–Says They Won’t Sit and Allow Western Reactionaries Damage their Tradition

By Taisiah K. Merfee

The University of Liberia Campus-based political party, Vanguard Students Unification Party (SUP) has assured traditional, cultural and indigenous Liberians that they will not sit and watch the tradition of Liberia be eradicated by those they term as western reactionaries.

According to the party, they strongly condemned and resist the eradication of the female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as impose on us by those westerners because any attempt to agree with them we will be damaging the traditional fabric of our society.

“We want to be very emphatically clear that we don’t support the attack on the Poro and Sande Society. However, SUP is a part of tradition and so we will not sit back and allow people to come damage the tradition of our country. We don’t support the FGM argument. Those who want to go and be mutilated should be. And those who don’t want it, they should not be. It’s the issues of choice,” SUP Chairman Mustapha A. Kanneh stated during a press conference late Wednesday evening December 7, 2022.

Addressing students gathering at the University of Liberia on its Capitol Hill Campus, Chairman Kanneh said SUPists are prepared and ready to defend the country tradition with their last blood and sweat.

He further indicated that the eradication of FGM in the country should be based on matter of choice not forcefully as people are doing it to ensure that our tradition be eradicated only because they are using it as a means to raise personal resource.

Chairman Kanneh vowed that they will not sit back and allow white win element colonist and reactionary elements to come and destroy the fabric of our society which is based on the pro and Sande society.

“Even in the democratic word of the great United States and other places, the question has always been the question of choices. Democracy gives us the right to choose and so let us maintain that. Therefore, FGM eradication should remain the question of choice and not a question of law. Those who are going against our tradition as lawmakers should be fight and fight to the code by the traditional leaders of our country,” he noted.

He urged that all those lawmakers who are supporting the eradication FGM in the society should not be given the space to represent their constituents any longer because they are damaging the future and tradition of our country.

Chairman Kanneh pointed out that they stand with tradition therefore, on that basic they reiterate that tradition are meant to be obey and not argue and so no woman should bow down to FGM because they are force but let it be a matter of choice.

“For us from SUP, we have choose tradition over democracy. We want our people to know that our tradition is at stick and the futures of our children are at risk. Those that want to eradicate FGM are not doing no good rather they are damaging the fabric of our society and we don’t support that” SUP chairman alarmed.

Meanwhile SUP chairman also extolled the women in their party for their bravery and courageous role in maintaining peace and stability in the party and the country at large, adding that women represent the border of resistance.

“Somebody told me that if you want to hear something, call the men but if you need things to be done, call the women. For too longed women in Liberia had been reducing to nothingness and zero and second fellow. However, on this women anniversary day, we like to appreciate our entire revolutionary gallant female ideological and intellectual fighters,” he concluded.