Liberia was once the most Americanized country in Africa. And, in a way, maybe it still is: violent, treacherous and floating calmly (for the moment) in a violent backwater eddy of outside agitation, tribal hatred and old-fashioned greed. This is a country created by former slaves who brought American surnames and American-style politics to Africa. And, it appears, racism, guns and crime. Liberia now barely functions as a country. The prolonged civil war has reduced the country to a subsistence economy. More than 150,000 were killed in the civil war between 1989 and 1997. The most recent peace agreement (the country's 14th since 1989), signed in August 1996, has been relatively effective in disarming the various factions. Chuck Taylor took the July 1997 elections and quickly put his brother and sister-in-law into his cabinet and left some seats open for his former warlord enemies. Things are calm now and it remains to be seen whether ethnic tensions and the mess with Sierra Leone will force Chuck Taylor to put his All-Stars back on the field again.
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