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“Pray the Devil Back to Hell”
A Review By Ron Steinman
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Now and then, a film comes along about an
event and a time that in the past I managed to ignore or, more
simply put, found had no place in my life. “Pray the Devil Back to
Hell” is a feature documentary about a woman’s movement in Liberia
that brought down a tyrant. Directed by Gini Reticker, watching this
film helped correct my failure to observe and understand more about
Africa, a continent that I have had difficulty thinking of or caring
about. Today, with the continuing tragedy in Darfur, the mess in
Sudan, the charged ethnic situation in Kenya, and the potential for
serious bloodshed in Zimbabwe, it is difficult to ignore the
frequent troubles that beset that huge landmass, a place truly
distant for many people.
This film tells the story of how a group of ordinary women in
Liberia changed the way the country was run. Through peaceful
demonstrations, they helped rid the country of President Charles
Taylor, a ruthless, murderous warlord who became its elected
president, and then ruled as a dictator. Fed up with a many-sided
civil war, other warlords running freely everywhere in the country,
child soldiers fueled by drugs and alcohol, and tired of living a
life of desperation under a cruel despot, Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian
woman “invited ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters .
. . to start the Christian Women’s Peace Initiative.” Her idea was
to get thousands of other Christian churchwomen to come forward to
pray for peace. To her surprise an early supporter was Asatu Bah
Kenneth, a Muslim woman who also wanted peace and said, “Does the
bullet know Christian from Muslim?” Then, with the women united, and
wearing traditional white dresses, the movement started to take off.
Soon the women donned white T-shirts with the group’s name
emblazoned on the front. They held meetings, organized
demonstrations and sat-in at the sides of roads and in front of
parliament, all to the consternation of President Charles Taylor and
the many factions fighting each other whom they reproached equally
for the part each was playing in Liberia’s endless civil war.
Filmed well after the events, the interviews are sharp and crisp.
The women sparkle with intelligence, passion and wit. The production
team worked with a treasure trove of quality archival footage from
many international sources that were shot at the time by news
organizations that were paying attention to the events in Liberia.
And in Ghana, because it was there that the women finally succeeded
beyond all expectations. They journeyed to Ghana to be present at
peace talks between Liberia’s warring factions. The women took up
their usual positions and sat-in around the building where the talks
were being held. When the negotiating parties could not come to an
agreement, the women surrounded the building and did not allow any
of the men inside to come out until they had made a deal. When the
various factions came to an agreement, the women lifted their
barricade. It was possibly their finest hour.
The director and editor forged a seamless montage as they wisely
wove the footage to create the right emotional atmosphere for the
story. I felt I was there with the women as they worked tirelessly
to change their country. Because of the intelligent editing, the
story moves at a sharp, yet orderly pace. My attention never
flagged.
Liberia now has a woman president -- Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the
first female to be elected president for any country in Africa,
itself a notable achievement. There has been no war for a year and
half, better than anyone could have hoped for considering how ugly
was the fighting. Guns are mostly off the streets and reconciliation
with the former soldiers and the retraining of many of the boy
soldiers is taking place. That is all to the good. However, I wanted
to see more of the results of what the women accomplished in their
own lives. I wanted to learn how these extraordinary women who led
this revolution are faring today. Did their efforts trickle down to
daily life, especially theirs, and, of course, anyone else living in
Liberia? It would have been a fitting end to the film in what will
surely be a long and continuing story.
I leave you with this thought from Leymah Gbowee, the spiritual
leader and the organizer of the women’s revolt. It is fitting and
empowering. At the end of the film, she says, “If things ever go
back, we will be back.” Her statement puts the new government on
notice and leaves little doubt she will do just that to preserve the
extraordinary accomplishment of the Christian Women’s Peace
Initiative that helped topple a dictator.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002.
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