Mr Jallow,

I couldn't agree with you more. I happen to believe that Julius Nyerere is
the most honest and decent African leader to date (and that is even before
he died.) But Nyerere had short-comings. And it would be very helpful to us
as Africans to call a spade a spade. To learn from our mistakes, and try to
avoid repeating such mistakes. I haven't read Mr Sallah's piece, but I'm not
surprised by what he's said from reading yours.

Mr. Sallah happens to be quite smart. But what most Gambians don't know
about him is that, he has a knack for believing the most ludicrous - almost
absurdly delusional ideas, you've ever heard. Just before Yaya Jammeh
declared his candidature for the 1996 presidential elections, I called up Mr
Sallah to discuss an article I wanted to publish in his paper detailing why
Yaya would not make a good president ... doctored constitution and all. Mr
Sallah launched into one of his usual monologues, defending the then Lt.
Jammeh, and a constitution that gives a select group of people carte
blanche' to do whatever they want in the Gambia w/o ever facing any
consequences. This, while conveniently ignoring the will of Gambians to have
term limits among other things. I gave up after thirty minutes, because he
wouldn't let me speak though I paid for the call.

So, I'm glad Mr. Sallah is putting out his ideas in such a forum. This would
give people with good sense the chance to see his views for what they really
are: subjective, patronizing, and utterly utopian. Mr Sallah has not been
able to win an election in Serrekunda not because his opponents were ever
any good, but because he continues to live in a cocoon where the only other
members (outside the PDOIS trio,) are a few fanatical followers who truly
believe he is a cross between William Shakespear and the prophet Muhamed.
Maybe if he would start talking TO Gambians, not AT Gambians (note the
difference!,) his political fortunes might improve. So no, I'm not surprised
that Mr Sallah sees Nyerere as blameless. I wonder what he thinks of the
Jammeh regime five years on.

Saul




>From: chernob jallow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Halifa misses the point
>Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 17:00:13 PST
>
>                             Rage and fury
>Michael Kinsley, editor of the online magazine SLATE, once defined a
>political gaffe as anytime someone tells the truth. Kinsley's perverse
>logic
>could be found in Halifa's recent long-winded reply to the article on
>Nyerere's legacy by George B.N Ayittey, a Ghanaian and Associate Economics
>Professor at the American University,Washington, DC, and Ludovick Shirima,
>a
>Tanzanian and Research Assistant at the Free Trade Africa Foundation,
>Washington, DC.
>
>Like a flash of lightening skirting out of thunderous clouds,Halifa's
>reaction can be fast and furious. He was evidently miffed at the tone and
>contents of the article, not its refutability. Yes, because Halifa could
>not
>pinpoint any falsehood, lies, inaccuracies in the article(we shall come
>back
>to this later). He simply let his dogmatism be an iron hand that throttled
>his objectivity. Kinsley's logic helps here: just an iota of acerbic truth
>about Halifa Sallah, or his political party, or the ideology it peddles, or
>iconoclastic African leaders, is enough to send Halifa to the fringes of
>hysteria and bitternesss. His emotionalism becomes a needle that stitches
>the contours of his intransigent idealism with an absence of fairly-rounded
>scrutiny.
>
>And for a reason. Halifa is a Pan-Africanist. Or so he sounds to be. Small
>wonder, then, he could be as reactive as shallow in his responses to
>anything critical of the Nkrumahs, Nyereres, Lumumbas and the Toures. Take,
>for instance, how Halifa contextualised President Bill Clinton's trip to
>Ghana earlier this year. Clinton was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of
>Ghanaians, a massive gathering billed to be the first of its kind the US
>president had ever seen in his rallies.
>
>A CNN tv footage showed a perspiring Clinton, amidst a large crowd of
>Ghanaians, helplessly urging his spectators to withdraw back from their
>close proximity to him. A phalanx of security agents couldn't control the
>ecstatic Ghanaians. They kept marching towards the president and Clinton
>repeatedly urged his spectators to move back.
>
>That was enough to stoke the fire of Halifa's Pan-Africanist zealotry. He
>went bonkers! And he contrasted Clinton's attitude with that of the former
>Guinean leader Sekou Toure, during a visit to Banjul. Halifa rhapsodized on
>Toure's eagerness and willingness to shake hands with people in Banjul. But
>Sekou Toure visting Banjul? Shaking hands with the people? What's the
>significance? Out of Halifa's hackneyed imagination was constructed an
>affable Sekou Toure, all-smiling, all-embracing, momentarily assuming an
>air
>of exclusiveness as a populist-man-of-the-people.
>
>But that is empty hogwash. Toure was a vicious tyrant under whose tenure,
>Guinea saw copious cases of human rights violations. Political opponents,
>real or imagined, became victims of political thuggery, governmental
>intimidation. Toure's power-hunger, quenched by terror and brutality,
>created an aura of hopelessness steeped in Guinean political consciousness.
>Toure made it a habit to lecture and hector his countrymen on revolutionary
>ideals that were more self-aggrandizing than helpful to the Guinean cause.
>He is, perhaps, best remembered for his rabble-rousings against the French
>colonialists and standing up for Guinean independence. The rest is
>chock-a-block with tyranny and misery for the people of Guinea.
>
>African leaders are adept at putting a veneer of political correctness when
>they visit other countries. When Halifa's president-or if the
>sociologist-politician-journalist - pleases, political opponent, Yahya
>Jammeh, recently visited the US, he seemed a democratic leader presiding
>over a country enculturated in democratic ideals. Which we all know is
>fatuous nonesense. Tact and objectivity must be employed when analysing the
>postures, intricacies of African leaders. And their legacies, too.
>
>                    Nyerere under microscope
>
>Knowing next to nothing about polemical brevity and with a penchant for
>regurgitative history, Halifa's rejoinder to Ayittey's and Shirama's
>article
>was a circuitous road of historical narratives meshed with dogmatism and
>devoid of self-injecting objectvity. Halifa asserts:"if we want to judge
>Nyerere fairly, we must identify his proper place in the struggle for the
>liberation of the African people to achieve liberty, dignity and
>prosperity." He asks:" was Nyerere part of the problem or part of the
>solution?" To Halifa, Nyerere was only part of the solution. Or, atleast,
>that's what we delineated from his article.
>
>But Ayittey and Shirama told us Nyerere was both a solution and a problem.
>And rightly so. "Although Julius Nyerere belonged to this generation of
>African leaders," they write, "he did not display their egregious and
>megalomaniac excesses. He was not personally corrupt and his living style
>modest - a rare and refreshing exception among African leaders." They write
>further: "Nyerere was also among the very few African heads of state who
>relinguished political power voluntarily." And: "Nyerere worked
>indefatigably to mediate conflicts and bring peace to the East African and
>Great Lakes Region... Nyerere was quite active in promoting peace,
>understanding among people of the developing nations."
>
>But Ayittey and Shirama took a critical look at Nyerere's domestic record,
>unimpressive as it was: A socialist program forcibly shoved down the
>throats
>of Tanzanians. Result? State-control of industries and a "controlling
>interest in the major multinational corporation subsidiaries, coffee
>estates
>and the sisal industry." Within a decade, according to the authors, most of
>Tanzania's state-run industries had become inefficient and redundant.
>Economic loss and unemployment soared. Tanzanians groaned.
>
>And groaned even more with Nyerere's resettlemt programs: "Operation
>Dodoma," "Operation Sogeza," "Operation Kigoma." The two authors revealed
>that for the good of Nyerere's "communal villages," farmers were "loaded
>into trucks, often forcibly, and moved to new locations. Many lost their
>lives and property in the process. To prevent them from returning to their
>old habitats, the government bulldozed the abandoned buildings." And by
>1976, according to the authors, some 13 million peasants had been "forced
>into 8,000 cooperative villages, and by the end of the 1970s, about 91
>percent of the entire population had been moved into government villages."
>And consider this: "regulations required that all crops were to be bought
>and distributed by the government. It was illegal for the peasants to sell
>their own produce."
>
>Nyerere's "Ujaama" villigization proved a disastrous failure. Agriculural
>productivity dwindled and industries were sent packing. And Ayittey and
>Shirima told us a UN report revealed that because of the policy of forced
>villagization, Tanzania suffered ecological disaster, desertification as a
>result of deforestation, over-grazing, over-cultivation and population.
>
>Halifa's response to Ayittey's and Shirima's dissent on Nyerere's "Ujaama"
>was simply to lay the blame at the doorsteps of the colonialists and
>multinational corporations. He argues that when Nyerere and others took
>over, they realized "the colonialists had not created any avenue for the
>local population to become owners of capital so as to invest in a local
>economy." And he states further:"... it was the colonial multinational
>corporations which controlled imports and exports, mines, plantations and
>industrial establishments. What could such people do to create a national
>economy?" While there is a ring of truth about that, Halifa, unfortunately,
>did not see anything wrong or blameworthy about Nyerere's own policies. He
>heaped entire blame on the colonialists and its agents, leaving Nyerere
>scot-free.
>
>Halifa unknowingly tried dismissing Nyerere's efforts because Halifa
>imagined success could not be attained no matter how Nyerere tried, given
>the controlling nature of multinational corporations. "What could such
>people do to create a national economy?" he asks. Force people into
>governemnt squatter camps to till the land? Nationalize all the industries?
>All crops to be bought and distributed by the government? Illegal for the
>farmers to sell their own produce? Were these not Nyerere's policies? Did
>they help Tanzania? Do we - can we- find anything inherently wrong with
>Nyerere's own policies independent of any colonialism and multinationalism
>effect?
>
>                     Nyerere: words and deeds
>
>Halifa is ecstatic about Nyerere. He introduces us to a "dialogue with
>Nyerere," which, come to think of it, is a simplistic appraisal of
>Nyerere's
>words, not an objective contrast with his deeds. On leadership, Halifa
>quotes Nyerere:
>
>"Let me emphasize that this leadership I am now talking about does not
>imply
>control, any more than it implies bullying or intimidating people. A good
>leader will explain, teach, and inspire. In an ujamaa village he will do
>more and he will lead by doing. He is in front of the people, showing them
>what can be done, guiding them, and encouraging them. But he is with them.
>You do not lead people by being so far in front or so theoritical in your
>teaching that the people cannot see what you are doing or saying. You do
>not
>lead people by yapping at their heels like a dog herding cattle. You can
>lead the people only by being one of them, by just being more active as
>well
>as more thoughtful, and more willing to teach as well as more willing to
>learn from them and others."
>
>And Halifa concludes in a linear note: "Now may we ask: Can this be the
>words of a tyrant?"  But who said Nyerere was one? Bettr still, Halifa
>should be told that politicians and public figures are not - should not -
>be
>judged by their words but their deeds and the consequences of their deeds.
>It is not even that Halifa doesn't know about this; he does. In my debate
>with him, earlier this year, Halifa admonished that history is not judged
>by
>words but by deeds. Yet here, doing injustice to objectivity, Halifa simply
>finds solace in Nyerere's words, failing to contrast them with his own
>actions on the ground. Take, if you will, Ayittey's and Shirima's
>observation on Nyerere. They als quote the late Tanzanian leader:
>
>"Democratic reforms are naturally well-suited to African conditions. For me
>the charctersitics of democracy are: the freedom of the individual,
>including freedom to criticize the government, and the opportunity to
>change
>it without worrying about being murdered." But in doing what objective
>critics do, the two authors make a contrast of Nyerere's sacchrine words
>with his own deeds. And they find: "...soon after becoming Tanzania's
>president, he changed his tune: 'Democracy will create opposition among...'
>
>The authors reveal further: Said Fundikira, Mwinyijuma Othuman Upindo and
>James Mapalala, founders of Civic Movement, campaigned for greater
>political
>pluralism, they were immediately arrested in 1986 and detained under the
>Preventive Detention Act of 1962 ... exactly the same repressive colonial
>measure used to quell black aspirations for freedom." Halifa did not, could
>not, refute this; instead he tried finding historical analogies:
>
>                     Searching for faults yonder
>
>"Kennedy is seen as a saint. However, he presided over a nation where the
>Ku
>Klux Klan murdered black people with impunity. US congress served the
>humiliating role of debating whether to pass legislations outlawing
>discrimination on the basis of race, " Halifa writes.
>
>I don't know any honest, seasoned American journalists, critics, writers
>and
>historians who consider Kennedy a "saint". Kennedy's good and bad sides
>have
>both been illuminated by political pundits and revisionist historians. The
>same can be said about Thomas Jefferson. For much of this year, journalists
>unearthed and expounded upon reports of his extramarital affair with a
>slave
>and for owning slaves. If Kennedy and Jefferson and Washington were
>"saints"
>their indignities read in historical accounts and magazine reports do not
>qualify them so.
>
>Fact is, in Africa, the US and elsewhere, fanatical nationalism can be as
>imbecilic as a threat to objective intellectual discourse. Some people are
>not willing to submit themselves and their environment to critical
>srcutiny.
>They feign at any semblance of dissent, which is considered an import of
>external culural and intellectual hegemony. For Halifa to urge Ayittey and
>Shirima to read the books of Nyerere, Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, others, not
>the
>works of their critics, smacks of intellectual discrmination. It is wrong.
>
>                    The good, the bad and the ugly
>
>Undoubtedly, Nyerere, Nkrumah and some other Pan-Africanist leaders, had
>good intentions for Africa. They strove very hard to free Africans from the
>yoke of colonialism. However, their idealism betrayed not only their
>visions
>and hopes, but the collective will of their peoples. They built large
>personality cults that insulated them from the needs and aspirations of
>their constituents. They became power-hungry, crushing dissent, stifling
>political actvity. Multipartyism democracy became an anathema.
>
>Nkrumah, for instance, was becoming increasingly tyrannical in the dying
>days of his rule. Like his colonial captors, Nkrumah used his notorious
>Preventive Detention Act to jail his opponents with impunity. J.B. Danquah,
>one of the paragons of Ghanaian liberalism, was detained and died in jail.
>Has Halifa read this in Nkrumah's books? "His overthrow on 24 February
>1966,
>thus, came as a huge relief to most Ghanaians who didn't really understand
>the world milieu in which Nkrumah operated" (New African, April 1997;
>p.14).
>
>Halifa's rhetorical Pan-Africanist zealotry tossed in his article is
>required for an audience conditioned to believe too much in Afrocentrism,
>little in self-penetrating objectivity and criticism. Halifa's article was
>slanted in an angle different from that of Ayittey and Shirima. He argued
>his points from the position of a Pan-Africanist, whereas the two authors
>argued theirs out of independent-mindedness, sharpended by incisiveness and
>scholarhip. Ayittey's and Shirima's article is endowed with irrefutable
>facts - facts that speak to the truth about Nyerere's legacy.
>
>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.
>
>Let Halifa be objective.
>
>Cherno Baba Jallow
>Wayne State University
>Detroit, Michigan
>
>
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