As John F. Kennedy the 35th President of the United States of America puts’ it “asked what you can do for your country and not what your country can do for you”. The great all-time freedom fighter Nelson Mandela (RIP) added “Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.” These two distinguished positions from some of the world’s greatest citizens of their times underscores the abiding principle of connection between nationhood and the role of citizens. That a nation can only be as free and as good as its citizens want it to be and no nation has ever been liberated without the sacrifice of its citizens.
Fundamentally, nations throughout history has relied on their most patriotic citizens who will not only stand for justice and equality for all of its citizens but openly refused to stand by and watch the nation’s foundations destroyed by a few citizens who see themselves as the nation itself. These few individuals who managed to temporary control State power are bent on blurring the historical lines of separation between the State and the individual citizens. They envision in owning everything that belongs to the State and confiscate from citizens’ family heritages as much as they can with the hope that they will never again go without.
When Nations are faced with such unprecedented dilemma without end in sight, it is the ordinary citizens who owe everything to their nation and people who stand up and defend against the looting of the nation’s resources. If citizens fail to defend the independence of the nation from seizure and claims of personal ownership by a few people, then citizens of that nation collectively would have failed to live up to their obligations to the nation. The responsibility to halt such a dangerous trend ultimately lies in the hands of decent citizens who would rather die than sit idle and do nothing in the face of open assault on citizens.
In Gambia, for the past twenty years citizens must admit that we have failed to fill the true duties of patriotic citizens. We have watched, aided and or looked the other way in the face of blatant assault on our collective constitutional rights and freedom by a few unruly individuals. We have been complacent in our individual and or collective responsibilities in defending the national constitution; the freedom and security of our citizens. Many of us including our political leaders take comfort in the myth that the regime respects us or dare not trample upon us while we fail to realize that the violation of the rights of one citizen is a violation of the constitutional rights of all of us. The sense of nationalism and collective well-being seems to have dissipated into thin air from the blood of Gambian citizens.
We, as Gambians have sat and watched Yahya Jammeh and his accomplishes slowly destroy our political, social and economic institutions to enshrine his own personal interest at the expense of the nation. He has hired, fired, detained, tortured and imprisoned our citizens without a single protest. Our citizens have deliberately and selfishly served and continue to serve him knowing fully well that he has victimized people who came before them and yet they serve him at the detriment of their families and our nation. One by one, Yahya Jammeh has openly assaulted and disrespected our citizens, political opposition and no one dare stand up against his oppressive machine.
The time have long past for us as decent citizens who pride ourselves as individual sovereign citizens to stand up and reclaim our constitutional rights to defend our nation. There is no more excuse for doing nothing or pretense in carrying out illegal orders for Yahya Jammeh either in arresting and torturing our citizens, illegal use of our nation’s resources and or fighting among us to be in the good hands of President Jammeh. If decent and honest law enforcement officers refuse to arrest citizens for excising their constitutional rights, if Military and NIA officers refuse to carry out illegal arrest and detention of innocent citizens, if government civil servants refuse to sign illegal checks and collect illegal funds and if our religious leaders and community elders refuse degrading lectures from Yahya Jammeh and his illegitimate demands, and most notably if our political opposition would speak in one voice, stand up and defend against rampant arrest and prosecution of their supporters, political change would have come to Gambia by now.
President Jammeh is banging on our individual weaknesses and care free attitude towards the future of our nation. As a result, he has slowly driven our people away from our land, force others to mind their own business and he has successfully threatened anybody who dare not carry out his illegal orders. At this point, we don’t have anybody to blame but ourselves. We have subjected ourselves to mental, physical and psychological degradation by none other than someone we empowered to become President. Any Gambian who openly or otherwise knowingly agrees to be used by this regime to carry out illegal orders at the expense of our nation cannot and must not be allowed to shift the blame on to anybody. The buck stops with each and every one of our citizens and until we revolved individually and collectively in public and private against corruption and injustice we have no moral ground in blaming others. Change historically has always been brought about by ordinary citizens who consciously take their sovereignty personal and refuse to allow a single individual or group of citizens lure them into fear and self-destruction in the name of serving our nation and people. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
By Demba Baldeh