A Succinct narration of Gambia’s Reality today
by Pata Saidykhan
If I’d grown up in an abusive household where my father abuses my mother, emotionally or physically, what would and should have been my (moral) responsibility?
Do I stay out of the fight of my beloved parents, step in to defend and protect my mother or go on my knees and pray that God intervenes if not in his physical form but via miraculous Divinity? I wouldn’t wait for you to counsel me as to what to do because I have a conscience and mind of my own to decipher and do what is not only right but necessary. I’d defend and protect my mother against the man I called my father and provider. I’ll defend my weak defenseless mother against her aggressor. And if it was the other way around where my mother is the bully, I shoulder equal responsibility to intervene and do the right thing. Now my level of involvement and the extent to which I would go to defend and protect the innocent and the transgressed would mainly depend on the degree of the assault. If talking to the parent assaulting his or her victim is what is needed, that I’d do. If I have to twist an arm to subdue and protect a life, best believe that’s what I’m going to do.
If you’re going to feel conflicted to think you don’t want to disrespect a parent, well what would you have said if the victim suffers a physical harm or in the worse case, died? That regret of not doing anything would haunt you to your grave. And you’d be shamed and guilty hearing the final screaming voices of your dead parent. So take a stance against any form of injustice and oppression any way you could, for that is what God would have wanted. In the case of my parents, it would be out of love for them and my family that would have necessitated what I would have done. Nothing personal against any of them.
Ferry this into the Gambian situation. I’ve always said that humans are different from the rest of the animals in many ways but the ability to utilize our faculties, especially our conscience and choose good over bad is one huge difference. I’m about respecting the rights, feelings and boundaries of others but that wary and cautionary position must not leave you indifferent in choosing a wrong or a right when those are the only picks. Fear is a natural element but when it deters you from fighting evil then it becomes a problem. Matter of fact, God gave us a recipe for courage in this verse from the Bible : King James – Deuteronomy 20:1-3 – “When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God [is] with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt”.
What more do we need fighting wrongs against those we see to be too powerful knowing that God has just inflated our ego that once we curb our fears and muster courage we will be victorious?
I’m not ignoring the legitimate fear that we have as a people. Most of our fears are genuine but some of them are more perceived or imaginary than real. We must not use that to turn blind eye to the blatant violation of our God-given rights and reduced us to a spineless nation, much more condone and enable a system that is not leaning any closer to allowing any form of decent freedom to her citizens. Remember that the bully and oppressor thrive on knowing that their victims are afraid, so they build on that to gain more controlling grounds for a firmer grip. They’re never willingly going to let that advantage tilt in your favor.
“The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: In the near future there will be Amirs (rulers) and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech), is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God’s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined.” Hadith – Sahih Muslim 4569, Narrated Umm Salamah, r.a.
These are the reasons I felt every Gambian including myself ought to play a part in salvaging the remaining moral, political and socio-economic fabrics of our country that are already dilapidated and putrefying faster than we know.
This has been my position on The Gambia and her politics or issues in general: WE no longer can hinge on the excuse of we’re a fledgling nation, and we will get there someday’. The Gambia is almost 50 yrs old. How much older do we have to be to know that we come short of where the rest of the world are?
As far as President Jammeh is concerned, I have no issues with him as a Man, Person or Gambian. As a president though, I have my apprehension. The President may have the best of intentions for the Gambia, but JUST good intentions are NOT ENOUGH. We need to meet those with prudent actions. We can’t be trailing other nations in this fast developing world, not because of our lack of human capital or natural resources but of one person’s making, who is not a prophet but a political leader. What would be our excuse?
The Economic & Political dictates of the President have major loopholes, borne out of the “uncounseled” knee-jerk (re)actions and unilateral decisions in areas that he holds no expertise in. I’m sure by now we’ve all seen the IMF Country Report that came out in May on our gloomy economy as well as The Amnesty International and other Rights Bodies on reports and condemnations of the deplorable human rights conditions in our country. These kinds of shameful embarrassments are my worries. And as a Gambian, I do have the right to hold a different stance from what the president believes.
We undoubtedly have Human Rights and Good Governance excesses but of equal or more importance is the one-man impulsive, fettered and irrational Fiscal and Economic Policies of this regime which are never vibrant, thus sending the future of our country to the guillotine. Normalizing the political and rights anomalies after a change of regime is twice easier a feat to achieve than resuscitating an economy that’s already headed to the grave. If our elected officials are not seeing that, we do. Therefore, holding a different political, economic, development positions to that of the president and his Govt does not make me any less Gambian than you reading this. I do not care how different anyone defines patriotism.
As Gambians, we could have political and ideological differences and still respectfully remain a Unit. That’s democracy. That’s human. We shouldn’t have to be apologetic or outcasted for critically scolding the administration of its deficiencies. As a Matter of fact our differences should be embraced and celebrated to charge us on in pursuit of meaningful national development. Gambia needs Diversity. Jammeh and APRC do not believe that. Instead, they boxed us as enemies of the country and of progress.
That is why the most recent attempt to muzzle us into silent dummies is insulting. The recently Amended Communication and Information Act 2013, which I’m convinced was the evil plan of former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Lamin Jobarteh and his assistant the former Solicitor General and legal Secretary Pa Harry Jammeh, with their co-conspirators Njogu Bah and Nana Grey-Johnson who helped hatched and tabled the Bill to legislators, was only to seal themselves and their boss from the Public Scrutiny. You would think that most of these Justices Ministers who helped introduce absurd laws and then found to have abuse their offices with utmost disingenuity and blatant corruption, could have drafted those laws out of ill-will. Therefore, common sense would dictate that some of those laws need to be revisited and scrapped! A case in point: let’s say the recent Internet laws are retrospective and someone got charged and found guilty of accusing the aforementioned of corruption and abuse of office. Now that they are charged by the state with exactly that, what would have been the fate of those hammered under that bogus law? They know the dirt that stained their linen is prone to busting by vigilant Gambians, facilitated by the world wide web, and they’re kicking themselves at the inability to control the internet as they did every other thing in Banjul.
Authoritarian governments hate noises and the regime in Banjul has been getting a lot of unsolicited attention from outside its borders, especially unprecedented since last year. The Internet Activism has been sensational and it’s cracking their foundations and walls. We’re gaining grounds and it’s hurting them. That is evident in the unpopular and preposterous Internet Bill intended to be a ‘deterrent’. But just when they thought they have finally hammered the last nail in the coffin to put a cyber gag on people, one of the best and most compelling evidences in a tape recording of a shameful web of criminals in robes and wigs hit the internet, implicating the newly appointed Chief Justice WOWO and Lamin Jobarteh. Was anyone surprised? Hell NO! They must have anticipated that sooner or later the truth would come to light, and hastened to write that Bill. We must not tire or relent!
So as comes around another reminder of the day that witnessed illegitimacy mar our faithful marital home as a country, the pain, hurt, shame and despair drizzle over us. July 22! Don’t we wish it never came!? Whatever they have accused PPP government of, huge among which were overstay and flamboyant lifestyles, aren’t been mentioned anymore. As a matter of fact, those who conceived and midwifed this day exactly 19 years today are all gone but one, whom not because of his gallantry or wisdom, but of sheer mistake and accidental wheels of military rank seniority ascended to leadership. Some in their graves, some exiled. Those left around picking up the leftover crumbs are scared to death of nightfall and of the daylight that ushers in another day of uncertainty.
19 years of uninterrupted, unmitigated and uncompromising terror of a people and Country must end sooner than later. They’ve succeeded in switching off the connectors at the Kotu Power Station and want to extend that to Gambians outside the country with an audaciously overstretched law. We cannot budge, even when D3 million and/or 15 in the hole is the unreasonable price.