March 13, 2024
Mwalimu-Koh Moses Blonkanjay Jackson (MsEd, EdM)
Education Engineer, Critical Thinker, Author
Thinking Thoughts
In my “Thinking Thoughts” I reminisced the debauchery which beclouded the observance of Decoration Day on March 11. As I closed my visitation of several graveyards, I reflected and concluded that the way Decoration Day was observed in the past has changed and taken on rather crude and depraved features. A fortnight ago, I watched a team apparently from the Monrovia City Corporation, cutting the grass and cleaning the filth from the desecrated Palm Grove Cemetery on Center Street. Instead of Palm Grove being a memorial park, it became desecrated and transformed into a garbage site, no-go zone for decent folks, public toilet, den of thieves, haven for Zogoes, and hideout for criminals.
The Author
The goal of the temporary clean-up, I suffice was to prepare the site for the “Decoration of this Desecrated” notorious graveyard on Decoration Day. I awoke to the fact that in addition to the gross desecration of graveyards in Liberia by unscrupulous people, Liberian people always also desecrate our society and country by decorating desecrated people.
Decorating Desecrated People
You see my Brabbies, to desecrate is to damage, violate, defile, or blaspheme. Unfortunately, we Liberians are noted for decorating the desecrated and shunning the esteemed. In simple terms, we clap for people and things that are bad and oppose good people and good things. When the whole world says something is bad, it is that bad thing we Liberians select; when you bring light, we choose darkness; when you offer education, we rather have ineptitude; when you present an opportunity to decorate, we rather decorate the desecrated.; when you approve war and economic crime court, we say we want forgiveness; when you set up a committee to recover stolen assets, we say the people who are on the committee are not good.
During the elections, it is an open secret how Liberian people chose those people we all thought were desecrated over the supposedly good ones. For example, despite the experience and education Ambassador Boakai possessed, he was defeated in the 2017 elections by soccer star turned politician, George Weah whose experience, education, and acumen in statesmanship were glaringly minute. In 2017, people with fake credentials and those who lacked intelligence in articulations and law-making were voted into the legislature; grossly ignorant concubines, and partisans became ministers of government; former indictees, deportees, warlords, drug addicts, and war and economic criminals were awarded the captain band to lead the nation state. The result today is the existence of a desecrated bunch of so-called middle-class Liberians created and empowered over period of six doggone years.
In the 2023 elections, those we thought were desecrated by corruption and sanctioned by the United States won their esteemed competitors bigly. We voted for desecrated people who misused power, maimed and killed our kinsmen, stole our money, and left us suffocating in abject poverty; we preferred the desecrated bunch of schemers over emergent young leaders who would have lifted Liberia from its current desecrated state.
My Brabbies, this is the same behavior cascaded down to the graveyards where our ancestors and loved ones are supposed to be resting in everlasting peace for light perpetual to shine on them. Conversely, we abuse and desecrate our graveyards for 365 days, and then on Decoration Day, we move there in droves to decorate the desecrated, making Decoration Day simply a time to decorate the spoiled, violated desecrated graves. Back in the day, Decoration Day was different.
Decoration Day back in the Day
Back in the day, it was a time of sober reflections and solemnity. When folks visited graveyards, it was like 10 thousand choristers gathered and opened their vocal cords to the glory of God. The awareness that crowned the day was how we would all heed the sound of similar trumpet from labor to rest in a lone grave in a graveyard. All around the graveyard, people would be sobbing, weeping openly, and singing edifying hymns and praises.
While one family sang, “By and by Lord when the morning comes, when all God’s saints shall all be gathered home, we will tell the story how we overcome, we will understanding it better by and by…”, another sang, “In the sweet, by and by, We shall meet on the beautiful shore.
As one family sang “There is a fountain fill with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s vein, And sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains, another group would be singing, “ When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more, when the morning breaks eternal bright and fair…When the roll is call up yonder I’ll be there”
The hymns “God be with you till we meet again”, “Take the Name of Jesus With You”, and “What a Friend we have in Jesus” usually closed the day. Any obscured behavior, obscenity, or consumption of alcohol near the graves was considered a “Desecration”
We left the graveyards refreshed, and reflective of our own sojourn on this wretched place called earth.
Zero Desecration in Rivercess
In Neegbah, Rivercess, we do not bury our dead but are rather meticulous about desecrating their graves with zero tolereance. When a son or daughter from my hometown across the Cestos River dies, we perform the necessary rituals, escort the body in a convoy of canoes, and deposit the coffin on a beautiful island called “Zeo” or “Toh” The island is situated few yards from where the majestic Cestos empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The island is a beautiful quiet and serene scenery yet surreal and queer in layout as a burial ground. The tradition is to leave the coffin on Zeo island for our ancestors to come and receive their son or daughter.
Acts of desecrations are clearly spelled out. Nobody is allowed to visit Zeo alone; no group goes there without permission from the elders; do not go fishing near the island or you would see some of our ancestors sternly staring at you. Only people who are original sons and daughters of Neegbah are allowed to step foot on Zeo or be deposited when they die. When you are selected to escort a corpse to Zeo, immediately you return, you must pour libation and succumb to rituals to purify yourself. When you form part of the convoy, do not look around or observe your surroundings too keenly; stay focused ahead, and do not try to remember or recall anything you see along the way or on Zeo Your mouth is zipped throughout until you are required to respond to a general chant. Anything outside of any of those laws is considered “Desecration” and the punishment is severe and unbearable.
Several years back, it was reported that some Zogoes ventured on Zeo island, stole skeletons (bones) and ground them into narcotic drugs. The story was short because a day later, the thieves were found dead and their corpses swollen and oozing with pulse and maggots. “Don’t mess around Zeo with your desecrated behavior”, was the message. Today Zeo island exists as we the Neegbah people revered and venerate it with all our bodies, minds and souls. The mess and nonsense that people carry on here in Monrovia on Decoration Days can never be tried in Rivercess, on Zeo island. No monkey can try it!
Modern Day Decoration Desecration
In these modern times in Libera, Decoration Day is marked by complete nonsense and desecration of our ancestors’ resting places. While back in the day it was “church” and while no-nonsense Neegbah people remain meticulous about desecrating their dead kinsmen’s final resting place, in many urban areas especially Monrovia, the Decoration Day is a complete messy nonsense day.
On March 13, throngs of people surged on various graveyards, some, purportedly to decorate the graves of their beloved ones. Alas, instead of keeping the day solemn, it was like a market ground marked by drunkenness, narcotic drugs sales and consumption, and display of obscenity. Instead of edifying songs of praises, music boxes were bellowing with songs like “You na see woman you take off trousers”, I eat your chammo” I will hide sarbu o” and all kinds of doggone depraved bullshit called modern music. I saw groups of rowdy young boys over their friends’ graves, drunk like hell and still drinking, smoking weeds without remorse, cussing ma cuss like Prophet Key, and mocking sanity. Other Gronna boys and Zogoes swarmed the graveyards for opportunities for mischief. Some nonsense people received pay to cry for people they do not know. The music and noise in the graveyard was so loud that the dead must have been disturbed instead of resting or receiving their guests. In many of the graveyards, Zogoes had removed the skeletons from the graves and made them their dwelling places leaving family members to search until their eyes were bursting with tears and left in bewilderment.
A Charge To Keep by City Corporations
As I retired from my visitations, March 11, I resolved that the UP-led Government and all City Corporations within the 15 counties have a charge to keep. City Corporations should protect and clean graveyards regularly instead of only once a year. When this charge is not kept, the desecration of graves would usher untold bane and punishment.
The UP-led Government also has a charge to keep. To avoid Decorating Desecrated people by bringing them back into government. Those people would not be different from the graveyard Zogoes, the drug addicts, war criminals, ex-convicts, thieves and fake scholars who paraded our corridors of power like a nasty Palm Grove or dirty Duport Road graveyard. Extreme prudence and wisdom should be applied in re-structuring the desecrated structure they inherited or else maggots could ooze from a dead country as the Neegbah people would rather mete out as punishment.
The Benediction
To those ends, like the Apostle Paul wrote in A Corinthians 15:55-57, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
About the author
The Rivercess scholar, critical thinker, and founder of the Diversified Educators Empowerment Project (DEEP), Mwalimu-Koh M. Blonkanjay Jackson holds a Master of Education from Harvard, and Master of Science in Mathematics Education from St. Joseph’s University; he is a Yale University Teachers Initiative Math Fellow and UPENN Teacher Institute Physics Fellow. Mr. Jackson served the government of Liberia diligently for four years and returned to private practice as Development Specialist and Education Engineer. The Mwalimu-Koh can be reached at 0886 681 315.