The Redemption of General Butt Naked

Imagine facing a man who killed your husband or losing both your legs to him and this very person asks for your forgiveness. Worst yet how about watching this very man go on public television and admitting to killing 20,000 of your fellow countrymen, and no justice being served to him.

Let me just cut to the chase here: teens & up, you should see this. (There are some very mature themes & graphic images.

People who are not familiar with the history of Liberia or the eight year Civil War, costing the lives of a (conservative) estimate of 200,000 people, will probably not be familiar with the "General Butt Naked" either. Those people might chuckle at such an "endearing" nome de guerre, but do not let yourself be fooled: the key-word here is "nome de guerre" and there is nothing endearing about the General whose real name is Joshua Milton Blahyi.

Imagine if Heinrich Himmler didn't commit suicide right after World War II, then disappeared and returned to Germany ten years later, re-inventing himself as a Protestant Minister. Substitute the nation of Liberia for Germany, and you end up with 'The Redemption of General Butt Naked'.

My problems with this film had absolutely nothing to do with the filmmakers who have done an excellent job of recording both an individual and a national story, not, I would think, without some risk, if only because they spent a a great deal of time with their subject in a country where he has good reason to be hated. Just below the surface of the story of the evangelist/former genocidal soldier General Butt Naked, lies the whole anguished story of numerous countries trying to recover from hideous tragedy by confronting the truth and even rendering some justice, but not so much that old wounds are torn open.