Thanks to the approximately 5,000 people who alerted me to the fact that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appeared on the Daily Show last night. And thanks also to Joe for pointing me to the video link on Chris Blattman’s blog. I like Blattman’s comment that “I’d feel better if she [Sirleaf] spent a little more time at home passing that pesky Land Commission bill, Anti-Corruption Act, and decentralization plan, but what sitting President doesn’t need to make time for her book tour…”
Sirleaf has been in the US promoting her memoir, modestly titled This Child will be Great. (I’m reading it now. Review coming shortly. It’s good. Did you know both of her parents were indigenous Liberians who grew up in the homes of Americo-Liberian families?)
The Daily Show interview was pretty bad. Stewart introduced “President Ellen Johnston Sirleaf.” When Sirleaf mentioned that she once ran against Charles Taylor in an election, Stewart responded, “Really?!” And Stewart, at times appearing star-struck, posed softball questions, like, “Do you feel like you have been able to bring stability now? Do you feel like this [your presidency] is the foundation, the building block, they’ve [Liberians] been waiting for?” And Sirleaf, for her part, was not even a tiny bit funny.
That interview certainly didn’t leave much to write home about, but hopefully it can generate some more interest amongst young Americans about Liberian politics–and about Africa in general. I’m not a Liberia expert, but I thought the part about it being women who got her elected was fascinating. Do Liberian women continue to have that much say? It’s always cool to see gender having such a positive effect in Africa’s micro-level outcomes, but to see it work at the macro level is especially interesting.
And, come on, she was a little bit funny. I mean, she made Jon Stewart a chief and all.
“Thanks to the approximately 5,000 people…”
Haha. You have a lot of fans!