Cherno Jallow,

Honestly, I did not want to get into this Ping-Pong any more. I would
prefer us to focus on the real issue and not to allow our attention to
be diverted from it. However, after reading your mail I had to respond.
Where on earth have I said that Halifa should not be scrutinised? Have I
not written the following in my first mail:

"My personal opinion at this very moment is to clear the way ONCE AND
FOREVER in a
document which will be kept for anyone who comes up later with baseless
accusations to access, and ONLY after reading such a document come back
to challenge your stand before and after the coup. That way, you can
focus on the more important work of the people."

What I am saying here is that Halifa should respond with profundity and
if anyone comes up with similar accusations the person should first take
some time to read what he had to say before coming up with baseless
accusations. This is my opinion. I believe that any genuine accuser
should be interested in what the accused has to say. If I continue
talking to someone who prefers to stick his tongue into his ears, I will
personally prefer to move ahead with other important issues. If you
believe that your accusations are not baseless come up with the proof.
Put your evidence before all of us and we'll weigh it against what
Halifa has to say. In fact Halifa has said that he is ready to take
anyone, so what's the fuss about.

It is very funny that you who wrote that "In my opinion, the ban placed
on FOROYAA doesn't in all sincerity
mean a deliberate violation of freedom of the press. The ban was just
inevitable and circumstantial. In other words, it represents a clash
between textbook reality and situational reality" when decrees where
raining on Gambians at a time when the coup was trying to silence voices
of freedom, are turning around to point accusing fingers at others. Of
course you can throw stones from your glass house, but should you do, at
least be equipped to withstand the storm afterwards. Show us your teeth!

Now, if you take what you wrote about Ayyitteh and compare it with what
I wrote, you should be able to see the point I was making in my original
mail on this topic. You wrote "And get this: Ayittey is a scholar,
critic, writer. He has written extensively on Africa. He tackles African
issues with insightful scrutiny unlike the Halifa Sallahs, who, out of
drooling utopianism and incontinent lust for nationalism, are hopelessly
unrestrained in their kissing up to vaunted Pan-africanism starved of
self-dissenting objectivity. And honesty" That is what you think about
Ayyitteh and Halifa and what I wrote about Halifa is what I hold for
people who stand for what he stands for. And that person does not have
to be called Halifa Sallah. If you call what I wrote petulant then you
must look into the mirror and tell the same to the person you see.

And please stop this childish game of name-calling. It's not my game. So
you will have to play it alone. And for once, I look forward to a debate
of substance and not just a hail of empty words. I will be away for
three weeks, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me soon. If
there is anything to clear you will definitely hear from me, no matter
how late. I am looking forward to a fruitful debate.

Alpha Robinson


chernob jallow wrote:
>
>                                 Preface
> Distraction from Gambia-L, even for two weeks, like in my case, can be
> costly. Reason? Chances are you'll miss sailing on the eddies of infrequent,
> rational public opinion, occasionally enlivening Gambia-L and spontaneously
> propelling its readership into spurts of literary crossfire and
> tongue-wagging.
>
> Yet again, my learned friend Halifa Sallah, has come under fire for
> canvassing for support of, and supporting, the 1997 Gambian constitution,
> which betrayed Gambian public opinion for presidential term-limits,which
> gives President Yahya Jammeh and Co. carte blanche to rule unstoppably
> indefinitely,which entrenches an Indemnity Clause which says that Jammeh and
> ex-council colleagues cannot be held accountable for their actions in the
> past,which is derelict with obnoxious military decrees out of sync with
> democratic governance. Halifa also stands criticised for playing footsie
> with Jammeh over the president's litany of excesses, which merely exist on
> the fringes of Halifa's and PDOIS' political imagination.
>
> This time around, Saul Khan and Hamjatta Kanteh are putting the political
> geezer on the bridle and saddle of intense scrutiny. I have been down this
> polemical terrain before with Halifa on this same forum. Well before I
> joined Gambia-L, another Gambian, on this forum, had also taken Halifa and
> Co. to task on the same issue. Inside The Gambia, Halifa has had to flicker
> away numerous criticisms on his transitional role from some of his political
> opponents.
>
> What started as a trickle has now turned into a torrent. Years hence,
> Halifa's transitional legacy - marked by unquestionable patriotism and
> self-effacing leadership on one front, and political deviationism and death
> of outrage on the other - will continue flashing on The Gambia's political
> radar screen. History continues...
>
> And now this:
>
>                               Halifamania
> Time was, I was afflicted with an ailment called Halifamania. Looking back
> over the years of my high schooling and long before I ever became a son of
> ink, I used to be a dire-hard PDOIS supporter. I would trek near and distant
> places just to hear Halifa and colleagues speak on the hustings. I would
> mill around PDOIS'offices with a hushed zeal to peek into the to-ings and
> fro-ings of PDOIS leaders inside their offices. One day I got in there with
> the help of a dear friend. It was a scintillating experience. My good friend
> Haruna Farage, now working with the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal in Tanzania,
> also enabled me to get cosy access to Sidia Jatta at his Bundung residence.
> Sidia and I would discuss Gambian politics while he plays his Kora under the
> mango tree.
>
> Only my lacking of a voter's card prevented me from voting PDOIS in the
> 1987/92 general elections. But my exuberance over PDOIS was unassailable. I
> hung onto Halifa's and PDOIS' political vocabulary fore and aft, thinking
> that whatever they said was the gospel. Was the truth. Was unquestionable.
> Was irreplaceable. My affinity with PDOIS was just too much for me to submit
> myself to dissension over the party's policies and its leaders' political
> behaviour. Silly me.
>
> But dilating too much on our affinities with PDOIS, a political party whose
> emergence in the 1980s, helped spruce up Gambian political
> consciousness,makes us merely peddlers of banal banter. It is meaningless.
> Understandably, a chunk of PDOIS supporters are prepared to adore and
> sanctify Halifa and Co. regardless of their political follies. I no longer
> belong in that category. That was then.
>
> And this is now. For much of this year, I have been very critical of Halifa,
> first on his role during the transition period, a subject currently
> rejuvenated on this forum, and on his incontinent Pan Africanism bereft of
> objectivity and dissension. Each time I have taken Halifa to task, I have
> noticed some rumblings of discontent, emanating perhaps from die-hard PDOIS
> fanatics. Probably they are miffed that Halifa's poverty of thinking as
> depicted in his arguments or his political follies, are being hit and hit
> hard. To be sure, Halifa is a public figure commanding a following. So it is
> only natural that some members of this following, more infatuated than in
> love, with Halifa, to react viscerally rather than rationally, to anything
> critical of Halifa and PDOIS.
>
> Consider this: "Your article contains no iota of truth ....you should be
> objective, give the man the credit he deserves....he is not an opportunist."
> Bass Ndow was commenting on my piece regarding Halifa's rejoinder to
> Ayittey's and Shirima's article. He thought I had a private beef with Halifa
> and his party. He imagined I was being dismissive of Halifa's sacrifice to
> return to Africa and work for the continent. As if Halifa's patriotism or
> willingness to return to his homeland formed the crux of my piece.
>
> I am an opinion writer, who makes no fetish of personalities. I don't care
> whether it is Koli Tengela or Halifa Sallah, Nelson Mandela or Otto Von
> Bismarck, Cherno Baba Jallow or President Yahya Jammeh. I go after issues,
> never mind their criticality or controversiality. Throughout my years of
> writing, I have learned never to give in to majoritarian tyranny, or shy
> away from speaking my mind on issues even if my opinion runs counter to
> popular opinion. There comes a time when you have to be on your guard, or to
> borrow a popular refrain from Halifa, be a 'master of your own destiny.'
>
> Leave aside personality worshipping. Leave aside also the game of chicken
> and sugary love. let's debate the issues head-on. Halifamania has the
> tendency to sap our frankness and objectivity. To idolize Halifa or anybody
> else for that matter, without even a whiff of dissent on their misguided
> deeds and sayings, is to fall prey to lovey-dovey cronyism.
>
> More reactive than assertive to Saul Khan's and Hamjatta's Kanteh's
> challenges to Halifa,Alpha Robinson recently remarked petulantly: "Halifa,
> whatever you decide, be rest assured that there are many Gambians and
> non-Gambians who treasure your role in our history ....no one can turn us
> against you." Such convivial banality and sycophantic hobnobbing can be
> fatuous nonesense. Of course, Alpha's choice to place Halifa on a pedestal
> is his legitimate perorogative, but it is imperative that our public figures
> be held in intense scrutiny. No democracy, if it is to be well-variegated in
> accountability and transparency, can thrive with an electorate eager-happy
> to exchange pleasantries with its leaders, and not rational skepticism on
> every action and saying of those in leadership.
>
> The solace is Halifa received Alpha's panegyric stakes with a pinch of salt.
> Halifa is a politician not too enamoured of praises nor does he take
> criticisms lying down. Put him under fire, and Halifa degenerates into
> vintage Halifaism: chest-thumping, table-pounding and grandiloquent,
> rhetoric. Intellectual arrogance and pomposity beomes his last bastion of
> hope to ward off critics. But atleast, paying lip service to praises should
> enable Halifa realize one thing: a public figure who is constantly in search
> of fame and glory, and who blushes and pleases anytime a supporter throws
> him tossed salads of plaudits, is one that risks valuing his beliefs and
> principles largely on the direction or misdirection of received opinion,
> which can be sycophantic, subjective and gibberish.
>
> Therefore: Halifa must continue resisting every urge, every attempt, every
> whisper, from his loyalists and fanatics, to elevate him to sainthood or
> celebrityhood. Because he's neither a saint nor a celebrity. He's a public
> figure who has demonstrated unflinching keenness in the pursuit of better
> governance for his people, but who also is prone to human failings,
> intellectual follies and immaturities. And who aslo stands criticised for
> the not-so-impressive-part of his role during the transition.
>
> PS: Saul Khan and Hamjatta, I am enjoying the debate. Keep up the momentum.
> And don't let yourselves be distracted by comments that add nothing to the
> debate. Sometimes the best response is no response at all.
> ______________________________________________________
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