letter from Liberia
In an episode of Come Fly with Me, the BBC’s 2010 satirical fly-on-the-wall documentary set in a fictional UK airport, Ian Foot, the Chief Immigration Officer, challenges a passenger from Liberia for travelling under a forged passport. “The slight giveaway,” says Foot smugly, “is there is no such country as Liberia.”
The affronted passenger, appalled by the officer’s racism, points to Liberia on a map of West Africa and the humiliated Foot lets the visitor through.
What makes the sketch credible, adding to the humour, is widespread ignorance about the country. The name sounds like a contrived amalgam of two well-known African states: Libya and Nigeria. But, as Foot admits when he sees the map, “Oh yes, just hidden under Sierra Leone”.
