Hello, Ndey, Sidibeh, and all, it would seem that if people, whether in
Africa, or even in Mexico, for that matter, could have structures put into
place that could allow them to earn a livelihood, which would allow them to
not only take care of themselves, but put something aside to benefit future
generations of their families, then people wouldn't feel the need to travel
to America or Europe, and risk so much to get there!
It seems that people leave thier home not because they want to, but
because they see something better somewhere else, that they can't get where
they are.
For example, I can stay in Tennessee, and to go to college, find a good
job, etc. However, if a better job comes open somewhere else, that has
better money or benefits, then I'm more likely to go there for that job.
Or, if I'm somewhere where employment, education, and other resources
are scarce, and I see that I can get these things somewhere else, then I
will go to wherever that "somewhere" is.
Antoher thing that occurs to me is that when America or Europe
"exports" their standard of living, by TV shows, movies, and other forms of
mass media, I think it further goes to show those in poorer countries what
others have, and they don't. And I think this is why they look at Europe
and America as some sort of a "promised land", because they see everyone
having cars, homes, money, etc., and they think that if they can just get
over there, then they can have that too.
However, sometimes, the reality is different than what is exported on
TV. Because some of our own people are in poverty, can't get access to good
employment, education, or health-care, etc. The thing is, exploitation is
going on everywhere, whether it's here in America, or in The Gambia. And my
belief is that the power and control is in the hands of a few influential
people, and the rest of us, or most of us anyway, are at the mercy of that.
Anyway, hope some of this makes sense. My head is in a bit of a fog as
I have a cold.
Take care all.
Ginny
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ndey Jobarteh" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: SV: "SunuGaal"/ Behind this trade / Jabou
> Jabou,
>
> I agree with you on the Western Hypocrisy. It is my view that the
> International community must shear itself of the abiding hypocrisy, which
> has bedeviled its relationship with African governments in the past. This
> will take me a little bit back to the cold war period. The cold war era
> witnessed the celebration of crass hypocrisy on the part of the Western
> governments in their relationship with African despots. During the cold
> war, the United States government for example had a policy of unquestioned
> support for friendly dictatorships. The IMF and the World Bank have been
> what characterize as a spectacular failure in pursuing governance reforms
> in Africa as basis for their credit extensions. This is because most
> Western governments allow their banks to be the laundry houses for these
> dictators and their cronies that steal their people blind. World Bank and
> IMF cannot claim ignorance of the fact that the credits they extended to
> these rogue dictators like Mobutu, Babangida and others ended up in
> numbered accounts in foreign banks very far and lost to the uses and
> intentions for which the credits were extended in the first instance.
>
> When the Africa left argues that these institutions (namely IMF, World
> Bank as well as Western governments) knew perfectly well that the Mobutu
> regime was turning aid into the dictator's villas in the French Riviera,
> and chateaux in Switzerland. But the aid dollars kept flowing. And despite
> the window dressing rhetoric from these institutions about the importance
> of "local ownership" of development programs, "capacity-building", and
> "participation" in poverty alleviation programs, it is still business as
> usual behind the scenes. Their principal goal still remains to maximize
> the loan portfolio to the developing countries, in the guise of fighting
> poverty. And this is why despite outcry from the Kenyan opposition,
> Christian churches, and the press, during Moi era the World Bank continued
> cutting deals behind the scenes with the incompetent and venal Moi
> government in Kenya -even to the extent of seconding Kenyan World Bank
> employees to Moi's public service. The IMF and World Bank's demands that
> those responsible for the massive heist under Goldenberg be brought to
> justice was put to rest as the regime was persuaded to adopt face-saving
> anti-corruption legislation so that aid can resume. For this reason I
> would agree with Ginny that the European neither the Americans should not
> cry foul for this deadly migration to the so called Promised Land that we
> all know is not a promise land. For the simple reason that they are party
> to it, the sadness of it all is we are the ones loosing, we are the ones
> who have thousands of our people in such a tragic and unfortunate
> situations.
>
>
>
> The Struggle Continues!!!
> Ndey Jobarteh
>
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: SV: "SunuGaal"/ Behind this trade / Ndey
>>Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 12:47:59 EDT
>>
>>Ndey,
>>
>>all you have said is quite true and the reason for this state of affairs
>>is
>>because our so-called leaders spend all their time and energy trying to
>>refine the art of stealing what little assets we have and how to disguise
>>that art
>>while also refining how to lie to the people instead of really taking
>>stock
>>of the state of the country and devising ways to move the machinery of
>>state
>>in the most efficient manner and in a way that best serves the
>>populations.
>>In other words, the job of African governments is seen by those in
>>charge as
>>an opportunity to form a mafia colaition with all willing participants
>>and
>>rob the country with a few crumbs trickled down to the suffering masses
>>every
>>once in a while and to treat this token as a personal gift of benevolence
>>from the despotic leader. These days, they have even learned the art of
>>saying
>>the right things to deceive those with genuine good will in the
>>international
>>community. Our leaders in Africa have surpassed their colonial masters in
>>the art of deception and economic rape of their people and the more
>>despicable
>>a dictator the longer they will stay with a pat on the back from those
>>who
>>would never get away with or condone such behaviour in their own
>>countries.
>>African dictators are rewarded by the few opportunists at home who
>>benefit from
>>their illegal and illegitimate activities and those abroad who also
>>benefit
>>by their presence because they can lend more money at higher interest
>>rates
>>and have the upper hand in access to the natural resources of Africa. It
>>is the
>>most heinous crime in human history and people are getting away with it
>>because of the long line of collaborators on our continent ever willing
>>to
>>participate in the economic enslavement of their own people so long as
>>they make a
>>few bucks from the process. Witness Darfour if you will and ask
>>yourselves
>>who are the major players who buy oil from Sudan and those oil contracts
>>are
>>far more precious to them that the lives of Africans, and that is why
>>despite
>>the outcry of the decent people in the World, these same governments are
>>engaged in empty rhetoric on the subject because they must do all they
>>can to
>>maintain the status quo so that their partners in crime in the Sudanese
>>government stay right where they are. Instead, they send food aid with a
>>lot of press
>>coverage while pushing for U.N troops to go in and once they go in, the
>>U.N
>>being the tool of the super powers nations that it is today, these troops
>>will
>>stay in and their mission will be to make sure that Bantustans are
>>maintained to keep the masses marginalized while the leaders of these
>>nations and
>>their partners continue with the business of conducting their lucrative
>>trade
>>while once again on the African continent, the people of a resource rich
>>region
>>continue to wallow in poverty.
>>
>>Jabou Joh
>>
>>In a message dated 10/7/2006 5:25:25 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
>>[log in to unmask] writes:
>>Omar,
>>
>>This is really heartbreaking when one seat helplessly watching our people
>>taking desperate measures to get themselves out of this poverty circle.
>>The
>>song has turned a fresh page of the realities back home. This deadly and
>>unfortunate situation is a clear manifestation of the failure of our
>>nation
>>states because they can no longer deliver positive political goods to our
>>people. Our governments have lose legitimacy and now illegitimate.
>>Governments exist to deliver political goods security, education, health
>>services, economic opportunity, environmental surveillance, a legal
>>framework of order and a judicial system to administer it, and
>>fundamental
>>infrastructural requirements such as roads and communications facilities
>>to
>>their citizens. In the reverse most of our governments honor these
>>obligations in the breach. They increasingly forfeit their function as
>>providers of political goods to warlords and other nongovernment actors.
>>Our
>>governments are no longer able or willing to perform the job of a
>>nation-state in the modern world.
>>
>>They are unable to provide security the most central and foremost
>>political
>>good across the whole of their domains. Citizens depend on states and
>>central governments to secure their persons and free them from fear. But
>>most of our states are unable to establish an atmosphere of security
>>nationwide.
>>
>>
>>Couple with this our institutions are weak and flawed it is only the
>>executive institution that functions. If legislatures exist at all, they
>>are
>>rubber-stamping machines. Democratic debate is noticeably absent. The
>>judiciary is derivative of the executive rather than being independent,
>>and
>>citizens know that they cannot rely on the court system for significant
>>redress or remedy, especially against the state. Bureaucracy has long ago
>>lost its sense of professional responsibility and exists solely to carry
>>out
>>the orders of the executive and, in petty ways, to oppress citizens. The
>>armed forces are highly politicized. Infrastructures are destroyed or
>>deteriorated, thus the more potholes or main roads turned to rutted
>>tracks.
>>As our people continue to use these deadly routes to Europe for a better
>>leaving our rulers siphon funds from the state.
>>
>>What does the feature hold for such a people, nation, countries, and
>>continent? This is a question that I always asked myself. Looking at my
>>two
>>boys I asked myself what their generation will be like. Will it be better
>>than ours or is Africa going to be worse?
>>
>>
>>
>>The Struggle Continues!!
>>Ndey Jobarteh
>>
>>
>> >From: OMAR DRAMMEH <[log in to unmask]>
>> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
>> ><[log in to unmask]>
>> >To: [log in to unmask]
>> >Subject: SV: "SunuGaal"/ Behind this trade there are Europeans involved
>>and
>> >well paid.
>> >Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 10:13:29 +0200
>> >
>> >
>> >Sidibeh/Oko/Bailo,
>> >
>> >I hope the SOPI Coalition is listening. The song is pregnant with
>>meaning
>> >giving a vivid picture of the harsh realities not only in Senegal but in
>> >many African countries. We don`t have to look far away to see that. The
>> >level of deprivation is alarming and having to take such a risk on those
>> >rickety fishing boats on such a perilous route shows how desperate the
>>bulk
>> >of the people are.
>> >
>> >Bailo pointed out the valid point of the failure of political
>>independence
>> >and it makes me wonder whether this mass exodus of African migrants is
>>not
>> >a form of reverse colonisation; the coloniser being colonised by its
>>former
>> >subjects. Is it a case of the chicken coming home to roost? And the
>> >situation is made worsening with the level of organised crime as Oku
>>cited.
>> >
>> >Happy weekend.
>> >
>> >regards,
>> >Omar
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > > From: oko drammeh [[log in to unmask]]
>> > > Sent: 2006-10-06 14:32:06 CEST
>> > > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > > Subject: Re: "SunuGaal"/ Behind this trade there are Europeans
>>involved
>> >and well paid.
>> > >
>> > > This is prophecy/ not an overstatement.
>> > >
>> > > If you need what Africa has,
>> > > and you can't do without it
>> > > and don't want to pay for it.
>> > >
>> > > You will create problems for thoes people only to make them weak
>>and
>> >maintaining them in the clutches and machenary of exploitation and
>>inhuman
>> >treatment.
>> > >
>> > > It seems like Africans are still under the conspiration theory of
>>the
>> >CURSE OF HAM (decendants of black race) by his father prophet Noah in
>>the
>> >Abrahamic religions.
>> > >
>> > > RELIGION RULE THE WORLD
>> > > That Denial of peace and prospertity to the Black Africans and
>> > the
>> >punishment sent to them said by most religions is an order of god. This
>>has
>> >cause poverty, wars, deaths and an unsettled Africa. This is the root
>> >of
>> >all our problems. It is holy.
>> > >
>> > > Be wise Africa,
>> > > you are the richest continent
>> > > but yet with the poorest people.
>> > >
>> > > You have been duped !
>> > >
>> > > Oko
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > bailo jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > > Omar,
>> > >
>> > > Thanks for sharing this moving clip of a song that is spot on for
>> > > the
>> >reasons of the desperate quest of young able bodied Africans to reach
>>the
>> >shores of the promised land. As reflected by the song, it is primarily
>> >because political independence from the yoke of colonialism have thus
>> >so
>> >far failed to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of Africans. In other
>>terms,
>> >we, Africans have been failed by our political class, i.e both those in
>> >civvies and uniforms. They seem to only take care of themselves.
>> > >
>> > > Very sad indeed!
>> > >
>> > > Bailo
>> > >
>> > > bailo jallow wrote:
>> > > Testing, testing, just testing.
>> > >
>> > > Bailo
>> > >
>> > > OMAR DRAMMEH wrote:
>> > > Fols,
>> > >
>> > > Thought this might be of interest. It portrays the plight of the
>>African
>> >migrant including Gambians in their journey to the "Promise Land".
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > http://www.studiosankara.com/sunugaal.html
>> > >
>> > > Regards,
>> > > Omar
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
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>> > >
>> > > ---------------------------------
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