Fragmented by hypocrisy, double standard and selfishness, it is no doubt purely Gambian problem that a nation this small fails to rescue itself while sinking deep. By true account of extremes it is multiple standard as double standard tends to be limited. One person in many hats with assorted colours is what the situation truly depicts.
Disunity
Blaming Gambia’s social division on ethnicity is unrealistic as intermarriage and diversity takes on more encouraging forms. Such scale of diversity and tolerance permits cordial interplay at various levels; thereby blending work and culture in close knit nature.
Closer study of matters at hand reveals more ugly imagery of Gambian social reality. While ethnic diversity still prevails in a nation so small by size of population and land shares, economic imbalances alongside financial uneven possession tends to impose more serious divide within closer family ties. New ties are sought after mainly induced by personal desire to be part of the flow.
Custodians of traditional family values are slowly fading away by natural toll of times. New generation prefers taking nothing from the past and neither shouldering the obligation to hand down any good for posterity. Majority of people are caught up in a time trap with no hope of positive difference.
Wisdom and sanity of the past generations die and gets buried without trace. Rather than build on solid foundations more adventurous of the lot in the bare name of new generation prefer digging their own flag poles as part of beating unbroken grounds.
People with blood ties are the most divided by selfish drive for material, money, and some ugly antagonistic feuds all in the name of competition.
Money and material become powerful wedges splitting families apart. Only times that some family members come together is by occasion of naming ceremonies, weddings, and funerals. Extreme situations relate to lack of basic contact by phone, visit, and even through email for those accessible online.
This type of disunity extends to wider society in terrific ways. Those who do not join well with close or distant family members and casual friends hardly think of doing better with others. It is even more serious when plotting against innocent persons creeps in. Antagonism is rife to devastating limits. Bad blood has been so badly infused into the body of Gambia’s social relations and people are not talking or doing anything to detox society.
A society so seriously infected with higher levels of negative feelings will not see evil when back stabbing, plotting, and feeding on the mishaps befallen others. This is beyond the capability of best surgeons. It is chronic and slowly eating up much needed social ingredients replacing best spirit of caring and sharing. For now, there are well sought after valuable possessions almost out of reach. Blaming the symptoms and not looking at the cause only aggravates the situation more.
Personal interest
Your desire to advance more than others can be normal. What is not good enough though is to wish that while you move up next step of the ladder, let the person below drop two steps down or fell to the ground altogether. That is worst form of selfishness.
Securing or looking after personal interest does not warrant that you trample on others. You have all reasons under the moon and stars to secure your personal interest. Where it goes so wrong is the extent to which securing your personal interest weighs down severely negative on others. Having to jeopardise others in the course of securing your personal interest is not only wrong but very much unjustifiable. Yet we have good people out there who insist that the end justifies the means.
Unshared concerns
Society is seen to be embracing shared concerns when a bite at one little finger of an individual impacts on everyone. In contrast to that ideal, when one dozen persons encounter unlawful arrest, detention, torture and death by harmful treatment, they face it alone. Such is the reality of today’s Gambia.
Everyone seems to be saying it is not their problem. At times you hear people say if they talk, that brings them trouble. People hibernate in self-made cocoons and nothing to do with those outside their comfort zone. The situation that opens everyone to possible harmful encounter one day or the next is nobody’s business.
To each person, society is blamed, forgetting that the finger that points also belongs to that society. A case of total unshared concern is now overgrown into serious concern.
Immediate gratification
To serve immediate purpose at high cost can be a choice but not best one. Those who settle for immediate gratification are not without reason. It is all done with high hopes that things remain the same. Very rarely things ever remain the same.
No matter how firm you plug your thick fingers real life passage of time does not keep things the same. From being a baby to this stage of yours is ample body of evidence you have no doubt about things never staying the same.
Having to wait with bit more patience has potential to heal pains and bring matters under better control. Immediate gratification in quick fix manner will only serve temporal limited purpose however good.
Collective planning with long term gains is more sustainable in generations. For a society where the problem of next door neighbour is no concern there nothing matters about next generation. Taking everything for today leaves nothing for tomorrow.
What that reveals most undeniably is the fact that Gambia has no provision for succession planning. People prefer to live in full time day tight compartment where only what is at hands counts as next day takes care of what it turns to be. Who says people don’t have choice to make?
Unhealthy competition
Collective progress is severely retarded by nothing worse than unhealthy competition. Worst of it is when few people want the largest share while denying the majority access to even crumbs.
Close observation of the race for goodies reveals a case where people are not only missing tracks but kicking others on the right track. There is too much elbow work.
Those capable and willing challengers are blocked from the race by crooked manipulating ways. Lot of injustice goes on and yet those who need to do something about that care least.
Unhealthy competition gets to extremes where those who cannot perform to standard stand the way of others more capable and willing. The unspoken reason held by tight lips is that when most able persons do it better, those under performers will be exposed.
By perception of their blurred vision, it is better to cover up personal weakness even if that means low standard output. The reverse progression is to permit more enhanced performers and let everyone enjoy shared benefits in best standard gains. That is not happening for whatever reasons.
Fear of being exposed for a person’s weakness can be dealt with better by striving to improve oneself rather than block the way of progress and high standard performers.
Retarded performance from unhealthy competition renders loss of winners. They are called winners by count of resources at their command. Genuine and more willing persons have no bargaining power to influence critical decisions.
Public sector is not the only arena where key decision makers get it wrong. Non-Governmental Organisations NGOs in Gambia experience same types of obstacles as what obtains at public sector. It is sometime people from the public sector who cross borders to take responsible positions opened at NGOs. There are still some very able and committed good hands at NGOs who will do anything it takes to deliver success.
Empire building and Group disintegration
Hero worship in work place relations is no new business of the day. At almost all public sector outlets and many NGOs people form into personally motivated groups. They work not with others but on them.
Rather than working with others for realistic goal driven progress, the wheel turns opposite direction. One lot pushes up at given direction and others pull down at the other end.
Those on the pull down side of the social divide are very much aware of what they are doing. When you ask them to stop, they respond by more intense wilful damage.
Kings and queens have their servants who need not perform any meaningful duties. These are the people seen going in and out of the high office at unreasonable frequency with no good reason.
Empire building at level of the organisation takes many forms. It is nothing in the proper outfit of team building. Groups gather to engage in some unhealthy competitive antagonism with other groups at high cost to productivity and output.
The group leadership figures are called department heads or section managers. Each department is headed and invariably controlled by a king or queen of the camp. Occasionally as required by scheme of work they hold meetings together. By observation of body language and how daggers are thrown at each other, nobody needs telling there is serious in-fight where occasion does not call for it at all.
Go to any office or project setups and see how ‘empire building’ contributes to massive failure. Terminal reports do not reflect these realities. Significant proportion of projects and organisations in Gambia fail simply due to these and other undocumented facts or figures. Empire building encourages the mentality of ‘we and them’ by high scale of defeatist proportion. Collective will is never permitted to prevail with much disintegration through informal camps better named as empire building.
Gambian media is reflection of same society
Whatever you recognise as flaws of Gambian society, most of it is firmly rooted within the media circle. Expected standards get compromised by will or by default on larger part of several outlets.
Like establishments on the ground, Gambia media is plagued by same ills bringing society down lower. No two media outlets are teamed together or relate in any atmosphere of cordial fraternity. Some of the outlets raise the winner flag when the race hardly starts. There is similarity in type of unhealthy competition as though best way to judge media enterprise success is not by quality and standard of information services but how to flare up gossip at most rapid current and gossip.
Cardinal rules of media are flatly flawed by some outlets. Interestingly, the very establishment that claims providing to scrutinise and challenge refuses to be scrutinised and challenged.
In terms of governance and systematic dispensation the regulator refuses to be regulated. Some of the media outlets operate as though at war with others. In the process, there is so much noise as in a battle front. Information becomes casualty as society remains consumers of junk.
In no lesser way foodstuff is to consumers, information as product of media enterprise bundled in certain ways and dumped on deserving audience needs to meet valued standards.
While everyone shouts loud enough to be heard, only certain Gambian media outlets produce the type of information material with proper blend by standard audience quality preference.
Without sector focus, it is hard reading the road map that Gambian media follows in fulfilling the role of information, entertainment, and education for society. Very few or hardly any outlets focus on particular line of interest.
For most part, Gambian media is driven by currency of political episodes while other matters of vital interest are left out or treated with least attention to detail. There is rotten beef from a dead political animal smelling all around from which most Gambian media outlets take deep bite and dish out to society in various portions.
Gambia Press Union GPU could have been serving as effective media regulator and vibrant institution given the enabling environment or readiness for the task. Lacking serious organisation by key players in the media fraternity disallows the type of progressive dispensation.
In a field where people group but not established teams, playing to the rule becomes harder. Gambia media falls in that situation. It will take some brave challengers turning the wheel along right path to regular media superhighway. There is still need to set standards for collective dispensation of Gambia.
Prospects
Through collective caring and sharing Gambian society has great potential to grow along progressive track to high performing success. This is possible when group gathering is replaced by workable team formation to enhance organisational development and institution building.
Cultivating and embracing given enterprise mentality will enhance better responsibility and accountability to great extent. It has to be remembered that even small scale entrepreneur have responsibility towards the immediate society being served.
Public, private and third sector operatives of any size and form need to recognise there is always an obligation. Once a product or service is not limited to the proprietor’s personal use, consumers deserve better deal. Even though it is true that ordinarily consumers of various products and services do not always enjoy bargaining power when things go wrong, they still deserve the best deal.
Whatever it is that Gambia faces, part of it by permission of the nature and how Gambians relate as people of shared values, interest, and concerns. Improving social relations will invariably have positive bearing on how a nation advances. Gambia is no exception to that fact of life. It is possible that Gambia paves new avenues towards collective success. There is certainly enough light at end of the tunnel. Gambian problem requires Gambian solution.