Sunday, November 28, 2010

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Providing coordinated snapshots of the movement that led to the end of Liberia's second civil war, Gini Reticker's Pray the Devil Back to Hell distills and memorializes an exceptional postmodern promotion of peace. Interviewing many of the principal participants, Reticker offers personal histories and general statistics to frame and conceptualize her portrait. Her depiction of the civil war modestly evidences the daily atrocities, only graphically referring to one barbaric situation, which highlights the brutality without sensationalizing it, thereby providing her with more time to focus on the movement. The Women of Liberia, Christian and Muslims working together, were basically tired of the civil war and decided to launch a peaceful protest demanding that Charles Taylor's corrupt regime meet with Liberia's rebellious warlords to come to a peaceful agreement. Eventually attracting international attention, they tenaciously and ingeniously held their ground until their goals were met.

Seemingly up against insurmountable odds, the Women of Liberia uprightly stand as a shining beacon of dedicated grassroots political action (Charles Taylor is being charged for war crimes in the Hague). Hopefully their example, brilliantly upheld in Pray the Devil Back to Hell, continues to globally inspire the bold and the oppressed.

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