Michael Ba Banutu-Gomez wrote:

"Sisters and brothers, I believe there are three factors that suppresses
sustainable democracy in our society and can hinder the successful growth of
positive exchange in The Gambia: 1) failure to treat those we disagree with
as potential allies instead of enemies, 2) ignoring the need to understand
the world from others' unique points of view and 3) our lack of awareness
about our own interaction style. I say to you today that to achieve this, it
requires maturity to: a) Be aware of the needs of an ally, b) seek mutual
benefit only, c) not use that knowledge and power to manipulate them in
order to further one's own aims.  I am convinced that this will help us in
nurturing and sustaining democracy for the 21st Century Gambia that we all
can be proud of. Unfortunately, those of us who consider ourselves
professionals, advocates, activist, religious leaders or political leaders
are sometimes not good examples to follow because we usually stubbornly
stickto our own ideas because we are so sure we hold a monopoly on "truth"."

Mr. Gomez, in the above paragraph that I have quoted, you have basically
summed up most of my feelings about our society. This attitude of ours that
seem to make us believe, and quite erroneously too, that there are no other
alternatives to our ideas or understanding of our problems is a major cause
of our misunderstandings/predicament. If I may add anything to your post it
would be the need for tolerance and the willingness to show appreciation
when one does something worthy of praise. Constant critism without offering
any concrete ideas as to how things could have been done different or better
is the zenith of hypocrisy. Many a times people are not unwilling to accept
the fact that what the other person is saying may actually have some merit.
Such people, and there are many among us, would not budge from any possition
they take while expecting others to change their every idea/stand to
accomodate them. This is not possible! Take the recent presidential
elections for example. Some are still to come to terms with the events of
the past few months and are deluding themselves thinking that they are the
only ones who are concious of what ought to have been the outcome. While the
Gambian electorate took up their civic duty to re-elect the president in a
manner described by most people as the free-est, fairest and most
transparent elections ever held here, there are some who are saying no to
that. Some have advanced rediculous claims of vote rigging alledging, in one
instance, that up to 30,000 people from Cassamance were encamped at the
Brikama college in order to vote for the APRC. Imagine 30,000 people, the
equivalent of more than 500 bus loads of adults camped in a small campus
such as Brikama college for up to five days and nobody seems to notice.
Imagine how the limited toilets will cope with so much s*** that would be
produced during those. Even if one was allowed only one Kg of the stuff, we
are talking about 30 tonnes of it.

Again a few weeks back when the UDP coalition gave an ultimatum to the IEC
demanding to see the head register of voters and went on to announce that
they were going to boycot the forthcoming National Assembly and local
government elections, alleging that the IEC was coniving with the government
and transfering votes "in their thousands" in order to steal the elections,
several people on this list went berserk shouting, from the rooftops, their
total agreement with the UDP move. At the time I tried to caution people not
to come to such hasty conclusions based on just the UDP allegations. I made
it clear that they, the UDP coalition, made a tactical error by taking such
a drastic move based on hearsay alone. A few days later, I was vindicated as
the updated list certainly did not show the massive transfer of votes "in
their thousands" from one constituency to another in order to influence the
outcome of the elections. This hasty decision of the UDP coalition has given
the APRC an absolute majority in the National assembly even without going to
the polls. Already, they have 33 of the 48 seats unopposed and the president
is empowered to nominate another 5 NAMs. Who do we now blame if the APRC
dissects the entire constitution to their advantage? Which of the existing
candidates can seriously tell us that they are capable of winning the
nessary majority that would be required to undo any constitutional
ammendments that the government may introduce?

Those who are also questioning whether Jammeh's recent reaching out to all
Gambians should be believed are equally deluding themselves. They may whin
and whinge all they want but they wouldn't be able to do zilch about it. The
Amnesty to ex-president Jawara has been welcomed by most Gambians, the PPP
party, Jawara himself, his family and the international community. In fact
as I am writing this piece, Jawara's two sons are in the Gambian arranging
for the return of the old man. It is reported in the papers that David
Jawara jr. and Kawsu Jawara arrived in the country last Tuesday, were
treated to a reception and are holding talks with senior government
officials concerning the logistics for Sir Dawda's return.

Finally I would like to thank you for posting the speech you gave on the L
at this point in time. I hope others who have read it would also give their
opinions about it so that we can all understand the advantages of tolerance
and peaceful engagement and dialogue. It is high time that we all understand
that nobody has a monopoly of the truth or solutions to our problems. We
must brainstorm and formulate strategies that will take us forward. The
constant bickering over trivial things, name calling etc, will not take us
anywhere. It will only drag us backwards and create enemity or hatred
between us. Once again, thank you for a brilliant piece.

Have a good day, Gassa.


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