take action in regards to the current strife in the Ivory Coast. Gunmen from Liberia are apparently crossing the border to participate in the violence in their neighboring country while innocent Ivorians are fleeing their homes to avoid the possible brutalities of war. Only seven years since the end of the Second Civil War in Liberia, the peace is still a fragile one and can easily be disrupted by the nearby hostilities that Liberian rebel groups are trying to engage in.
         We are unsure of what is to come but with an influx of Ivorian refugees seeking shelter everyday and more Liberians getting involved, the outcome may be disastrous for the recovering nation.

Liberia In the Heart of Darkness

In the TIME Magazine article "Liberia In the Heart of Darkness", the ongoing tension in 1990 between Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe is discussed. Samuel Doe, the 10-year long, cruel ruler of Liberia, and Charles Taylor, the leader of the rebel National Patriotic Liberation Front, fought for many years which has lead to atrocious consequences for the already struggling nation. With much of the conflict being overlooked on the world stage and even by its own neighbors, Liberia's economic, political, and social issues are at an all time high.
There have been miniscule attempts for peace between the two parties but all have failed. West African forces made an effort by creating the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in 1990, but this did not work out as well as they hoped. With the nations a part of ECOMOG taking either Doe or Taylor's side, the peacekeeping process came to halt. Some "peacekeeping" nations donated artillery to Doe while others gave soldiers to Taylor. These West African countries also sent in troops before a cease-fire was resolved, which led the United States' withdrawal. They stated that "without a cease fire, there was no peace for any international force to keep."
With his 10,000 soldier army, Taylor has conquered nine-tenths of Liberia, leaving only the most damaged portions of the country to Samuel Doe. He has also created a new capital, Kakata, which has been brought to shambles over the last few years. The rebels have declared "We are the government. Doe is the rebel."
While it has been over 20 years since Samuel Doe's assassination, the violence he started in 1980 still effects Liberia today.

Introduction to Globalization

In Kishore Mahbubani's article The Case Against the West and Tony Judt's article What Have We Learned, If Anything?, the authors discuss the many flaws of the Western school of thought in today’s world. With countries quickly emerging on the global map and others strengthening their economies, the United States has recently been met with many new competitors to its long held position as the world’s leading superpower.

Mahbubani analyzes the response of the West in addressing global challenges. His argument is that the West is a “major source of these problems” rather than the “source of the solutions.” He builds his case with examples of hypocrisy that have led other nations to be defiant of international law. Mahbubani uses the NPT to describe this hypocrisy and its consequences around the world. With the West’s attempt to prevent any “horizontal proliferation” of nuclear weapons, they have not ceased their own “vertical proliferation.” Countries that have nuclear weapons continue to expand their supply while those that do not are expected to remain unarmed. The postwar constraints that were set were unable to be enforced with the United States not abiding by the rules, which led other countries to pursue their interests. “By not respecting their own obligations under the NPT, the five nuclear states robbed their condemnations of any moral legitimacy.” While the article goes on to expose other hypocritical instances, I believe that this one is the most pressing. Leading Western nations should follow the examples they aim to set in the world and by disobeying the laws they pushed to institute, the superpowers open the doors for emerging and even hostile governments to defy the international rule. The countries that challenge the NPT see through the “double standards of their critics” which sanctions their own condemned acts. Leading by example is essential for the world to maintain order and countries in the West have in fact been the source of the problem in this manner.

While Mahbubani addresses the hypocrisy of the West, Tony Judt focuses on the importance of the world, especially America, to look to the past for guidance in today’s global challenges. While trying to forget the past and look to the prospects of the future, countries have also looked past the consequences of war in their history and with that, naively entered war in this century. Tony Judt declares “terrorists have been with us for well over a century” but now the United States chooses to act while they have dealt with far worse adversaries in the 1900s. “We have forgotten the lesson of the twentieth century: the ease with which war and fear and dogma can bring us to demonize others, deny them a common humanity or the protection of our laws, and do unspeakable things to them.” Today, it is important to look to the past to address issues instead of jumping to decisions that we should have learned from before. History repeats itself and the lessons of the past should be attended to.