Sierra Leone Forum: June 2015

HASTH TAG # DO Sierra Leone Moving in the Wrong Direction

Many international observers, academics and researchers will say that Sierra Leone like many countries has a positive future ahead of itself. In some distant timeline, that may be true. However, not all of those individuals are from Sierra Leone. I happen to be born and raised in Sierra Leone. I have heard countless stories about Sierra Leone moving forward after the nine year long civil war. Innumerable newspapers, international affairs journals, online and offline forums assert that Sierra Leone is now moving in the right direction. I am here to voice my opinion and explain that I wholeheartedly disagree. Next, it is imperative and quite important to emphasize that from my subjective, worldview and perspective of having been born and raised in Sierra Leone, despite what some experts may think, Sierra Leone is moving in the completely and absolutely wrong direction. I ‘m trying to be modest in this article again just expressed my connotation, because one reason for optimism I believe is connectivity.

On the subject of Sierra Leone, let's compare and contrast with South Africa for a moment. South Africa currently has one of the worst racial tension situations in the world even after 400 years of slavery in the U.S. Xenophobia runs rampant among many different hardline racists who are against other races of humans, still even to this day in the twenty-first century. The situation undermines an otherwise multilateral coalition that now, in hindsight seems to have been not just optimistic, but incredibly fragile. We cannot accepts military and rebel attacks against our African citizenry that amount to anarchy. Anarchy is completely unacceptable and there is absolutely no reason for war after there have been so many wars throughout history. The International Criminal Court (ICC) needs to get serious as does the United Nations as a whole and proactively pursue not just war criminals, but aggressively pursue rebels, terrorists and anyone who seeks to pre-emptively assault the larger population of humans throughout the continent of Africa and elsewhere overseas in America, Europe and Asia, and on all continents. Peace is the only way, but it can only come by way of a combination of military might, responsible law enforcement and diplomacy.

Back in December of 2014, Foreign Policy Magazine stated that the Ebola situation in Sierra Leone was "spiraling out of control." Aside from that, a quick Google search of Sierra Leone returns Fashion Blogging, so one can infer that even during an "epidemic" as the preceding news journal pointed out, fashion, business, commerce and industry in Sierra Leone seem to be moving forward. Turning now to the word of politics, when one begins researching current events in Sierra Leone, it seems likely that one will happen upon news regarding "corruption" as the Economist points to and going back to the year 2009. But is Sierra Leone still plagued with corruption? It may or may not be depending on who you ask and the source of information. It has been stated, given Sierra Leone's country profile, that after the 9 year civil war on which the movie Blood Diamond was based, the country stabilized in part. So the question becomes, how stable is Sierra Leone currently and what is currently trending in the country from a social media aspect? It seems that a lot of social issues that have stigmatized part of Sierra Leone's image in the past, source back to the 1990s and earlier, but not so much after other than Ebola and politics as usual that would be true of any country. Therefore and again, what is fact new in Sierra Leone since the country has tried to move past the civil war and seems to be doing well having done so. It has to be more than just fashion, however some question whether Sierra Leone's economy can even survive Ebola as evinced in CNN's article, titled, "Can Sierra Leone's economy survive Ebola?" which was updated Tue Sept. 14, 2014, and which was just a few short months ago as of the time of this writing. It is doubtful that Sierra Leone will collapse on any military level as Yemen has been experiencing. It would seem that at some time soon, Sierra Leone's Ebola issues will begin to subside and dissipate, but is this just wishful thinking? It is not likely simple wishful thinking. It takes more than Ebola to destroy a country entirely and Sierra Leone having survived an all out civil war seems far from destroyed even with Ebola. Progress is being made. Something positive is being done and other countries have come to help aid Sierra Leone during the countries current health crisis.

The World Bank talks about the "Socio-Economic Impact of Ebola in Sierra Leone" in an article with that exact title, whereby another search query shows that Sierra Leone has slightly more than six million citizens. According to the preceding World Bank article, the percentage of the overall six million people is "small." Though according to the same source, there have been "3,800 deaths" with "12,000" reported cases, as sad and tragic as that is and can be, it certainly is nowhere close to even 100,000 individuals and not even anywhere close to six million people. With rapid advances in medical technology and a focus by the international world community, it is almost an absolutely certainty that Sierra Leone's Ebola issues will be solved at some point and the situation will begin to improve. In the meantime, comedies are being produced, movies are being made, fashion is being blogged about and future generations are being schooled just as any nation in the West and the East. Lastly, Sierra Leone does rank pretty high (and not in a good way) on the list of countries, ("119 out of 175" to be exact according to Concord Time/AllAfrica.com) known for corruption and Sierra Leone certainly needs to lower that number, but as is invariably the case in terms of countries in general and their growth, Sierra Leone like any country will continue to grow and prosper over time. From the World Facebook, the CIA states that Sierra Leone began with the establishment of a colony in 1787 and later gained independence in 1961. Sierra Leone has been around for a very long time (over 200 hundred years if you count from when it was first a colony until now) and won't be disappearing any time soon if ever at all, and even though it won't be disappearing any time soon, the country is not heading in the right direction as many believe. That's coming from someone who was born and raised in Sierra Leone and who was educated in the west.