Guys:

I do not want to get embroiled in this argument.  However, I would like to
pour water on the fire by saying there are legitimate points to be made for
the opposing arguments.  To be honest, I was deeply disturbed after reading
Hamadi's excellent piece about what transpired during the 'meeting' in NY.
Disturbed because IMHO conducting a political meeting in three different
languages seems to be quite the counteractive move; unless the message
presented by each speaker was the same exact one. From Hamadi's write-up, it
does seem as if Ousainou gave the main speech in Mandinka.  If Femi Peters
and the other fella didn't repeat the same exact message to all in their
respective languages, then the UDP blundered terribly by using such a
strategy.  I hope they reevaluate this strategy because it is a possibly
ineffective and divisive one.  I do believe that it might work during the
political campaign back home as long as the same message is broadcast
regardless of language.  The meeting in NY probably would have been best
conducted in English because, unless in my part of the World where Spanish
will suffice, one needs to have a basic comprehension of the English language
to survive in this country.

On the other hand, we must be careful before making the tribalist accusation.
 This card is waved back home just like the racism card is waved over here
(USA).  The accusations are justified in certain instances but not always.
The UDP's antics in NY somehow reeked of a wayward strategy. We must
therefore be careful before pinning them with the tribalist tag.  I have a
deep suspicion that they simply wanted to show that each representative of
the party should be proud of their tribal affiliations.  This form of
'tribalism' is not particularly bad but  it apparently backfired and
obviously sent the wrong message to some people.

Anyway, let's adopt a policy of wait and see when it comes to this tribalism
issue.  At this point, we need Yahya to be unseated during this presidential
elections and almost anybody will be a more than adequate replacement.  To
say that I was dismayed after watching his speech describing our poor country
as a superpower, would be an understatement. It reaffirmed my belief that our
struggle is not for naught.

In reality, tribalism is really nothing new to politics back home. It did not
start with Jammeh or Darboe, but that's a whole other story....

-yus

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