Dear Alieu,
You dont have to be sorry for that,we should thank you for marking it more
simple for us to understand,you know for some of us who are not good at
speaking and understanding this "Queen English" (as Bro Bass would call it )it
could be frustrating.
But however before you are through with your second part I would just want to
raise certain concerns that MIGHT be of interest to you.I have the believed
that one needs to define what power is,it could not be discuss in a vacuum,I
believed that it must be related to something,even though you might be
refering to State power,it should be still made clear,in relation to
who/what?the individual,the state as a whole or in relation to the People.At a
point you talk about a"strong power base" within a scope,that is with a
"strong political base"here I believed you mean to say that they are
interrelated and not absolute opposites.If we take the popular slogan "power
to the People" it will speak to your third "hypotheses"as you call it.But only
to rub it of personality cult.When power lies in the hands of the people,it
will be strong and popular,such type of society will be in a better position
to relate to the demands of the individual and the society at large.This is
possible,dont think that you are dreaming and I totally agree with you that it
is only through such human relationship we can have a stable society.In my
opinion this is so only, if your "strong political base"is not related to
individuals(as you did with Monicagate/Bil Clinton examples)but to the
People.
How do we get to such a society ?When Dr Jammeh came to power,he promised that
those days are gone when politicians treats our belove country as their
personal properties.He call them liars and ban them from taking part in any
form of politics.He told the Gambian people that they will now decide the
faith of their country,they will no longer be alien in their own
country,there will be "transparency" so that people will know and participate
in decisions making,no hidden agenda.He promised there will be
"accountability",that means those with national responsibility will account to
us every thing they do and that there will be "probity" which means we will
be humbly serve by our servants with righteousness,fairness , openness etc.He
declared "it will be a new era of Freedom...." Can you imagine what type of a
society this would have been if he kept to his words ?The Gambian People would
have been able to decide their day to day life,there would have not been any
abuse of power,our country would have been the most democratic in this
world.All that he needed to do was to keep to his words.But this could not be
possible if he want his own Zoo at the state house,have Caravans,fly his own
plains to Morroco,Mauritania etc every week.The UDP would not have question
the 35 million dollar loan from Chine,there would not have been the Swiss
scandal with the millions from Taiwan etc ,etc,.To leave such a life style you
would have to need the NIA to control what ever people say ,arrest and detain
any journalist who critic the regime.You have to live a life of
insecurity,everything that is not said and done by you will be
threatening,thus the instability.
Whiles waiting for your second part I hope that you find time to share your
good ideas with us.
For Freedom
Saiks
Dear Saiks and Omar,
I regret sincerely if, for anything, making sense out of the article
strained your imagination. I could feel where the problem lies. It was an
attempt to show different but related issues condensed together in a thick
single piece. I would have thought that reading in between the lines a bit
would have been able to help us make connections and interpretations easily.
The article simply intends to depict three societies and indirectly asks us
to figure out which one of them could be best and how to work towards
achieving it.
It goes with these hypotheses :
1) A Weak Power Base and a Strong Political Base
2) A Strong Power Base and a Weak Political Base
3) A strong Power Base and a Strong Political
I am here concern with three types of societies that may each exhibit any
one of these hypotheses. Please stay within my conceptual definations of
Power and Politics.
My suggestion is that, both hypotheses one and two will lead to instability
and only hypothesis three can lead to stability. I tried to support this
argument by retrospecting. That is why you can find references been made to
some of those historical factors. The issue here is that any one those
historical factors shows an inbalance between Power Base and Political Base.
This leads to their instability at various times. Now, to me that is not
progresssive and indeed it is not. I, therefore, suggest a third type, that
can lead to stability. I must say that most of you will take it as mere
idealistic after thoroughly thinking about it. This is where we have a
balance between Power Base and Political Base. An ideal society that
requires a firm establishment and at the same time giving people their due
rights.
How do we work towards such a society is not a big question. I will address
that when after this first part is fully understood. And issues such as what
I mean by political maturity and what empresses me about the Monicategate
saga will be expunged upon later if they still remain elusive to make sense
out of.
God blesses us all
Alieu
>From: saiks samateh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [POWER AND POLITICS]
>Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 07:45:42 PDT
>
>Dear Alieu,
>
>Your topic was very interesting but the fact is that I was not able to
>understand what you were out to tell,this might be because of my poor
>knowledge of the English language (or to be frank ,I am no intellectual) I
>did
>try,but even using the dictionary did not help and I hope that you will be
>able to help through some of the things I wish to take up here.When you for
>example say "..If it were not firm political structures and political
>resoluteness and astuteness
>of America and president Clinton respectively,Monicagate would have
>spiraled
>USA into abysmal oblivion.."As said above even using the dictionary did not
>help me to understand the relationship of some words here and the idea that
>you are trying to put forward,please excuse me for perhaps wasting much of
>your time to clarify.
>Another thing you said which was not difficult for me to understand was
>your
>claim that Colonialism was possible because of the political
> immaturity of Africans and Asian.This I believed is just part of the well
>known efforts of Western historians to justify Colonialism,which they have
>been doing for centuries now,but to see an African intellectual like you
>posing the same story is not a nice reading.Our people have fought against
>colonialism since the very first day.This was possible because of the
>political maturity of our people.Colonialism would not use all forms of
>brutal
>method against the Africans,the Asians etc to maintain its rule,if there
>was
>no resistant,no political maturity, within our people,there would not have
>been the need for such brutal activity.
> Another thing ,Political stability does not necessarily mean that there
>are
>no riots,no demonstrations or war.The level of political instability is
>determine by the amount and method of political control that a group ,the
>society etc are subjected to.The LA rebellion in the USA is a product of
>the
>fascist character of the control system that those who participated were
>subjected to,the many shootings and killings in the USA schools and working
>places is a product of this very control system.
>Even though there is oneness in Allah and religion as you claim,is not
>enough
>to give muslims the power you are questioning.There is in fact no such
>oneness
>in Islam as you claim.There are some muslim(as in Christianity) who
>believed
>that religion is a private matter,there are some who believed that
>Islam/Christianity should control our way of life,tell us when to go to
>bed,the films to watch,who has the right to go to work and school etc.There
>are many of us who are oppose to the regime of DR Jammeh but this is not
>enough for political unity and power.I am not oppose to Dr Jammeh just to
>give
>way for another Jawara,Jammeh or one worst than all of them.It becomes very
>absurd and rub "popular support" the "power" it needed to create something
>different and better.Then the "ability to maintain stability and cope with
>the
>opposition" becomes only a dream.
>Can we say this in another way and that is popular support is the physical
>and
>mental activity of the masses ,who by marking their presences felt through
>determining the day to day political agenda,which the power that is, either
>has to face to or resist against.The consequences of which has to determine
>the whole political atmosphere.
>I am not sure if I am in line with what you are trying to say,if not I am
>sorry for the misunderstanding.
>
>For Freedom
>Saiks
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Hi Folks,
>
>Just for the purpose of this article, I refer to the notion of Power here
>as
>"degree of popular support" and the "ability to maintain stability and cope
>with opposition", and the notion of Politics as the "ability to mobilize".
>This is only to limit my scope of analysis.
>
>Hypothetically, I wish to suggest a three-factor relationship between the
>two components: 1) a strong Power base and a weak Poiltical base; 2) a weak
>Power base and a strong Political base; 3) a strong Power base and a strong
>Political base. Arbitrarily, I conclude that no society exists which could
>be categorized as having a weak Power base and a weak Political base. My
>supposition is to propose that before any viable, rewarding and long
>lasting
>stability and security is established, power and politics have to be at
>par,
>hence the third-factor connection. In what follows, I will try to visualize
>to dissect an imaginary society that may exhibit features of any one of the
>forementioned propositions. I leave to the reader for a further indepth
>analysis on each one of them.
>
>A strong Power base and a weak Political base. To chart the ever turbulent
>and shaky course of time into the future, it is always prudent to
>retrospect. The rationale, amongst other facts, is to enable one to avoid
>repeating the mistakes of the past. I make a particular reference here,
>therefore, for our studies, to the forces that ousted the late ex-President
>Marcos from power in the Philippines. It was basically "peoples' power".
>Marcos had a very repressive regime but couldn't survive the social
>mobilization activism of the citizens. In Mecca, about 1400 years ago, the
>political prowess of Prophet Mohammed (S.A.W) ultimately defeated the all
>too entrenched power base of his infidel brothers and sisters. The declared
>greatest military power in history couldn't in the 1960s overwhelm the
>collective will of a small post-colonial Asian nation that was seeking its
>autonomy. A conflictual relation between power and poiltics therefore
>reveals that, as defined in this context, victory is always for the latter.
>What society needs,therefore, is to facilitate to create a situation that
>will enhance a balanced interactive relationship between the two for
>stability, peace, progress and development. A pradigm shift seems to have
>occured that suggests that the fundamental foundations of political
>philosophy requires that institutions must accommodate in a prosperous way
>to satisfy certain inherent and universal human needs. A persons
>ontological
>needs of identity, association, free will and developmental needs can never
>ever be frustrated.
>
>A weak Power base and a strong Political base. Again, a society built on
>such pillars can only lose vitality in the agony of infirmity, feebleness,
>unprogressiveness and stagnation. The ease with which Africans and Asians
>were subjected to colonial domination speaks about thier lack of poiltical
>maturity. Imagine, if it were not for the firm political structure and
>political resoluteness and astuteness of America and President Clinton
>respectively, Monicagate would have spiralled USA into abysmal oblivion,
>regardless of Bill's record level popularity rate. One thing that greased
>the American shock absorber at this particular time, could have been a
>mixture of a strong Power and Political bases. It is slightly different
>with
>the plight of a billion Muslims in the world today. One voice, one
>identity,
>one religion and one big following but lack of a genuine power base denies
>them the opportunity to articulate their ideals and aspirations. Turkey, at
>the early part of this century, witnessed the eradication of the last
>Islamic State on the World Map as a result of a weak power base. The
>bottomline is, a large following or the ability to mobilize a large
>following, is just not enough to supervise any progress, development and
>even stability.
>
>A strong Power base and a strong Political base. This is what the
>components
>of the structures of what may constitute my ideal type of society. The
>overall thrust of the argument of the article is that, those in power
>should
>be conscious of needs arising from the forces of society; should be aware
>of
>the glaring fact that strengthening of state apparatus without a
>concomitant
>empowering of the masses can only invite retrogression, humiliation,
>instability, frailty and disillusion; that, on the other hand, banking on
>only a large following with a fragile power base is as good as being lost
>in
>the middle of the desert not knowing which direction to follow.
>
>High time we woke up and looked at the coffee rather than copying blindly
>and not understanding the intricacies of similarities and differences. God
>blesses us all.
>
>Cheer
>
>Alieu
>
>
>
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