The short promotional film “Liberia: Opportunity for Investment” presents Liberia as an idyllic land filled with opportunity. Constant references to Liberia’s connections with Western Democracy fuel the piece. However, this Utopian presentation of Liberian society only serves the interests of Western white elites, shrouding any possibility of true liberation for the Liberian people.

This promotional film, directed and produced by James Hinton in 1978, emphasizes the “enlightened” qualities of Liberian society at the expense of the truth. From the video, we learn that Liberia was the first modern democracy in Africa. What we do not learn is that Liberia has faced extensive ethnic conflict because formerly enslaved persons were brought to land that was already occupied. We are constantly reminded of economic promise in the country with little thought given to the wide disparities in economic status. This is not to say that Liberian life is categorically defined by strife, but it is to say that the video under-emphasizes the real problems experienced by the Liberian people for the purpose of emphasizing economic opportunity for Western powers.

This video is further underwhelming in its determinations of the extent to which Liberians face marginalization and on whom that blame rests. In addition to the complete effacing of economic strife, the video attempts to make implicit commentary on the absence of gender-based hierarchy, featuring Florence Chenoweth, Minister of Agriculture and a woman, as the only public official in the video. Ironically then, it becomes Chenoweth who advances the most direct commentary on who is to blame for Liberia’s current condition. When commenting on efforts to make Liberia self-sufficient in its growth of rice, Chenoweth cites the traditional farmer’s unwillingness to adopt Western methods of farming as a chief inhibitor to economic progress. This “resentment of ‘evolution’” is understandable, given the fact that Western evolution has historically meant exploitation. This condescension towards the farmer is a far cry from Franz Fanon’s argument in The Wretched of the Earth that liberation will not occur without the lumpenproletariat taking an active role.

The Liberian public is not the audience for this film. The narrator comments on the resource riches of the country. There is little reference to the people who live in Liberia, except to mention their noble savagery as a tourist attraction. With this in mind, it cannot be a surprise that the thesis of the film relies on the utility of capitalism. The issue of Liberian liberation is not central to this material at all. The fate of the Liberian people is incidental. Unfortunately, these reductive portrayals cannot be attributed to white malice or indifference; the video was commissioned by the Liberian government itself. This video is indicative of the failings that occur when elites set the agenda for societal progress.

Unfortunately, the argument that capitalism will get Black people free is uncompelling to many.