Sister Jabou Joh,

  Not that there should be no policy documents or election manifestoes 
authored partly to win sympathy or support from the literate constituency. 
But rather, to question and even provoke a rethinking of the ways we look at 
and judge political processes in our polity.

  Because the efforts for a broader coalition of the Opposition has failed, 
supporters of different alliances are now busy demonising one another, even 
though it is clear as noon day that neither NADD nor the UDP/NRP are the 
major obstacles to social reform. So my position is that those who should 
place these policy documents and their presenters under scrutiny ought 
temselves be the initial objects of some such scrutiny.

  Independent-minded journalists whose critique would have been most 
welcomed are now  almost effectively silenced. When once the respected corps 
of journalists demonstrated in paying tribute to  Deyda Hydara, gunned down 
by thugs, not a single politician - unless I am grossly mistaken - joined 
their ranks to vent their anger at such brazen political assasination. But 
perhaps of even greater import, is the fact that ordinary people again, 
managed to remain unmoved by yet another outrage. Just as all the anger 
fizzled away after the April 2000 massacre, as a great number of Gambians 
voted the APRC into office after 18 months, inspite of the made-in-Gambia 
election gimmickry.

  My point is that ordinary tired workers, poorer peasants, angry students, 
tried journalists, pauperized women, brutalised civil servants, taciturn 
intellectuals and disgruntled politicians all constitute a national 
community of descent that since independence in 1965, never found a common 
historical mission to pursue with relentless zeal.
  I say it is time we rethink the entire dynamics of political processes in 
Gambia and how to alter them for the better. The divisions within the 
Opposition is reflective of the divisions within the larger community of 
descent.

  When the politicians failed to cobble a coalition after so much work by 
many Gambians, especially diasporan Gambians I should say, some documents 
for regime change will prove to be little more than academic material. There 
is great probability that the Opposition will fail to unseat the APRC. Yet 
again.

  Cheers,
  sidibeh

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