The rise in post-apocalyptic fiction over the past
half-decade has sprung from a spreading skepticism that mankind can maintain
some semblance of order when the "long emergency" finally comes. This lack of
faith may be due to what we've seen in recent years in Africa and Eastern
Europe, where scarcity and economic collapse has led to outright barbarism,
complete with mass genocide, clannish infighting, and human lives being reduced
to commodities. Consider Liberia. In 1989, in the midst of violent civil
conflict, charismatic warlord Charles Taylor stepped in and built a regime
dedicated to making chaos commonplace. Taylor's strategy: Keep Liberian
citizens too disorganized to fight back, thus encouraging them to cede more and
more power. The scenario that seems all too imitable, even in our enlightened
21st century.
Gini Reticker's documentary Pray
The Devil Back To Hell recalls Liberia's darkest days, when Taylor set makeshift armies of
drug-addicted pre-teens loose on the streets to terrorize the populace. After a
recent string of films and TV news reports about the atrocities in Rwanda,
Somalia, and Darfur, Liberia's plight might seem over-familiar to arthouse
moviegoers, but the women telling their story to Reticker give her movie
particular meaning. In the early '00s, a network of Christian and Muslim women
began brainstorming ways to persuade the men of Liberia to lay down their guns.
They demonstrated in the marketplace, withheld sex from their husbands, and
threatened their sons and brothers with ancient curses. Largely due to their
dedication, Taylor was deposed, and in 2005, Liberia elected Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf their new president. Pray The Devil Back To Hell is overly conventional as a documentary,
but it's inspiring as a rebuttal to the declining state of the world at large.
It's encouraging to know that the endurance of institutions like marriage and
family could hold the key to keeping civilization intact.