The apolitical

One of the most striking things about my conversations here is how apolitical they are.  In Liberia, it’s almost as if the war happened yesterday.   People refer to “Taylor time” and talk about Doe as if he ruled the country just last week.  Here, I am always the first one to mention politics.

Yesterday was the first time I said the name Gbagbo.  It was during a chat with a Lebanese guy.  He leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes: “If you want to talk about politics, Lebanese will not talk with you.  We are here to do business.”

A few days ago I asked an Ivorian who was expanding his business if he was worried about current political instability in the country.  ”Listen,” he said, “we don’t think about politics.  Because if we did, we wouldn’t do anything.  If we wait when things stabilize, we will never do anything.”

Yesterday I was speaking with another Ivorian man who told me about a school that had to close because of political issues.  ”Oh, I understand,” I said, “the school had political issues with the government.”  The Ivorian man shook his head, “No.  It closed when there were political issues in the country.”  I realized he was referring to the war.  I never heard these kinds of euphemisms in Liberia.