In the photograph the military is piling up sand bags for the expected violence after the upcoming election. Such scenes reminded me of getting ready for war. And of course the preparations served to maintain the existing tension in the society.
   
My visit to Sierra Leone took place right before the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections. I had a chance to watch the process day by day. I could sense the tension building up to Election Day, readily apparent between the partisans of the two major parties; SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) and APC (All People’s Congress). You could easily differentiate between the partisans by looking at the colors they had on: red for APC and green for SLPP. One day I put on the only clean pair of pants I had, which happened to be red. As I walked through the streets of Freetown, I realized something was wrong but didn’t know what it was until my friend Marah told me: My outfit was clearly declaring me as being a fanatic APC fan on a SLPP rally day. How I wished to have a green shirt at that moment!

I saw the partisans stridently supporting their parties on the streets. And they didn’t follow a party only because they believed in its ideology. Nobody really talked about party philosophy. Divisions seemed to be based on ethnicity. Even the party leaders didn’t bring up issues and the related policies. I heard presidents or party members saying “the issues are known by everyone: roads, electricity, water and stuff like that.” But how were they going to deal with those problems? Were they going to deal with them at all? Those were the questions in my mind.