Liberia: Remembering the Future

In April 1996, sixteen-year-old Aaron Weah was caught in the fighting that engulfed Monrovia. With no more than a guitar and a photo album, he joined friends Peter Cole and Jonathan Vawah on a journey into exile. What followed was a story of hunger, prison cells, military checkpoints, unstable soldiers, refugee life and unexpected kindness. Along the way, music kept opening doors when things looke...

In 1996, Liberia was searching for peace. The politicians had their answer: a power-sharing government that brought rival warlords into a six-man Council of State. The musicians had a different idea. At the Don Bosco Youth Centre in Monrovia, a group of teenagers including this podcast's very own Aaron Weah were learning guitar, writing songs and joining forces with some of Africa's biggest stars....

Monrovia, early 1990s. Aaron recalls his early teens. Home, school, and the compound on 8th Street, where there was food and somewhere to sleep. His father is unwell. Money is tight. He cleans classrooms to stay in school. There is music. There are friends. Arguments, laughter, the usual awkwardness of being that age. Some nights there is shooting nearby. Other nights there isn’t. At one point, he...

Episode 2: Charles Taylor Finds His Voice In this episode, Gerry Naughton and Aaron Weah explore how Charles Taylor emerged not just as a rebel leader, but as a powerful communicator during the early years of the Liberian Civil War. The discussion focuses on Taylor’s use of radio – particularly the BBC World Service programme Focus on Africa – to reach Liberian audiences and shape public perceptio...

You’re listening to Liberia: Remembering the Future . In this first episode, we start with Liberia's seat on the UN Security council, which is due to last for two years from January 2026. We ask what status or influence does this give, and what might change as a result? We also go into Liberia's presence on the world stage over the last 180 or so years. Aaron brings the grounded, lived perspective...

This episode traces the early stages of Charles Taylor’s rise and the outbreak of Liberia’s civil war. We begin with the little-known background – Taylor’s position within government, his time in the United States, and the network of relationships that shaped his path back to Liberia. From there, we move to the pivotal moment of December 24, 1989, when a small group of fighters crossed into Nimba...

Episode 7 – The Fall of President Doe (Part 3 of the Doe mini-series) In this final part of the Samuel Doe mini-series, we move to his final collapse after nine years in power: the disputed 1985 elections, the failed Quiwonkpa coup, and the rise of Charles Taylor set the stage for a country sliding towards war. Dr Aaron Weah describes how ethnic narratives were shaped – and often manipulated – whi...

Episode 6 of Liberia: Remembering the Future – and Episode 2 in our Samuel Doe mini-series. In this episode, we move from the aftermath of the 1980 coup into the pivotal year of 1985. We discuss the first election after five years of military rule, allegations of rigging, the return and failed coup attempt of Thomas Quiwonkpa, and the reprisals that followed. The conversation also explores how tha...

Part 1 in our three-part mini-series on Samuel Kanyon Doe. In this episode: - Samuel K. Doe's pivotal role in Liberian history - How he rose from soldier to ruler - Understanding the 1980 coup - The promises and contradictions of the Doe era - Why Doe still provokes strong feelings today Hosts: Gerry NaughtonAaron Weah Podcast: Liberia: Remembering the Future – conversations about Liberia’s histor...

Bonus episode – Suakoko Today is International Women’s Day, so we’re sharing a short outtake from our conversation about Liberia’s early history. It begins with a question – what if Liberia had never become an independent republic? – and ends with the remarkable story of Chief Suakoko, a woman who helped open the interior of the country to negotiation and dialogue. A small digression, but a fascin...

Episode summary In this episode Aaron and Gerry explore the long presidency of William V.S. Tubman and the reformist ambitions of William Tolbert . For more than three decades Liberia appeared politically stable under the True Whig Party. Yet beneath that stability deeper tensions were building – tensions that would eventually reshape the country. Topics covered • Tubman’s rise to power in 1944• T...

In this episode, Gerry Naughton and Aaron Weah explore the political foundations and contradictions of Liberia’s First Republic. The discussion centres on the 1930 forced labour scandal, when Liberia was accused of practices indistinguishable from slavery, leading to the resignation of President Charles D. B. King. They unpack how fraudulent elections, economic crisis, and elite capture of the sta...

In Part 1, we sketched the basic shape of the relationship – the founding myth, the strange intimacy, the blind spots, the dependency, the pride. In Part 2, we stay with the same question but get more concrete: what does “US influence” actually look like when you’re living it? We talk about how power travels – through money, through institutions, through culture, and through habits of thinking you...

In this episode, we begin a longer conversation on US influence in Liberia: from the country’s founding to the deeper assumptions that still shape politics, power, and identity today. We look at how Liberia’s relationship with its ‘big brother’ was formed, how it functions in practice, and why its legacy remains so complicated. This is Part 1 of a two-part discussion. Bonus material for subscriber...

What we cover Who Dr Amos Sawyer was, and why he mattered at a critical moment in Liberia’s history Sawyer’s role as an academic-president — and why that mattered in a post-war context The tension between institutional reform and personal power in Liberian politics Memory, restraint, and why some political virtues are easier to admire than to inherit How Sawyer’s legacy still challenges Liberia to...

Our plan was to discuss the significance of the podcasts’ title. Instead, we discussed two books that have helped shape how Liberia’s story is being told - and its history is being remembered. The first book, by Stephen Ellis, is well-known inside and outside the country. The other, by three young, inexperienced but enthusiastic, writers - including our own Aaron Weah - tries to make sense of thei...