ABSTRACT

On the threshold of the national museum of Liberia, set down between the curated expression of history contained within the building and the normality of everyday life taking place on the streets of Monrovia below, is a drum standing two and a half meters tall. An official sign introduces the artefact as a "Dukpa drum", and in brackets "communication drum". Pointing through the door to the street below, museum guide said "talking drum" is what it is normally called. Liberians might be resigned to the idea of the national law under the Constitution as an abstract reality, but as the zoe's comment indicates, they are also contesting its implications. The vast majority of Liberians appear to accept the national law as such for this very reason: because it represents an abstract expression of how they ought to be, as an idea, as a gesture, as a future state.