“We are bind by our values.”
~A Keynote Address Delivered~
By
Honorable Anthony V. Kesselly
NATIONAL PRESIDENT
Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA)
at the National Convention of the
Grand Gedeh Association in the Americas (GGAA)
Divine Mercy Parrish
7200 Grovers Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19142
May 29, 2010
Honorable Anthony V. Kesselly
I bring you greetings in my own name and warm felicitations from the leadership and membership of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA). It would be an understatement for me to proclaim here tonight that, indeed, I am glad to be in your midst as a fellow Liberian and a fellow human being. I feel humbled for this selection and I thank you abundantly.
Delegates assembled, we are all here with you today at your Convention—the forum at which some retrospection is done; the arena in which forward-looking courses are charted. This is indeed an event of great significance. My expectation is that you take it that seriously.
President Martha Kannah delivering her inaugural address
It is needless to say that indeed the journey of the GGAA, for the past several months leading to this day, has been far from a smooth one. Your ship of state, this wonderful Organization, has for some time now been sailing through very turbulent waters. Interestingly, that terrain has not been much different from the course my own very Union, ULAA, has sailed for the past two years.
I cannot but salute you for arriving at this critical destination today alive, kicking, vibrant and buoyant. Truly you, sons and daughters of Grand Gedeh, have shown the indefatigable texture of the fabric you are made of.
Upon receipt of information of my selection as keynote speaker for this occasion a few weeks ago, I set out to do what many Liberian orators have readily resorted to. I imagined a big speech about all the demands for infrastructural, social-economic, moral, and ethical development that this organization must, if it wants to remain relevant, pursue to uplift your dear County, Grand Gedeh
My first research stop for a good and pertinent speech was the County Development Agenda as contained on the Lift Liberia Website. A high-pitched speech, re-echoing the same that many have delivered besieged my mind. Reviewing other materials and reflecting on many speeches that I have been tormented to boredom with, I immediately felt the need for a tactical retreat.
Many at times speakers at these kinds of occasions take to sky-hitting speeches, or if you will, high sounding reverberating orations on ideals that appear to be hanging out of the clouds. Most often than not, such speeches easily leave the realm of reality and take to idealism—at times even drifting into Utopia. A gulf therefore always emerges between what we preach and what we do.
I therefore opted for something very down to earth. I thought of a topic that could lay bare the rudiments of our every day practices—in our communities, in our society, in our homes. Then, as if by luck or fate, I stumbled unto the theme of your Convention, which I thought did capture some of the critical subject areas that our society has some deficiency in today.
(Center) Hon. Anthony Kesselly and President Kannah in a joyous mood
You have converged here today under the theme AH MON YON DOU-WAY. Interpreted I am told that means “We are bind by our values.” How noble is it to be bound together by values!
Inarguably, there could be many other reasons, motivations, causes, or objectives that bind people together. Let’s take a glance across the African Continent and look at the Somali coast. Groups of marauding young people bind together and take to the high seas. One may wonder, what binds them together in such a daring enterprise? It is not hard to fathom that the motivation is simply criminal conspiracy to perpetrate piracy.
Pres. Kannah and her guests
Getting back closer to home, we find bands of armed men roaming around the alley ways in Monrovia at night, in the tightest form of unity, burglarizing homes, robbing people and even at times destroying lives. Yes they are bind together but can we tell the value that sustains such unity? Even in developed societies, it is not uncommon to find massive criminal cartels that wreak extortion, death, pain, and suffering upon others.
You, honorable delegates, have proclaimed that you are bind together by values. What values, one may be tempted to ask? That question may steer us in taking a quick look at the term “value.”
The term has been variously characterized as follows:
relative worth, merit, or importance: the value of a college education; the value of a queen in chess.
monetary or material worth, as in commerce or trade: This piece of land has greatly increased in value.
the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it can be exchanged or in terms of some medium of exchange.
utility, value, worth imply intrinsic excellence or desirability. Value is that quality of anything which renders it desirable or useful
So we see that the term value has a lot of positive connotations. Now, let’s look at some other meanings of the word, “bind.” – attach, connect, join, combine, unite, tie, and fasten.
As hinted earlier, many motivations, purposes, conditions can bind people together. Some people feel bonded together only because they belong to the same ethnic group. Yet still others feel bind only because they are from a specific national or regional geographic locale. Yes, I said geographic LOCALE. Does the word LOCALE sound familiar to any one in this audience?
Delegates, what matters here today, and will continue to matter, is the values that you believe led you to bond to this community. If it truly is values that unite you in this entity, you must see yourselves as the epitome of all the good things that Grand Gedeh can give.
Indeed when values bind people together, we can say that is genuine togetherness. In reality, a man from a remote village in China and another from the Liberian town of Kpakolokoyata in Bong County could bind together and die together for a cause, if they believed in the same values and principles. Being from the same race does not matter here; being from the same locale may not matter here or even being from the same continent may not count.
Today, following years of a senseless civil war, Liberia can hardly boast (without hesitation) of the prevalence of the best of values and value systems. Our common patrimony witnessed a tailspin in moral values. The war jolted our value system and dislocated our sense of logic and truth. One of the vices that jumped out of this proverbial “Box Full of Trouble” is a mental malaise (a serious sickness) that I have come to coin as the “two-sum syndrome.”
Very unfortunately we, as a people, appear to have lost our capacity to figure out the truth and stand by it. In any given scenario involving two competing or conflicting sides, we opt for the easy way of proclaiming two sides, SIDE 1 and SIDE 2. And owing to our timidity, dishonesty, opportunism, or a combination of all of these, we shy away from investigating, analyzing, and deciphering the matter to establish a principled and bold stand.
We then plunge ourselves into the “two-sum syndrome.” We then adopt those attitudes that encourage the prolongation of the conflict—signaling that the two sides are wrong or the two sides are all right, or even worse avoid establishing guilt and brushing the problem under the carpet.
We then issue the usual shallow call for “let by-gones be by-gones,” and “let’s put our differences aside and move forward.” We seek for cover under the smoke screen of “neutrality.” In many instances, this attitude has done more harm to our community and organizations than good.
Historically, our failure to take principled stands on issues has led to the flourishing of this “two-sum” headache. Let’s do a quick tracing of this “two-sum syndrome” illness in our national and Diaspora community life. You will recall the following:
NPFL and the INPFL
ULIMO-K and the ULIMO-J
Greater Liberia vs. Small Liberia
Notion of two separate leaderships--Sinoe County Association in the Americas
Notion of two separate leaderships--United Nimba Citizens Council
Notion of two separate leaderships--United Sarpo Association in the Americas
Notion of ULAA-K and ULAA-J
Notion of two Grand Gedeh Association Leaderships
Notion of two Board Chairmen of OLM
Notion of two leaderships in Newark, New Jersey
Notion of two leaderships--Liberian Association of Maryland
With this line-up of examples, I am sure you are agreeing with me that this malady is well on its way to reaching menacing proportions.
There are many reasons that give rise to these kinds of ugly situations. We do not have the time here today to outline them all, for you have to get down to your celebrations.
Back in 2007, when I served as the Installing Officer for the 2007 corps of officers of the United Nimba Citizens Council (UNICCO), I pointed to the penchant of our people for smaller enclaves, or let’s call them umbrellas (each person preferring to carry his or her own) rather than binding together under one big umbrella. This propensity much more resembles the proverbial “all chiefs, no Indians.”
This phenomenon runs through every facet of our occupations. I cite the example of the mushrooming of a plethora of churches, mosques, etc, in the midst of the prevalence of the most ungodly acts. Another interesting thing of note is the fact that in both versions of our National Anthem, the call for unity is echoed loud and clear—but the reality is as if these are calls for disunity.
In the first version of our Anthem, we proclaim loudly, “In Joy and Gladness, with our Hearts United, We’ll Shout the Freedom of a Race Benighted.” In the second version, we sing, “In Union Strong Success is Sure, We Cannot Fail.”
One would expect that our interactions will be guided by these clear reiterations of our faith in togetherness. The reality however is much to the contrary.
It is much easier to find that we most frequently speak of unity but our deeds leave no room for it. Predominantly, we find election disputes or leadership squabbles to be at the nerve center of most of the chaos.
The saddest realization is that, in our communities, as in communities of people of our kind, many of us enter the electoral process fixated on only one outcome—TO WIN AT ALL COSTS – COME WHAT MAY.
Let me cite some of the pitfalls of our predisposition towards elections
~ Never wanting to accept defeat
~ Unwillingness to leave the sweetness and trappings of power
~ Fighting for the Leader’s ideas to prevail at all cost
~ The hatred for individual overshadowing love and concern for organization
~ The “once my opponent forever my enemy” syndrome
~ Total disregard for the supremacy of the verdict of the ballot box
~ Unbending commitment to only tribal or sectional associates
~ Respecting authority of the majority only if it is in our favor
~ The perception of the finality/absoluteness of the power of the Leader
More often than not, we make absolutely no room for losing an election. We view losing an election as a life-time curse (if not the end of life in itself). We will leave no stone unturned to undermine and dismantle the organization rather than carry that perceived curse. Our ego gets bloated to the size of Mount Everest, blinding us to all reasoning.
The common scenario is that we enter an electoral race, ostensibly to engage in a healthy contest. But what in essence is a contest? As much as it is not unhealthy for one to be consumed by the desire to win, one has to be aware that this kind of undertaking is latent with the possibility of defeat, no matter how remote that possibility may be.
This possibility however is almost always forgotten or, at best, is lost in our cloud of denial. And so, the moment we detect our inability to emerge the winner, we embark upon a sinister task to subvert the process. Defeat is not what you invest for but if and when it becomes the outcome, you have to be man (or woman) enough to own up to it in dignity.
As you wrap up your historic Convention tonight, having deliberated on those critical issues that confront your dear County and people, I urge you not to lose sight of the need to reinforce the moral fabric of your County, yea Liberia.
Let the sons and daughters of the gallant people of Grand Gedeh County continue to show their resilience against this onslaught (this two-sum disorder) unleashed by those elements who cannot stand the verdict of democracy.
The programs you formulate here today must take into account the fact that no matter how lofty your goals are, if they are not grounded on the strong moral values--respect for each other and for the laws, truthfulness, selflessness, love for community---will only be a mirage; an aberration, or a fluke.
You must strive to position your Association in the front lines of the struggle for social justice while always upholding internal democracy.
Grand Gedeans must rise up and raise their voices in this Liberian Diaspora for adherence to the rule of law. You must push for the subordination of personal interest to those of the collective.
Competition must not be viewed as life and death battle. Losing a battle must never be taken as a perpetual curse. One who has lost many battles can still win the war. Such is the urgent call of the day and it is our prayerful hope that you will rise to the occasion.
I implore you to cast off this attitude of evading the truth in the search of favor from the two sides of a conflict. Assume a principled stand after doing an objective assessment, taking into account the governing laws, value system, and the supreme interest of the collective.
Let us pursue those measures that will imbue in our emerging generation, the best attributes and virtues of life. Let us aim at strengthening their moral values, leaving them to bind with others of similar moral rectitude. In order to do this, we could host periodic programs that reward and honor exemplary behavior and deportment on the part of our youth.
In regards to instilling in the new generation the love for the rule of law and respect for organic laws in our respective communities, it will be helpful if we could institute stipulate knowledge in organization laws as a key requirement for eligibility for taking up leadership positions.
Above all I pray with you that you will reconcile yourselves, within yourselves, and with your people back in the motherland. Be mindful however that reconciliation must, and I say must, meet the following preconditions:
Establishment of the fact that something went wrong
Identification of the perpetrator of the wrong in whole or in part
Acceptance of responsibility for part played in the wrongdoing
A firm commitment to prevent the reoccurrence of the wrong
Forgiveness of the wrongdoing and a mutual determination to move forward
Failure on our part to fully meet the above preconditions will only lead us to re-schedule or postpone our conflicts. They certainly will raise their ugly heads again. So, it is not only imprudent to put our differences aside, it is imperative that we solve them—by calling a spade nothing else but just that—a spade.
I wish you the best and most productive deliberations
Long Live Grand Gedeh County
Long Live Liberia
Thank you very much!
