Challenging Lawmakers On Pro-Freedom Petitions

THE SUBMISSION YESTERDAY of three draft acts by the Liberian media community to the Legislature for subsequent passage into law has put the country's contemporary lawmakers on the democratic x-ray. In a substantive way, the submissions--and what will be done or undone with them in the next weeks or months--would help the larger Liberian public discern the level democratic deportment and the political will of our national leaders individually and collectively. The draft acts submitted are rooted in the lofty ideals of freedom, liberation and democracy of which those petitioned for final legislation are healthy beneficiaries. The die is now cast for the lawmakers to justify themselves and for the Liberian pubic to behold how the offspring of freedom would adjudge its forbear.

MEMBERS OF THE Senate and House of Representatives, like the President and Vice President, took charge of national leadership through election, which is a pivotal element of freedom and democracy. Election is about competition, and competition is only possible in an environment of tolerance, and freedoms of speech, expression and association. It is about free press. Without those essentials of democracy, however still saddled with problems in our country, these elected Liberians would not have been properly ushered into the realm of state power. In a sense, they are healthy beneficiaries of democracy and its accessorial freedoms for which Liberians have invested so much bloods, sweat and tears.

YESTERDAY, PURSUANT TO the dire need for greater democracy and freedom, the Liberian media community made a strong case at the Legislature. Liberian journalists, in their numbers, converged at the Capitol Building and submitted three separate but complementary draft legislations: the Freedom of Information Act 2008, An Act to Establish an Independent Broadcasting Regulator for Liberia , and An Act Establishing a Public Broadcaster. By submitting these landmark draft Acts, the Liberian media community simply tells the nation that they Liberian Dream, etched on freedom, liberty and justice, is blurred by the manacles of egotism and partisan politics. The submissions remind political leaders as well as the people of Liberia that our freedom and our democracy are severely crippled by ambiguities and compromises inherent in statutes at the peril of Constitutional provisions. It is a rallying call to national consciousness necessary to un-shell freedom and democracy from the dark armpits of misguided lords and statutes to the glorious height of security and peace.

THE REPUBLIC OF Liberia is a product of the quest for social, economic and political emancipation from repression, domination and discrimination. By virtue of the nature of its birth, the Republic and its citizens are ardent adherents or heirs of freedom, justice and progress. Ironically, however, these virtues which underpinned the birth of the Republic have remained acutely scarce, reserved only for the modicum of the population usually the ruling elites and their relations. The rest of the people are left with the option to bargain for their inclusion either by way of petitioning their counterparts in political authority or by taking rebellious stance necessary to make the ideals of freedom, justice and progress accessible by all.

IN MAKING THE promised fundamental break with the past, the Liberian media community is saying, in effect, “We need greater freedom: free speech and free press for all. We want state radio, often converted into partisan media think tank for the ruling class, to be given legal shield as a public broadcaster, independent and resistive to political manipulation by any force.” By another draft Act, Liberian media practitioners are saying, in effect, “ Liberia 's nascent democracy needs a broadcasting regulator that is not subservient or a protégé of some demigods whose directives are ultimately official media policies.” Seeking the passage of a third act, the Liberian media community is saying simply, in effect, “Article 15 of the Liberian Constitution must be held sacrosanct; Liberians must have unimpeded access to information.” And generally, Liberian journalists who converged at Capitol Building yesterday say clearly forcefully, as the Russian Essayist and Nobel prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, “Man is distinct from the Animal World by thought and speech, which are gifts from God. But when these natural gifts are suppressed, man becomes animal again.”

LIBERIANS HAVE LONG been animals--or sub-humans--in their own country. Notwithstanding the strives made to ensure greater participation and freedom for all, successive political leaders are commonly guilty of doing little or nothing to jealousy protect and perfect the virtues of freedoms, principally free speech and free press. As soon as they ascend to political power, often by capitalizing on prevailing democratic environment, they suppress the rest and deny them the full realization of their rights to freedom and liberty and greater democracy. This political regime, particularly the Legislature, which has promised to make a fundamental break with the past, is challenged by the draft Acts. And the public is poised to see how they keep a solemn promise.