Ousman Gajigo,

Many thanks for this forward.  I remember clearly, that over the years, many of the points raised by Paul Harris were touched on in similar debates on the L.

Since 1979, Joseph Maita, then economics professor at the university of Nairobi remarked that "...we can't go on blaming the colonialists eternally for all our problems. Yes, they set up the system, but it is us who have been unable to change it".

Given the circumstances we are faced with all over the continent it is perhaps true that we need to learn to crawl on our own before qualifying for the one hundred meter dash. Africa needs to partially delink from the West and what it has to offer. But we must also be able to see the  mind-boggling holes in the libraries of arguments advanced by sympathetic Western leftists who seem to have difficulty in capturing the relations between western imperialism and its need for a mirror image of itself in justifying violent interventions into the Third World, including Iraq.
If we should fully endorse Harris' article, as I do, then a return to his final paragraph could be instructive: 
 
"But where would that leave Africa? Well, it would leave the continent exactly where it should be: with the Africans. Aid will not solve Africa's problems. Nor will the West. The only people who can solve the problems of Africa, who can change their leaders, who can end corruption, who can make Africa rich and educated, who can end the African wars, who can make Africa relevent again, are Africans themselves. It is time Africa started to take itself seriously." 

Changing Africa for Iraq in the above statements clearly informs that the liberation of Iraq is entirely the business of the Iraqi people, even if we should readily admit that the unconditional solidarity of the progressive world must be forthcoming in that regard.

While IMF-induced tax hikes have sent the Bolivian ruling class into a shameful retreat as a result of violent mass protests, Gambians are amazingly putting up with Yahya Jammeh's insular despotism, bearing a yoke of insults and hunger.

Our country seems to be accelerating towards an unfathomable historical upheaval. There is growing concern and despair amongst the poor and toiling masses of Gambia. Their economic outlook has never been as bleak as it is now.  Increasing numbers are unable to provide decent meals for their families on a daily basis. The enthusiasm that once greeted the government's development projects has now completely fizzled out into a paralysing dreadfulness for an uncertain future. The dalasi, unsustained by any sound fiscal or monetary policies has depreciated uncontrollably, wiping out the value of savings. In the absence of wage increases, even the salaried classes are unable to cope with the overbearing cost of living as the prices of basic commodities rise nightly.  Jammeh's rule is forcing swarms of unemployed youth to  retreat into escapist trends of substance abuse, petty crime and brutal violence.

 

The exponential growth of social contradictions is forcing the regime into becoming an autocracy. As it becomes more desperate for a solution to the crises the thin veneer of democratic rule is for all accounts and purposes jettisoned ostensibly to terrorise the population into fear and submission. Yahya Jammeh has degenerated into a despot hurling salvos of obscenities and insults to a cowering, unorganised and trapped population. The civil servants and intellectuals wring their soft hands and hide behind their desks; workers complain and suffer quietly but muster little energy to resist drowning into hunger-induced weariness; the politicians have abandoned their constituencies and have transformed the National Assembly into a conference of marooned orphans harping on bills and constitutional ammendments to little effect. All the members except for a few oppositional icons are hunkered down by a bully arresting the conscience of a million Gambians.The harrowing experience of inadequacy  is quickly breeding despair and unsettling apathy, preparing the ground for a seeping intolerance and violence. The fabric that held Gambian society in a cohesive web is bursting at the seams. The air reeks of impending doom. In spite of the thousands that perform the Hajj, Gambians are terrified by the crunching cruises of their own homegrown arrogant little gods. While it is imperative on us all to stand up to governmental thuggery, those who are feeling the heat must themselves be out into the streets to demonstrate their anger at the ruling clique and its policies. The rest of us in the Diaspora have important roles to play, but let us not fall into the illusion that we can become a vanguard.



Cheers,



Momodou Sidibeh 

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