Buharry,

As alluded to earlier, your comments were very interesting and the fact that 
you didn't resort to what most PDOIS supporters are wont to do in the 
circumstances - heap abuse and condemnation on my person instead of 
addressing the salient points i always raise about the party's shortcomings - 
makes it more worth my while to try and respond to your genteel enquiries as 
befitting a healthy exchange of views in an e-mail forum. Whilst it certainly 
remains the case that you raised very insightful points, however, most of 
your questions and objections arise out of a poor reading of my thoughts in 
that post. Because your questions are many and lengthy, the best way to 
respond to them is to arrange them in a questionnaire format and individually 
answer each. Here goes ...

Buharry: << "The multiplicative nature of the current programmed fanatic 
virus feeds from the manifestly manipulative tutelage of a host organism, 
which is stationed, of course, in Churchill's Town. This is not stuff lifted 
from a futuristic sci-fi flick or bestselling nevel; but a basic scientific 
truth."

What is this basic scientific truth? Please identify and dilate this basic 
scientific truth. >>

Hamjatta: This is a poor reading of this passage. That viruses feed from a 
host organism is the basic scientific truth therein. I merely imported this 
basic scientific truth for satirical purposes, in what is certainly the case 
with sci-fi flicks and novels.

Buharry: <<"I once used to entertain the fantasy that caricaturing the 
earnest emptiness of the
so-called PDOIS/Foroyaa 'enligthenment' would help disarm its potentialities 
of turning young and old minds alike into unthinking robotic members of 
society."

Are you saying that those of us who support PDOIS' agenda are "unthinking 
robotic members of society?" How can you quantify such a blanket assertion? 
Based on what? It is truly an insult to our intelligence to insinuate that we 
cannot think for ourselves. I do not agree with everything PDOIS says or does 
and I am the farthest from a "communist" as I am engaged in diverse ventures 
based on and inspired by profit. >>

Hamjatta: The emphasis should have been on the word "potentialities"; therein 
the passage would have meant that the so-called PDOIS/Foroyaa 'enlightenment' 
invariably - as in most cases - churns out fanatics who have little or no 
regard for dissenting views and do not bother themselves questioning the 
rationale for PDOIS policies and positions. As per the programmed fanatic 
tag, it merely trades on Bob Marley's sing-song repartee: who the cap fit ... 
if the cap doesn't fit yer, then move on. I certainly don't believe that all 
PDOIS supporters are programmed fanatics. But it is certainly the case that 
most of them are indeed fanatical and behave as if programmed. I find it 
interesting that you say you have your differences with PDOIS. Can you kindly 
humour me on your differences with PDOIS?

Buharry: <<"I'm not all alone in waxing perplex over the stubborn streak of 
bad ideas not to die forever and or never to re-emerge in the mainstream 
again"

Bad ideas according to who? Have you considered the fact that there is even 
the slightest possibility that some of us are consistent in our beliefs and 
pronouncements because they are based on principle rather than fad? What 
might seem to be bad ideas to you do not appear as such to equally 
intelligent  people. Say therefore that you do not agree with them based on 
your philosophy. >>

Hamjatta: Do i detect ripples of relativism here? Are you implying that there 
is nothing like bad or good ideas, and everything is relative according to 
personal beliefs or choices? If this is the case, have you considered the 
wider ramifications of such philosophy of relativism? As much as i strongly 
believe in individuated liberties, freedoms and personal choices, which are 
all susceptible to some degree of relativism, i.e., what is good for you 
might not be the same for me and vice versa; i strongly believe that there 
are good and bad ideas; and that through rigorous disinterested rational 
enquiry, we can differentiate between the good and the bad. So yes one can 
critically look at PDOIS' policies and come to the rational conclusion that 
they are based on bad or good ideas. There is nothing holier-than-thou about 
that: it should be the norm and not the exception in a free and open 
democratic society.

Buharry: <<"And, be it noted, most of the economic nonsense now being 
recycled anew has been dealt with comprehensively in an earlier essay on 
PDOIS' economic agenda; and one would assume then that they would at least 
have the decency to go back to the drawing board again to reformulate and 
rethink policy. Rather, the party unabashedly brought to the fore again the 
same economic nonsense i have earlier debunked effectively."

This is truly amazing. I therefore ask you, should PDOIS as a party redesign 
its thinking and policies simply because you do not agree with them or think 
that you have "debunked" them? >> 

Hamjatta: I ask you this: should the PDOIS as a responsible political party 
hold on to views and policies that have been decisively repudiated by vast 
swathes of empirical evidence? If that is your point, then it is deeply 
worrying. A responsible or reasonable individual and or political party will 
not and shouldn't stubbornly stick to views and policies that have been 
decisively repudiated by vast swathes of empirical evidence.

Buharry: <<"For the purposes of clarity, let us revisit the central plank or 
thrust of PDOIS' economic agenda. According to them, they are committed to 
enhancing personal income through the agricultural economics of cooperative 
societies like the ones you find in Bakau where women have their 
horticultural gardens. Well, that is it. I'm all ears."

I have several issues with the above statement. 
1 - Where did they write that their co-operative societies will be "like the 
ones you find in Bakau where women have their horticultural gardens"? Do you 
know the model, structures and mechanisms of their proposed co-operative 
societies or are you just assuming that they will be like the ones in Bakau? 
There are many profitable co-operative societies here in Sweden that are 
managed on sound business principles that yield profits and help to enhance 
members' economic, social etc. well-being. I personally do not know much 
about the Bakau co-operatives. Are they bad enough not to emulate? Do they 
not realise their aims? Please enlighten me. >>

Hamjatta: First, a disclaimer: i never said that cooperative societies are 
un-profitable. There are, indeed, indications that they can be profitable. 
Also, expressing my disquiet over cooperative societies doesn't in any way 
mean that i'm opposed to them. Far from it. Liberals only become suspicious 
of these things if they are State contrived and susceptible to pork barrel 
politics. Free enterprise should be free from political control and nefarious 
influences. Cooperative societies when they trade on liberal principles of 
free and civil association, are something to be allowed breathing space and 
or room to blossom.

As per how i know that PDOIS wishes to emulate the Bakau Women's 
Horticultural Gardens' model, let Sidia Jatta, their presidential candidate, 
answer the question:

""imagine if ten women are working in that farm, each of them would at least 
have a share of D20,000." Mr. Jatta said if such gardens are decentralised 
countrywide, the Gambia could stand a better chance in combating mass 
dominant poverty in the country." 

That was Sidia talking about the success of the Banjulingding Horticultural 
Gardens to the Point newspaper recently. I'm all ears but each time PDOIS 
talks about their economic plans, it is invariably about emulating and or 
decentralising the successes of both Bakau and Banjulingding Horticultural 
Gardens. This is why it is difficult not to resist the conclusion that the 
central plank of their economic programme is agriculturally driven and 
centred. But we don't have to be rash about this: there is a passage of 
Halifa's, which was communicated to me in an earlier engagement. Let's take a 
closer look at it and the point will become clearer:

"In our view, if acompany can rely on 1000 acres of land to make millions in 
producing fruits vegetables we can organise a cooperative system where those 
engaged in horticulture can be provided with bore holes to produce and share 
their income as well as to contribute to the provision of services to their 
villages. We therefore stand for the building of co-operatives to enhance 
personal income and promote community development."

Needless to that this is what PDOIS has consistently been arguing about 
vis-a-vis their economic plans; and hence an incontrovertible fact that the 
central plank of their economic programme is ala the cooperative economics of 
the Bakau Horticultural Gardens. Give me reason to believe other wise. Where 
are their monetary and fiscal policies? Where did they state an indepth 
break-down of the macro-economic framework that incorporates industrial and 
commercial policies to reflect current socio-economic realities? Go ahead i'm 
listening.

Even here, it is easy to see why i said their economic equation doesn't 
simply add up and they are practising bad economics. Consider their argument 
for the replication of small-scale horticultural gardens. Now, there are two 
fundamental economic reasons why these wouldn't have that much of an impact 
on the alleviation mass poverty, especially in the urban areas. First, their 
argument takes as a given that there are enough arable land in the urban 
areas to accomodate the replication of such a policy application. Since the 
Gambia is urbanising at such a very fast rate to the point where demographic 
estimates suggest that the country would be fully urbanised in a matter of 
decades, how can such a policy application accomodate such a reality? How 
feasible, for instance, is it to replicate these horticultural gardens in 
such congested urban settlements like Brikama and Serrekunda? How much arable 
land is available in these areas to help create enough horticultural gardens 
for the legion of unemployed in these areas? What is PDOIS going to do about 
this dilemma? Ferry the unemployed against their wishes to the rural areas, 
where, perhaps, there might be enough arable land to replicate these 
horticultural gardens on such massive scale so as to accomodate both the 
rural and urban unemployed?

Secondly, PDOIS' arguments vis-a-vis the replication of these horticultural 
gardens betrays their innocence in economics. Consider this statement from 
Halifa, which actually reflects Sidia's arguments in the Point interview:

"In our view, if acompany can rely on 1000 acres of land to make millions in 
producing fruits vegetables we can organise a cooperative system where those 
engaged in horticulture can be provided with bore holes to produce and share 
their income as well as to contribute to the provision of services to their 
villages. "

Or Sidia's own economically innocent argument in the Point:

"imagine if ten women are working in that farm, each of them would at least 
have a share of D20,000." Mr. Jatta said if such gardens are decentralised 
countrywide, the Gambia could stand a better chance in combating mass 
dominant poverty in the country."

Bless the duo for trying their hands in economics. But as Dominic Mendy once 
put it to Sidia Jatta in the National Assembly during a debate on a mini 
budget that Dominic presented to the Assembly in 1997, economics is not 
sociology. Did anyone ever inform them of a very simple and basic Econ 101 
principle: economies of scale, i.e., when gardens are decentralised and 
replicated on the scale thay they are arguing, they will invariably result to 
diseconomies of scale and cannot compete with the output and economic 
efficiency of the 1000 hectares agricultural garden owner? This is but a very 
simple and basic economic point. That PDOIS can miss such a simple but 
salient point betrays their innocence in economics. For PDOIS to avert the 
inevitable diseconomies scale that will result from their policy thrust, they 
will have to use the machinery of the State to beef up these small-scale 
farms. Once this becomes the case, free enterprise is surreptitiously 
replaced by state enterprise; and all bets for people-driven developments 
runs aground whilst state-centred development insidiously supplants it. This 
is why i made the point that ultimately these cooperative societies PDOIS is 
heralding will invariably end up being state contrived.

Buharry: <<Let us be fair when we criticise. Many have wrongfully hung the 
stigma of communism á la Stalin on PDOIS because they advocate a socialist 
society. Have they genuinely stopped to ask and fully understand what type of 
socialism PDOIS is talking about? I live in a socialist country called Sweden 
but this country is nothing like the Russia of Stalin. You, Hamjatta, live in 
a country run by Labour yet you do not experience Stalinist Russia. Sweden 
and the other Scandinavian countries are socialist countries yet they are 
among the most advanced countries in nearly all indices used to measure 
development. How can you therefore conclude that PDOIS' socialism is akin to 
communism? >>

Hamjatta: I believe that i'm a very fair individual, especially when i'm 
critical of my political opponents. I refer you to my answer above. Can you 
read that and accuse me of being unfair to PDOIS? Let me, however, correct 
you on three misnomers herein. First, i never said anywhere that PDOIS 
believes in communism. On the contrary, i 've always viewed them as 
socialists, as they indeed describe themselves. But socialism, like all 
variants of the Enlightenment Project, comes in different flowerings. Some 
happen to be more collectivist and or statist than others. It is not merely 
happenstance that even the Soviets accorded themselves socialist status, as 
exemplified by the acronym of their empire: USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist 
Republics. As is most certainly the case with both Cuba and North Korea. All 
of these are flowerings or interpretations of the Enlightenment Project - 
rightly or wrongly. Needless to say that in late modern political thought, 
ideology is one of those slippery slope terrains you might want to tread 
carefully when fleshing out positions.

Second, your point about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries as signs of 
successful socialist is quite simply a misnomer. Capitalism, just like other 
variants of the Enlightenment Project, has flowered into different models. 
Today we have models as diverse as the Rhenish or Germanic model, which 
shares more in common with French bourgeois corporatism than with any other 
variant; and an antithesis to the Anglo-Saxon one, which is the 
British-American model and seem to be gaining more and more clout in the 
global economy. Then we have the Scandinavian variation which still retains 
generous welfare entitlement to its citizenry whilst accomodating free 
enterprise with a qualified degree of economic freedom but nonethless 
operating a very rigorous regime of regulation and a relatively successful 
public sector economics. How sustainable this variation will be in the light 
of the opening of their economies to international competition remains to be 
seen. There is then the Asiatic or Japanese model which largely trades on 
family fealties or the "keiretsu". So Scandinavian countries - even where 
they have a tendency to retain generous welfare entitlements to the poor and 
a robust public sector - are not socialistic. The nomenclature that political 
thought assigns to Scandinavian capitalism is social democracy and not 
socialism.

Third, i don't know how familiar you are with current policy debates in the 
UK. True, the Labour party's origin was more  or less socialist, and to this 
day moderate socialists remain loyal to it. But the current Labour party is 
anything but socialist. The most vexatious policy argument in the UK 
currently is the extent to which the private sector can invade such sacred 
public spheres like the NHS, and whether health care provision should be 
privatised. Contrary to the party's specious arguments, the Public Private 
Initiative they are obsessed with will in fact inevitably lead to a measure 
of privatisation of the NHS. Attlee and Bevin must be turning in their 
graves! Today, the Labour party you are citing as an example of socialism is 
more capitalist than MargaretThatcher ever was and worse. Little wonder then 
that the business world and the middle classes are deserting conservatives en 
masse to be part of New Labour.

Buharry: << "Perhaps,PDOIS takes its cue from the stubborn-ness of the North 
Korean dictatorship to continue with the same economic nonsense that 
continues to register zero economic growth and abject poverty for the masses 
they have literally forced against their wills into these State contrived 
cooperative societies." 

You comparison of PDOIS to the North Korean dictatorship is like comparing 
apples and oranges and is at best an affront to the senses of 
independent-thinking individuals. PDOIS is a party based on democratic 
principles and has declared and demonstrated time and again that
its programs and policies are based on the respect and participation of the 
people and anything short of that is something they want no part of. PDOIS 
has propagated, promoted and lived by democratic principles longer than and 
more effectively than any other party currently in The Gambia yet you cannot 
even accord them that courtesy based on their record. Come on, be fair and 
give them their due for you know that PDOIS is as far away in democratic 
principles from the North Korean dictatorship as Oxford is from Churchill's 
Town. >>

Hamjatta: Another poor reading of my arguments and hence the non sequitur 
arguments and or questions you raised therein. I never said - implicitly or 
explicitly - that PDOIS is undemocratic or likely to introduce dictatorship 
to the Gambia in the event they are voted in office. Far from it. The point 
was that just as the North Korean dictatorship remains intransigent in 
defiance of empirical evidence that their economics doesn't work, perhaps, 
PDOIS is afflicted with such stubborn-ness. One can be stubborn and at the 
same believe in and indeed be part of a democratic entity and contributing 
positively to the health of that society. The stubborn-ness alluded to PDOIS 
doesn't mean or entail animosity to democratic values, but a mere personal 
failing. Perhaps, the intransigence helps explain their most fundamental 
failing, i.e., their lack of introspection in the scheme of their sacrosanct 
values and policies.

Buharry: << "Which brings me to a question i've always asked myself since i 
realised the absurdity of PDOIS' economic thinking: which trained economist 
helps formulate the party's
economic policy? Which professional economist with the appropriate 
credentials does policy thinking for them? I certainly don't know of any 
professional Gambian economist that is part of the PDOIS elites. On the 
contrary, what we have is mainly a trio assemblage of a sociologist, a 
linguist and a physics teacher. Physics + Sociology + Linguistics = Good
Economics? I don't think so."

Are you a trained economist? If you are not, should we discount your 
presentations on economic policy here on the L no matter how sound they are 
simply because they do not originate from a trained economist? Do you think 
that PDOIS cannot produce a sound economic policy based on the capitalist 
model? If you do, I'll advise you to think again. We live in the information 
age. One can be trained in something but be equally good in something else. I 
am formally trained in Business Management and Human Resource Management but 
I can open a computer, dismantle it and fix it right back up, do diagnostics 
and all what not. I can wire up a video or music production studio from 
scratch, edit, program and do more than many who are formally trained can do. 
I can create a whole website using only HTML code and many other technical 
things even though I am not formally trained in some of them but I am 
self-taught. I am proficient in subjects rather far away from what I am 
formally trained to do and would without hesitation propose or defend 
positions alongside those trained in those fields.  This is not bragging but 
I am only giving you an example. There are many self-taught people who are 
more able and effective than those trained in their disciplines. It all 
depends on commitment and ability. Do not belittle PDOIS economic policy 
simply because you assume they do not have a trained economist who writes 
their economic policies. There is a wealth of information out there and all 
it takes is research to produce whatever you want. I don't know whether PDOIS 
has trained economists who draw up their economic programs but I know that 
PDOIS members such as Halifa have left government representatives grappling 
for words to defend their economic policies designed by trained economists. 
Even if PDOIS do not have trained economists as members of the party, are you 
sure that they do not have consultations with such on economic issues? >>

Hamjatta:  Your analogy of being self taught on computing doesn't simply 
work. Consider: would you trust a self taught surgeon with your life, to 
operate on you when you have formally trained and certified surgeons 
available to tend to you? The problem with relying on uncertified and 
informally trained professionals - be they economists, computer technicians 
or surgeons - is that they hardly recognise a faux pas should they commit 
one, especially in instances where it is on such large scale and the problem 
has never prefigured in their informal training. Let me give you an example. 
Karl Marx wasn't a formally trained economist. In fact his formal training 
was in philosophy. All that he understood and later wrote in, especially, Das 
Kapital, was as a result of reading the works of Ricardo and Smith; and what 
Engels helped tutor him on the industrial economics of the Lancashire cotton 
mills/factories, which Engels was directly involved with as his family did 
part-own such a business in Manchester. Today, what is the result of all Marx 
wrote in Das Kapital and elsewhere? The whole of Marx' economic edifice lies 
in intellectual ruin - few philosophies surpass Marxism on that score. True, 
laymen in a particular discipline can and have indeed made expositions that 
had escaped the profound insights of experienced and formally trained 
professionals. One immediately recalls that Hume, albeit being formally a 
philosopher, did make brilliant contributions to economics that remain 
relevant to the discipline to this day. But to leave him with a whole 
economic edifice to erect would be foolhardy.

Similarly, individual PDOIS members can make brilliant critiques of 
capitalism - as such forerunners like Marx did - but that by itself doesn't 
suffice for us to reach the conclusion that they are capable of formulating a 
comprehensive economic strategy that will replace the capitalist one they 
have criticised. That is just akin to a rail user effectively criticising the 
ineffective-ness of the current British rail system, and in lieu of that, 
voters decide that that rail user is the best person to fix the choatic 
British railways. To realise that there is a problem with something and 
effectively pointing this out, doesn't suffice for one to be ascribed as 
having the wherewithal to solve the said problem. If your analogy is of any 
help to us herein, it is to affirm what i wrote earlier that we cannot leave 
comprehensive economic edifices in the hands of a trio assemblage of 
jacks-of-all trades and their grope-in-the-dark methodology to solve 
intricate economic problems. I only hope that you are not intimating that 
PDOIS rely on "fingering" or experimenting with the economy - as you did when 
you were training yourself on computers - until they figure out what exactly 
will aid the ailing Gambian economy. That would be akin to asking and 
courting economic disaster. If PDOIS' economically innocent pronouncements 
are our guide, then, more than ever, they need formally trained and certified 
professional economic opinion in their policy formulations and announcements. 
Sociology, as Dominic Mendy rightly put it to Sidia Jatta, is not economics 
and vice versa. 

Buharry: << "A palatable, well-measured and liberal economic alternative is 
on offer. The Alliance headed by Mr Darbo presents a policy thrust that in 
all essence represents a macro-economic framework that factors greatly the 
current socio-economic realities of the Gambia."

When did you realise this?

I apologise for the long post. I think it is in the interest of democracy and 
what is good for our country to respect each others' positions even where we 
do not agree with them. Give credit where credit is due. There are many 
things that PDOIS has done and these are concrete things that are seen and 
felt by people and can never be wished away. You might not agree with the 
policies used to achieve those concrete things and that is your democratic 
prerogative. Respect PDOIS democratic prerogative to do things the way they 
see fit and not how you see them. Yet still, respect our democratic 
prerogative as supporters of PDOIS to support who we want without the 
constant insults and labelling. >>

Hamjatta: To know more about the Alliance's economic programmes, you might 
want to get directly in touch with them: i don't speak for them but merely 
support their plans - not all of them - to get rid of Jammeh and help 
resuscitate the Gambian economy. On the question that we ought to respect 
each other's rights to believe as each wish to believe, i agree with you on 
that fundamentally. Perhaps, you are latching on the wrong vine here. 
Criticising people you disagree with doesn't - au fond - mean one is 
intolerant of views one criticises. Rather, where such criticality is sincere 
and doesn't breed animosity or violence, it is the life blood of an open and 
democratic society. As i always say, i'm not in any way aversed to 
criticisms; as a critical rationalist, i welcome it. I can only hope that 
eventually such a noble principle would be emulated by PDOIS and its 
supporters, who are very intolerant of those who subject their views to a 
foresic scrutiny. In my humble opinion, PDOIS' biggest problem is a 
fundamental lack of introspection. This is why it can't help posing haughtily 
and adopting holier-than-thou postures. It will do the party and its 
fanatical support base a degree of health if they learn from your open-minded 
approach. Indeed, your approach is worthy of emulation by the party and its 
stalwarts alike.

All the best,

Hamjatta Kanteh 

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