Jarama Mawdo Baba Jallow Jerry



Muhammad Bai Drammeh

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 16/11/16, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 Subject: [G_L] Smiling Forest Revisited - 4
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Date: Wednesday, 16 November, 2016, 14:55
 
 
 
 Chapter
 Four
 
  
 
 What Talkmuch Dolittle failed to see
 and how he administered
 a historic test of
 loyalty
 
  
 
 Meanwhile,
 Talkmuch Dolittle nonchalantly ruled on. As the years
 dragged by, the aging monarch got increasingly divorced from
 the realities of
 the ordinary animals of Smiling Forest. A thick wall of
 sycophants surrounded
 and shielded him from the harsh realities on the ground and
 fed him with
 multi-colored layers of convenient truths about the state of
 the common
 animals. Everything, they told him, was fine and dandy and
 that in fact, all
 the animals were ecstatic about the qualities of his great
 leadership. Some
 animals, they reported, had gone so far as to erect
 monuments in his honor to
 which they paid daily homage. He was now a god, ever right,
 above error. They
 narrated fictional stories about how some animals were so
 well fed and happy that
 they went around Smiling Forest singing Tesiti
 yeh doku bakeh, Talkimuchi lemu na kaira
 ti! (Tie
 your waist and work hard,
 Talkmuch is our peace!)
 
  
 
 The reality on the ground, however, was far from
 rosy. Living standards
 were falling at an alarming rate and government corruption
 and redundancy were
 rocketing at breakneck speed. Discontent over Talkmuch
 Dolittle’s apparent
 condoning of corruption among top government officials bred
 ever-increasing
 bitterness among the lower animals. Even traditionally quiet
 and apolitical
 animals like Toothy the boar, Samo the elephant and Momba
 the tortoise became
 disenchanted with what they saw as the corruption-condoning
 policies of
 Talkmuch Dolittle. The fact that top officials that stole
 and were found guilty
 of public theft were simply re-deployed to other lucrative
 posts within the
 Smiling Forest administration greatly angered the animals. A
 thick cloud of
 resentment shrouded the bright landscape of Smiling Forest.
 A dark foreboding
 cast its ominous shadow across the land, presaging an era of
 even greater
 discontent whose seed had already been planted with the
 coming of Loony the fox
 into Smiling Forest.
 
  
 
 Also, Talkmuch Dolittle had
 grown old and had been in power
 for far too long. The animals wanted a change of leadership
 and loudly gossiped
 about the fabled king who developed a sweet tooth for power
 and forgot his
 duties. And in spite of the fact that Talkmuch Dolittle
 became aware of talk
 about change of leadership, thanks to the likes of Cheku the
 parrot and Chokie
 the bush fowl, he nevertheless turned a blind eye and blind
 ear to all such
 noises and convinced himself that he knew what he was doing
 and that only the jealous
 animals were talking and all they could do anyway was simply
 talk.
 
  
 
 One year, to test the loyalty of the senior
 members of
 his government, Talkmuch Dolittle declared in one of his
 state of the forest
 addresses that he was going to step down in a few months. He
 had, he said,
 served Smiling Forest long enough and it was time to pass
 the baton of
 leadership on to a new younger generation of leaders. He had
 no doubt, he
 declared, that Smiling Forest had great animals who could
 take on the heavy
 mantle of leadership from his tired
 shoulders.
 
  
 
 While this
 historic announcement was greeted with applause
 from the majority of common animals and a few top government
 officials, the
 greatest show was put up by a number of animals who declared
 that they were
 totally opposed to any such thing as retirement for the
 glorious leader. This
 pack, led by Chokie the bush fowl, loudly wept and wailed
 and pulled their hair
 and begged the great leader never to say such a thing again.
 Taking the stage,
 Chokie the bush fowl loudly wept and called Talkmuch
 Dolittle father. He
 dropped on his knees and begged the Great God Yallah to
 please change the great
 king’s mind. Saa the snake frantically hissed and wiggled
 and twisted and
 turned and loudly wept and cried “my lord, my lord, please
 lord don’t go!”
 Jumbo the peacock, generally quiet on account of his slow
 mind and overly
 preoccupied with oiling and brushing his beautiful feathers,
 plunged into a
 stinking pool of dirt and loudly wailed and dragged himself
 around, eventually
 falling into a frightening swoon that could not fail to
 catch the attention of
 the great king himself. Cheku the parrot wept so hard that
 he also swooned and
 had to be carried off the grounds for urgent medical
 attention. Tan the
 vulture, Barr the alligator, Njogi the owl, Bahi the crow
 and Sindah the lizard
 all loudly wept and blew their noses and pulled their hair
 to demonstrate their
 grief at the monstrous prospect of the great king’s
 planned retirement. The
 myth that only Talkmuch Dolittle was capable of ruling
 Smiling Forest had long
 been propagated in the land, but that was the first time it
 was so strongly
 expressed. It was clear that many of the animals feared
 change. Change would
 mean they might lose their jobs, and would cease enjoying
 all the juicy perks that
 came with being close to Talkmuch Dolittle. In the light of
 such an outburst of
 passion, Talkmuch Dolittle announced that well, he had no
 choice but to succumb
 to the wishes of the patriotic animals of Smiling Forest to
 stay on and lead
 them unto more power and glory. “Eh,” he sighed. “If
 your own animals beg you to stay,
 you must accept because the will of one animal is the will
 of all animals. Nii mang koo keh koo
 tayla.
 Therefore, I
 am not stepping down anymore.” 
 
  
 
 A few days later, most of
 the animals who wept and begged
 Talkmuch Dolittle to stay on, including Chokie the bush
 fowl, Saa the snake and
 Jumbo the peacock were given big promotions while those
 animals that did not
 cry or that applauded his planned exit were demoted,
 marginalized or listed in
 the fabled Black Book of Smiling Forest as opponents of the
 great king’s
 infallible philosophy of Sweaty-Sweaty.
 
  
 
 
 
 ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
 To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to
 the Gambia-L Web interface
 at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
 
 To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
 To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
 [log in to unmask]
 ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤