Zadie Smith - Changing My Mind - Occasional Essays

The visitors sit on the porch eating dinner at CooCoo’s Nest, the best hotel in rural Liberia. Named after President Tubman’s mistress, it is owned by his daughter; she lives in America now. In her absence it is run by Kamal E. Ghanam, a louche, chain-smoking Lebanese in a safari pantsuit, who asks you kindly not to switch on the light in your room until after 7 P.M. Kamal also manages the rubber plantation behind. He brings out the sangria as Abraham and Nyan bond. These two are members of a very small group in Liberia: the makeshift Liberian middle class, created in large part by the presence of the NGOs. “It’s difficult,” explains Abraham. “Even if I paint my house, people begin talking. He is Congo now. As soon as you have anything at all, you are isolated from the people.” They show off their battle scars, knife wounds from street robberies. Aubrey, who has been photographing the plantations, arrives. He has news: he met a rubber worker in the field.

“His name is David. He doesn’t know his age-but we worked out with various references to events during war that he’s about thirty-five years old. He has three living children and three who died. He was born on the plantation and has worked there since he was ten or twelve, he thinks. He wants to be able to keep his own children in school, but at the current rate of pay he won’t be able to afford to. He works seven days a week. He says workers on the plantation live in camps that were built in 1952. There are no schools or medical facilities nearby-anyway, he couldn’t afford them. He taps about fifty pounds of raw latex per day. He said it’s a long day, from sunrise until late… ”

Aubrey is breathless and excited: we have the feeling that we are intrepid journalists, uncovering an unknown iniquity. In fact, the conditions on Liberian rubber plantations are well documented. In a CNN report of 2005, Firestone president Dan Adomitis explained that each worker “only” taps 650-750 trees a day and that each tree takes two to three minutes. Taking the lower of these two estimates equals twenty-one hours a day of rubber tapping. In the past, parents have brought their children with them in order to help them meet the quota; when this was reported, Firestone banned the practice. Now people bring their children before dawn.

Kamal smokes, listens, sighs. He says, “Listen, this is how it is,” as if talking of some unstoppable natural weather phenomenon. He pauses. Then, more strongly: “Now, be careful about this tapper. He is not from Firestone, I think. He is from a different place.” Nyan smiles. “Kamal, we both know that plantation-it sells to a middleman who sells to Firestone. Everybody sells to Firestone.” Kamal shrugs. Nyan turns back to the visitors: “Firestone is a taboo subject here. Everyone knows the conditions are terrible-their accommodation has no water, no electricity-but it is better paid than most work here. You would have to have a very strong lobby in the U.S. government to stop them. The whole reason Firestone came to Liberia in the first place was as a means of creating a permanent supply of rubber for the American military. The British had increased the taxes on Malaysian rubber-the Americans didn’t want to pay that. They needed a permanent solution. So they planted the rubber-it’s not native to Liberia. Really, they created a whole industry. It sounds strange, but these are some of the best jobs in Liberia.”

Kamal goes inside to collect dessert. Abraham leans over the table.

“Do you know what people say? In 2003, when the war was at its worst, the only places in Liberia that were safe were the U.S. embassy and Firestone. Everywhere else there was looting and killing. The American Marines were offshore-we kept hoping they would come ashore. What were they waiting for? But we waited and then they sailed away. They did nothing. And that is when people got disappointed.”

Everyone at the table is asked why they think the war happened. Nyan says: “Let me tell you first my candid feeling: every Liberian in one way or another took part in the war. Either spiritually, financially, psychologically or physically. And to answer your question: in a sense there was no reason. Brothers killed brothers, friends killed friends, only to come back the next day and regret they ever did it in the first place. For me the only real reason was greed. And poverty. All that the warlords wanted was property. When they stormed Monrovia, they did not even pretend to fight one another. They killed people in their homes and then painted their own names on the walls. When Ms. Sirleaf took over Gut tridge’s rubber plantation-2.8 million a month-it was still occupied by rebel forces, and they refused to leave for a year and a half. They wanted to be in the rubber business. But they destroyed the trees-didn’t tap them properly. It will take another ten years to replant.”

Lunch in La Pointe, the “good restaurant” in Monrovia. The view is of sheer cliff dropping to marshland, and beyond this, blue green waters. During the war the beach was scattered with human skulls. Now it is simply empty. In Jamaica, tourists marry on beaches like these. They stand barefoot in wedding outfits in white sand owned by German hotel chains and hold up champagne flutes, recreating an image from a brochure. This outcome for Liberia-a normalized, if exploitative, “tourist economy”-seems almost too good to hope for. At present, La Pointe is patronized solely by NGO workers, government officials and foreign businessmen. A Liberian passes by in a reasonably nice suit. Abraham: “He’s a Supreme Court judge.” Another man in a tie: “Oh, he’s Nigerian. He owns an airline.” Everywhere in Liberia it is the same: there are only the very poor and the very powerful. In the missing middle, for now: the “international community.” The monitoring agency GEMAP is in place. No government check over five hundred dollars can be signed without GEMAP’s knowledge. It is very hard to be good in these conditions. President Johnson-Sirleaf has promised to review the 2005 Mittal Steel and Firestone concessions. We hope and pray.

Behind our table an Englishman, a Lebanese and a Liberian are having a lunch meeting:

Englishman:You see, I’m worried about management morale. The troops soon feel it if management is low. At the moment it’s like a bloody sauna in there. Maybe we could just give them a few things… a nice bed, bedsheets, something so they won’t be bitten to death at night. They’re so happy if you do that-you wouldn’t believe it!

Liberian:My friend, someone’s going to get malaria. It’s inevitable.

Lebanese:This is true.

Liberian:I ask you please not to worry about malaria-we get it all the time in Liberia. I promise you we are used to it!

The history of Liberia consists of elegant variations on this conversation.

The Toyota rolls up in front of Paynesville School. Motto: Helping our selve [sic] through Development . Aubrey causes a riot in the playground: everyone wants their picture taken. Some are in uniform, others in NGO T-shirts. Fifty or so wear a shirt that says CHINA AND LIBERIA: FRIENDSHIP FOREVER. We are here only for one boy. We were given his name by Don Bosco Homes, a Catholic organization that specializes in the rehabilitation of child ex-combatants.

He is very small for fifteen, with a close-shaved, perfectly round head and long, pretty eyelashes. He has the transcendental air of a child lama. Three big men bring him to us in a corner of the yard and go to fetch a chair. He stays the wrist of one of the men with a finger and shakes his head. “It’s too hot here to talk. We’ll go inside.”