Liberia Reflection

Jesse George

Professor Palz

English I

2/24/2019

Liberia Reflection

                Following watching the Vice video provided. I was just taken off guard and had to sit on my thoughts for a couple days and watch it a second time to process it all. It is a lot to process packed into a 54-minute video. From the opening scene to the closing scene and everything in between this video had me going back and forth with my emotions and reactions.

                The opening scene has a General (General Butt Naked) talking about killing innocent children and his “boys” drinking the blood of an innocent child. Well that is one hell of a way to enter a video. I’m sure that also had to do with the writing and video editing but that hooked me right off the bat. Now that this video had my attention it went on to start to talk about the war and what was taking place in Liberia and what was causing it. Giving the viewer a little back drop of the story and situation. At this point I was attached by how the video brought me in. All these crazy things going on, young children shooting ak-47’s, teenagers holding human hearts and talking about eating it, war, rape, malaria, prostitution, jail. I found myself asking what the heck is going on in Liberia!?

                After all this mass chaos it shows them interviewing the general from the opening scene, General Butt naked. It goes on to talk about how he was converted and a changed man. Preaching to churches and building a remote area for people to live at peace after the war. How is such a bad man doing all these good things? Throughout the interviews with Butt Naked he is going back and forth about all these terrible things he did while he was a general of the war and the good things he has done since he became converted. At one-point Shane Smith says pretty much exactly that. How are we liking and trusting this man who has killed tens of thousands of innocent people, eaten human flesh, raped and many other awful things?

                Most of this video was about General Butt Naked (Joshua Blahyi) after his converting to Christian but what was all that stuff in the beginning? Liberia is like heaven and hell on earth.  All these churches on every block the giant religious gatherings, yet all this death, disease and poverty. How could there be such a dramatic difference in one country? What was causing all these disputes that resort to war? Why has there not been anything done about it?

                Although I almost saw this as two separate videos in one, I did like this video. Dark and gruesome, but lighted up as it went.  With the beginning being all the shocking things, the dead people on the ground, cannibalism, etc. etc. Then the end being positive and religious, it made me thing wow that is good writing come in with all the things that will grab attention in the beginning like a hook then a lot of details in the middle then leading into the religion and the conclusion. Also asked myself where did the random white suites come from when they went to the cemetery that both Shane and Joshua were wearing from there till the end of the video?  The clip before that he was running for his life out of a brothel. Interesting to say the least.