Halifa,
Many thanks as usual for your charming memo. Before proceeding on to the
central theme of your last posting, I just wish to state for the record that
a call for an alliance amongst those who disagree on fundamental issues but
share the same conviction that Jammeh is a harbinger of civil strife in the
Gambia, is not a move designed to subsume one political party into another.
It doesn't mean an alliance of say the UDP with the PDOIS or NRP would mean
that the latter would be reduced to appendages of the former. No. What I have
been calling for is just a replay of the Senegalese type of patriotism which
has peacefully brought about much needed change. It would be a great loss
indeed to the Gambia to see any of the main opposition parties reduced to
being appendages of any other major party. That wouldn't augur well for our
young pluralist democracy. By any means necessary, coalition partners in
whatever alliance that we might come up with in the end, should maintain
their independence. This is my position. And another thing. By insisting on
an alliance between say the PDOIS, the NRP and the UDP each time I speak, I
never mean it to be designed in such a manner that the PDOIS or the NRP would
be junior partners in the alliance or vice versa. What I argue for is
politicians on the ground to speak with one voice that represent the national
collectivity against the Fascist regime. Whether Hamat or Ousainou or Sidia
heads the alliance is not important to me so long as there is the
understanding that it is premised under the principle of a national crusade
to save the country from internecine civil strife. Frankly my choice of a
leader of the coalition would be Sidia even we are on the opposite ends of
political spectrum. Not only is he more matured and astute politically than
the others but this could help strategically to enthuse the whole nation
under the umbrella of a unity of purpose campaign to save the Gambia. But
this is hardly the time to discuss who heads what when we are yet to iron out
the wrinkles of what we want in the alliance.
Frankly, your last mail did show ripples of inconsistency in your thought
on both the APRC's political fortunes and when to strike a bargain to go into
an alliance with the other political players. For instance you wrote
categorically that:
"The current alarm being generated that without opposition parties becoming
one at this very moment change will be illusive is something I find to be
working in the interest of the APRC. What you people are actually saying is
that the government is a popular one, and that no single opposition party
can challenge it."
One can infer from that statement of yours above that the APRC wouldn't
last a first round of voting. This self-confidence runs very contrary to the
self-doubt that was inherent in your proclamation on Radio 1FM that if
Jammeh/Darbo doesn't get an out right 50% of the votes casted, you would get
into an alliance with other players during the second round. The fact that
you are entertaining and contemplating the very idea that Jammeh might not be
defeated during the first round of voting contradicts whatever dismal
projection you attribute to the fortunes of Jammeh as not a popular gov't.
Why wait until the second round when the ante would have upped so such that
the ruling gov't might do anything usurp such a process. Why not start now
and set a trend in African politics? By insisting on an alliance, I am not
saying that "no single opposition party can challenge" the APRC? All I am
saying is that better we go into NOW when the climate favours it than wait
and see how something in the future we cannot guarantee, turns out to be. In
fact if sentiments and the populism that follows that UDP around can be
gauged as an opinion poll, then one can safely conclude on the face of it
that it is riding to electoral victory. But there is no guarantee to this.
And I don't want ejecting Jammeh out of our political system be the ego ride
or crusade of one political party. I want it to be about the Gambia and
Gambians as a collectivity. To usher in an era of decency, respect and sense
of purpose that spells a stakeholding society where each will see it as
his/her duty to defend decency and respect for each other. To usher in
primacy, ultimate fealty and awe reverence for the Liberal State that arbites
fairly the plurality that we live each day of our lives without any regard to
our political, social and economic inclinations or origins. This is my view
and hope.
You also took note of my view that if politicians fail to act and inspire
the People to peacefully eject Jammeh out of the system, others notably armed
anarchist and reactionaries which now litter the landscape of the Gambia from
other troubled spots of the sub-region will by default exploit the situation.
However, you failed to grasp the thrust of my argument that the opposition
speaking in one voice can serve as a deterrent FOR THE TIME BEING to any such
situation [Not the emphasis]. If the intolerance of Jammeh continues, every
rule of politics and or crisis dictates that someone will appoint him/herself
as the promised messianic figure who has come to salvage the nation and we
would be back to square one again as we were in 1994. This is why the
opposition must forge the alliance NOW than later when it might be too late
to prove to everyone that Gambians are united against the evil that is Jammeh.
Finally, your thesis that criticising both the present and the past is
endearing you to voters in the Gambia has an anti-thesis. No-one is saying
you should not criticise the past. Rather the complaint is it is turning you
into and has indeed turned you into soft and low risk critics of the present
experience of Jammeh. By constantly bringing up Jawara each time Jammeh does
something evil only serves to give comfort and allure to Jammeh and his
Fascist apologists. And the talk that it is winning you support might be in
the Gambia cuz I'm not there but here in the UK, it is losing you support
amongst the many that I normally confer with. This is not saying that you
shouldn't criticise the past and Jawara but questioning the wisdom behind the
emphasis you make on it each time Jammeh breaks every law of the land. This
is not helping the struggle to help free the Gambia of Jammeh. One can
understand your grievances against the Jawaras and OJs of yesteryears but by
using them to dictate your conscience, that simply doesn't add up for a man
who is well meaning for the welfare of the Gambia and the Gambian people and
has done practically a lot to show it.
I will break it here. Speak to you later.
Hamjatta Kanteh
hkanteh
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