By Sidiki Fofana/ Truth In Ink
In my rejoinder, Setting the Record Straight: The True Story of Liberia’s Multiparty Democracy, published in The Oracle and on the Truth in Ink platform, I challenged Sherman Seequeh’s tribute to the late Gabriel Baccus Matthews, a tribute that all but crowned Matthews the sole architect of Liberia’s multiparty democracy.
Sherman’s words did more than honor a fallen comrade; they inferred and effectively commissioned Matthews as the singular leader, forebear, and “sole hero” of the struggle, an interpretation that history simply cannot support.
Sherman has since published what he called a “riposte.” While it is polished prose, it is ultimately a rhetorical sleight of hand. It neither rebuts my argument nor dismantles the evidence I presented. If anything, it confirms my central claim that Sherman inflated Matthews’ role beyond proportion, committing what I have described as an act of historical bias leading to historical murder.
And so, before going forward, I must point out that this disputation is not an attempt to reduce Gabriel Baccus Matthews’ contributions to our democracy, nor to disparage Sherman’s journalistic craft. It is, rather, an uncompromising act of patriotism, a defense of historical integrity.
Off- course we will all agree that History is not a toy for anyone to bend into myth. The way we remember our past is not an idle exercise; it shapes our present and influences the choices we make as a nation. To allow falsehood or exaggeration to take root is to endanger the future. Therefore, the insistence for correctness.
Sherman’s “Forebear” Commission
Sherman’s tribute does not merely celebrate Matthews, it anoints him. In the September 2020 edited version of his tribute, Sherman quotes Matthews:
“In our possible humanly way, we fought, and were hurt, to create the democratic space now prevailing…”
But then Sherman makes a leap, reading the collective pronoun “we” as Matthews speaking prophetically about himself, likening him to Old Major in Orwell’s Animal Farm, the solitary visionary who inspired a rebellion. This is no neutral metaphor; it is a theological commissioning, turning Matthews into the singular prophet of multiparty democracy. If that were not enough, Sherman drives the point deeper.
“On Friday, September at the Catholic Hospital, the forebear of multiparty democracy succumbed to the fatigue of a struggle to which he had invested his adolescent and adult life…”
Note his precision; the forebear, not a forebear, not one of the forebears. This is no accidental turn of phrase. It is a coronation.
So then we asked the question Who Is a “Forebear”? The word forebear is not casual. According to:
- Merriam-Webster: “ancestor, forefather; precursor.
- Cambridge: “a relative who lived in the past; an ancestor.
- American Heritage: “a person from whom one is descended.”
Now an important point to consider is that the noun ” forebear” is most often used in the plural because history rarely has a single ancestor and struggles rarely have one originator. Sherman knew this. He chose the singular deliberately, not from ignorance but from intent, to canonize Matthews as the ancestor of Liberia’s democratic struggle, which is false and misleading. History proves it.
Liberia’s multiparty tradition predates Matthews; as such he cannot be its ” forebear.” It existed at the founding of the Republic in 1847, written into the Constitution, practiced, however imperfectly, for decades before the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) appeared.
Matthews was indeed a bold and brilliant organizer, but his personal sacrifice amounted to thirty-five days in a stockade and a cordial if complex relationship with President Tolbert, including regular invitations to the presidential dinner table. Compare this to Didwho Welleh Twe, who endured exile and humiliation, or those nameless patriots who were killed for daring to challenge the status quo. To elevate Matthews above all these figures is to romanticize him at the expense of truth.
Sherman’s “riposte” does mention other actors and moments, but only as passing scenery in the Matthews-centered drama he is scripting. This is the problem. To cast Matthews as the forebear is to erase the collective nature of our struggle and to write others out of history.
It is critical, especially when an intellectual or journalist with a large readership writes on this subject to mention unambiguously that Liberia’s democratic journey has no single author. To allow Sherman’s narrative to stand unchallenged is to hand future generations a false inheritance, a history built on exaggeration rather than fact.
This disputation is therefore not merely an argument with Sherman; it is an argument with the temptation to simplify history into hero worship. Matthews was a soldier in the battle for multiparty democracy, but he was not the battle itself.
Liberia must resist the urge to rewrite its past for the sake of convenience, sentiment, or personality cults. Truth must stand, even when it offends our heroes.
