Ellen wants Museum used as reconciling force

President Ellen Johnson – Sirleaf says the reopened National Museum on Broad Street and the historical memories that are placed in it should serve as a unifying and reconciling force, urging Liberians to begin to see themselves in a way that everyone is equal.

“And only when we begin – individual to individual, ethnic group to ethnic group, association to association, when we begin to see ourselves as part of this way [and] everyone equal to the other one, when we do that, this will become a mere symbol because we will be the ones that will carry forth what this structure signifies,” Mrs. Sirleaf said Wednesday, 29 November.

Mrs. Sirleaf reopened the National Museum on the national Holiday in observance of late President William V.S. Tubman’s birthday on 29 November, minutes after she laid final wreath over his grave at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion on Broad Street.

President Sirleaf says she can only hope that Liberians through the ways of their history will see that they are one people and one nation, adding that the structure and the memories placed in it will serve as a unifying force as well as a reconciling force,.

She asks that “we” protect it, defend it, maintain it and enable it to grow because there’s so much more that can be added to it “if we deserve it and if we work toward it.”

The President notes that friendship and reconciliation begin with each individual’s heart, expressing hope that as people go through the structure, they too will become a part of what the museum represents.

Prior to reopening the museum, President Sirleaf had lain final wreath over the grave of late President Williams V. S. Tubman, memorializing him for leading Liberia into the path of development, freedom, strong international relationship and the fight against colonialism by supporting those who were engaged in the struggle.

She credits the late President Tubman for peace, development and democracy, and says it is hoped that it has started to come back and she is pleased to be the one blessed by God to start the process of return [to development].

The late President Tubman’s family members including 2011 defeated presidential candidate Cllr. Winston Tubman of opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC’s), were at the grave site.

Later at the reopening of the museum, Information Minister Eugene Nagbe says it was President Sirleaf’s dream and also his ministry’s fiduciary responsibility to get the museum reopened.

But Mr. Nagbe however gives applause to the vision, drive and passion of Madam Carol Alexander who undertook the project, saying the museum is a sign to him that once the right pieces are in place with the right driver, nothing is impossible for Liberia to achieve.

“Just as Madam President supervise our peace and our development over the past 12 years, so has this portion of our national effort been led by this great woman who left her family, left her comfort and spent many weeks, many months here to get us to where we are today,” Mr. Nagbe says of Madam Alexander.

Madam Carol Alexander says the museum is about exposure, reteaching, reeducating, remembering, urging Liberians to rise again and become one. She asks that Liberians should have the same passion as she did, noting that kids here have to understand their culture and they will be educated by the adults.

By Winston W. Parley