Note: This material is mainly recycled from previous articles
These are very fundamental questions. However seeing, hearing and talking things always make me feel there is no unanimity of purpose in our struggle. Probably that is an extreme statement. What I meant to say is we have different understanding of the problem and we are looking for different outcomes.
Yahya is the problem! He must go and go first! He is 80% of our problem! These are the kind of summations I keep hearing. Certainly Yahya is one bad Gambian but he is created by our problem. Oops! Someone will say he (Burama) is contradicting himself again. What I simply mean is that something is missing and/or was never there – and that is why Yahya arrived in the first place and being able to do what he did.
That missing thing or that thing that never arrived our shores is what we need to find out – what is it and why it never reaches our shores? Getting these answers will go a long way towards solutions for our struggle. That missing thing is DEMOCRACY. It only existed in Gambia by name and an official label attached to our name.
Never bordering to search of this thing missing or the thing that never arrived led us to these endless trial and error efforts of how do we reorganize for next election. But even so after SM Dibba tried from 1978 to 1994 and others have tried all but the first 2 years of the second republics, with the same outcome one would think someone should ask the herds to halt and take a critical look at what we doing. Instead is always business as usual every 5 years. Let the party leaders not be greedy. Let them step aside for one for the common interest. Let us contribute money to finance their campaign. In a normal democratic environment this will be a good cause of action unfortunately ours is not a democracy much more a normal democracy.
Elections are democratic instruments and very good instruments. However we do not have democracy beyond its name. That explains why elections will not effect changes. In addition even if elections miraculously defeat Yahya that will not necessarily guarantee us democracy. Both Jawara and Yahya weren’t democratic and so they promised because the environment exists for them not to be and it serves their power lust interest. I understand the reasoning that Yahya’s replacement may likely be easier to work with in making the desired changes for democracy. This is only a hope and may or may not happen. If I will bet I will bet for the later (will not happen). If history is any judge the later is the most likelihood to happen. No body knows for sure how that will play out but what has to happen for us to see that is Yahya Has Go – How Do We Take Down Yahya? Forget about elections – it’s a col de sac!
We have to find pragmatic political solutions. One of them is not to tell the sitting president you must go and go first. That can only be said/done if our side hold power and/or has the military. Both are not the case at the moment!
I published my vision of ‘A Democratic Republic of The Gambia’ in a document called ‘The Working Paper’. In the document I identified what I viewed as our problems. Hereunder I restate them:
- Lack of Requisite Human capacity Capable of Democracy
- A Deficient and Defenseless Constitution
- Lack of Separation of Governance Structures and Authorities (None Functioning Democratic Institutions)
- No Decentralization (No Local Authority)
- No Rule of Law, No Due Processes of Law and No Impartial Administration of Laws
- Complete Disregard to Civil Liberties, Freedoms and Protected Rights
These are conceptually very related but for practical purposes each one is important to be delineated and place in the right context.
Why do I consider these our problems rather simply saying Yahya is the problem or he is 80% of the problem?
The simply answer would be because the lack of these created Yahya. Or let me clearly stated that Jawara created Yahya. Understand that am not implying Yahya is not a bad guy. I am only saying the lack of democracy created him.
The more educative answer is that The Gambia was found ‘A Democratic Republic’. That simply means we the citizens of The Gambia are the sovereign owners and democracy is the best available fairer method/tool to make decisions on common affairs. Hence being a republic and govern democratically is a given. No body including Yahya can take that away for monarchial rule. Imam Fatty, Bandin Drammeh, Rev. Telewa Johnson and/or Fr. Cleary cannot make us a theology. Believers in communism and/or socialism are late – Whatever PDOIS version that was! However that ideal state will only happen when our masses attained the ‘Requisite Human Capacity Capable of Democracy’. A Functioning Democratic Republic of The Gambia is an important distinction and should be clearly argued for in our struggle at all times because is the only thing that bind us as a people of a nation. The only thing we have in common is Gambia and collectively we owned it (republic) and we used (supposed to) democracy to make common decisions. We will always be different in our religions, spouses, skin colors, education, political ideology/affiliations, etc. In fact I have in the past argued the endless argument of one opposition is both unnatural and undemocratic especially if it is not the organic choosing of the people but demanded for some moral justification.
If I am right by any degree then to suggest that our efforts and/or solutions of demanding a functional democracy has to wait until we remove Yahya is misguided. That demand has to start now and will continue even if we have a change of president. To bring Gambia to a full circle democracy will require decades of persistent work of citizens. If I am also right the election route is making 2 assumptions both of which are problematic. The first assumption is we are a democracy so if we can convince more people to vote for our side we will secure a win. I have already stated that we are not a practicing democracy and elections are a conventional democratic instrument. The second assumption is that our candidate will be the reformer for democracy. This is a hope and outsourcing this task has not work well anywhere in history.
I recently published an outline of a plan. A plan I hope some day the nation will come around to it either in pieces and/or as a whole. In fact do you remember one of my article titled – “The Hard Way The Only Way”. It did not ask for Yahya’s removal as a precondition to making demands for democratic changes. The end result will flush out any undemocratic person and/or thing with people’s power. This is the most desired state of affair when our people are in control of their own destiny. I also mentioned that it will not be straight line and/or work in the park because those in control today and/or at anytime would want to hang on to power for as long as they can but as we grow in strength with our numbers, have adequate resources to organize and mobilize the other side will be reduced to zero over time. I was told I am a theorist and being academic. That’s ok! Everything inspirational probably started as a theory and being in the company of academics is no bad place either. Just a joke!
Hereunder I transposed the plan outline
Phase 1: Produce and Publish ‘A Comprehensive National Democracy Vision – this will be produced from a National Definition of The problem and an Analyses of The Operating Environment which will inform us our Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOP). The process of production will be consultative and culminate in a National Conference to refine and adopt. The basic idea is to give all a common understanding what the ultimate goal and not to ask everyone to do exact same thing.
Phase 2: Creation of National Face of The Struggle – a coordinating body that will be tasked to advocate The Plight of The Gambia based on The Vision to both Gambians and The International Community. This body will also formulate project/program proposal that will be sold to the International community for funding including wages of all full-time Operatives/Agents plus other Overhead Costs
Phase 3: Creation of an ‘Iron Wheel’ around Gambia – That is to organize/mobilize Gambians in America, Europe, Africa and Asia in Chapters. These will be loosely coordinated with the Central Body while main focus is creation of awareness of the Plight of The Gambia in the base nation. Programs such as meeting with visiting Senior Government Officials from the Gambia, demonstrations at their visits, lobby the base nation’s government, etc – based on the Nation Vision.
Phase 4: Going to Banjul – that is a formal contact with The Government of The Gambia with a copy of The Vision and a cover letter through Head of Gambia Mission in our Headquartered nation – say in US, head of Gambia Mission in DC
Phase 5: More in Banjul – a month later establish direct contact with Government (Office of President and Head of Civil Service, Political Parties and all Foreign Missions in The Gambia, Professional Organizations such as Bar Association, Chamber of Commerce, etc., TANGO, etc. with The Vision and covering letter
Phase 6: Open an Africa Region Coordinating Office in Dakar, Senegal– coordinate, advocate, media blister over Gambia, etc. They will be heavily involve on our advocacy with development partner such as tying budgetary aids to meeting demands of our Vision
Phase 7: Going To The People – when relatively safe and we begin to bear influence, we open a Country Coordinating Office in Banjul to be flank with Regional Offices in each region. Their main task will be people conscientization, organization, and mobilization. They will also run our legal and paralegal need within Gambia. With political parties, NGOs and other civil society organizations we will work out Real Civic Education Programs and run them
Phase 8: Repeating Steps 3 – 7 over and over until all demands are met………..1,000,000 years (just being sarcastic). That number is a warning that it will be a long hectic process. This is a big concern of many, yet they seem not recognizing that we have half a century of elections – never made changes. Half a century is pretty damn long time for me – more than my life.
Phase 9: Periodic Review of The National Vision to drop what’s not relevant and/or incorporate new developments should they exist.
Phase 10: At maturity turn into A Citizen’s Democratic Observatory Group that will serve as a citizen’s democracy watchdog pinning every government action based on the constitution otherwise drag them to court. Contempt court orders will force us to call people in the streets until lawful demands are met. My Hope is someday the people can seal Denton Bridge with 10s of thousands until our demands are met.
What the outline did not say is what we will be demanding and doing. That is a subject of the Vision. The vision will be drawn based on the problems stated above. Everything and/or anything that will fix those problems democratically will be our demand at one time or another.
Important to point are the in-built assumptions of this plan. They’re as follows:
ü that we will be representing a dissent voice of Gambians seeking democracy
ü that we will convince the International Community on the plight of The Gambia and be the FACE of the struggle
ü that we will secure the necessary funding to do what we exist for
ü that the increasing informed voices of organized/mobilized Gambians with the backing of the International Community will be the incentive for Banjul authorities to yield
ü that our independent/neutrality backed up with a non-partisan National Democracy Vision will speed up social acceptance that will at some point multiply itself
ü that the initiative will be headquartered in USA (at least outside Gambia)
Is this plan outlined a theory? Every phase is practical. The only way it can be called theory is because it’s yet to be implemented but not because it can’t. In fact most scientific hypothesis and science theories are usually put to practice by experimentation. Would you call a building plan on a paper before construction – a theory? Maybe but it only remain so because you failed to put brick and mortar together. In that sense this plan remains a theory until implemented.
Finally I was accused of not taking into account other people/parties and their constituencies. This is another misconception of all what I was advocating. First this plan is no competitor to political parties and their leaders. This plan is to make the nation a functioning democracy on people’s term and not about propelled one or the other to the presidency. Hope with time this is seen so people can stop thinking they have constituencies that should be recognized. But even so, no one owns those constituencies as anyone can form a party and look for a share of Gambians. Second the plan recognized them and their supporters as an integral component that will and should be thrilled for the creation of a functioning democracy. Again if any political party especially those in opposition are threatened by this then we should be seriously suspicious of their motives. We only placed their participation as a party (not individuals) at Phased 5 to avoid early government heavy handedness before we establish a sphere of influence.
I guess the confusion at least for doubters was the plan’s stand that we are not supporting the candidacy of an individual or group. This is not because we are against everyone instead is a principle stand for just democracy after which Gambians we have open opportunity to make a choice we will be ok with. The fight to make Gambia a Functioning Democratic Republic should not be about a party, region, tribe, religion, etc. base it should be all-inclusive if we sell it right. This does not mean everyone has to be on board before we start but at some point major will follow suit. Again refer to my article – “The Neutral/Independent Broker”.
I hope this sums up our view. This was what led to the creation of The People’s Movement For Democratic Gambia. To start this education! To organize and mobilize Gambians and the International Community. To raise and mobilize resources! All the while we are not asking and/or expecting anyone to slow down or stop what they are doing. Our only expectation is a national democracy agenda is an agenda of all Gambians.
Burama FL Jammeh
General Secretary
TPMDG
facebook.com/Burama.jammeh
twitter.com/@bfljammeh
810 844 6040