Karamba, again you are spot on in your piece about the power of ideas.  Good
ideas is what advance societies.  Please allow me to expand your thesis a
little and instead of focusing on the illegal government we have back home
and the way they stifle ideas, I will deviate and talk about G_L List
Management.  Yes! G_L List Management.  You would have thought that some in
List Management like Momodou Camara and Malanding Jaiteh—with their exposure
in Western societies—would NOT evince the same dictatorial tendencies that
would prompt the mediocrity back home to want to stifle ideas.  You would
think that where Yaya would want to suppress ideas, Camara and Jaiteh would
want to ‘nurture’ ideas.

But no! In the guise of ‘trying to maintain decency on G_L’, the dictators
in List Management will try all means to suppress ideas they do NOT like.
People used to make the mistake that List Management was suppressing certain
people because they (List Management) were pro-APRC.  This is an easy
mistake to make because most (if not all) of the people that were unfairly
treated by List Management were people that were clearly opposed to the
Dictatorship back home.  But this easy mistake was also equally easy to
debunk.  When you accuse Camara of being pro-APRC, he can easily come back
and show you rhetoric of his showing that he is clearly a PDOIS supporter.
When you accuse Jaiteh of being pro-APRC, he can also easily show you
instances he has viciously attacked APRC.  Although people that label the
duo as pro-APRC can at times point to certain things (apart from suppressing
APRC opponents on G_L) to show that Camara and Jaiteh were at least at one
point AFPRC/APRC supporters, I remain with my view that what motivates the
duo is NOT their purported support for AFPRC/APRC.  This brings me to your
piece.  What motivates these people is their aversion to ideas (good or bad)
they do not agree with.  They are intolerant to differing ideas; especially
those that sound more logical than their conventional wisdom and in the case
of Camara, he does not like ideas that demystifies PDOIS.

To disguise their intolerance and dictatorial tendencies, they try all sorts
of tactics.  Jaiteh has tried on numerous occasions to publicly ridicule my
writing by pretending that I am using unsavory language.  When someone does
something stupid and I describe him as a ‘moron’, Jaiteh pretends to be
angry about my use of that word.  Before I knew that the man had a doctorate
degree, I thought perhaps that his vocabulary was lacking and he was not
well-read.  But as time went on, I began to understand what was going on
here.  As for Camara, he always comes up with some ridiculous censorship
rules that he does not even understand how to implement.  I showed him how
absurd it was to try and control ‘ideas’ the last time I asked for Jaiteh to
be ‘de-listed’.  These rules do not work.

This is not to say that the List should not have standards.  But to
implement a regime that would ensure ‘high’ standards for the List, List
Management has to be vigilant.  When they want to censor people like me,
they have to have dictionaries in front of their computers when they read
me.  Before censoring me, they should show me where I used inappropriate
words.  The same standards should be applied across the board to everyone;
those with good ideas and the mediocre talents List Management protects.
The laziness has to cease if List Management is really serious about
censorship.  The ball is entirely in the court of List Management.  They
also have a choice to continue to be lazy and averse to differing ideas.
They can continue to summarily ‘de-list’ people with ideas they do not like.
  Jaiteh can continue to make a fool of himself by pretending to be annoyed
with my choice of words.  I can live with the irritation.  I am NOT
intolerant.  I find solace in the fact that both Camara and Jaiteh appear to
be conscientious people.  Unlike Dictators like Yaya, Camara and Jaiteh are
smart people with a conscience.  They know right from wrong more than Yaya
does.  When Camara and Jaiteh pick on people on G_L to publicly humiliate
them or ‘delist’ them or otherwise control the flow of their ideas, I am
almost certain that these people (Camara and Jaiteh) suffer in some manner.
They may try to convince themselves that they are doing the right thing.
But deep inside them, they know that what they are doing is NOT right.

Karamba, as you can see, this aversion to ‘good ideas’ is NOT the sole
property of the uncouth and uncivilized mediocrity back home.  Right here in
our midst, there are people that use all sorts of dubious means to kill
ideas that do not conform with their Party platforms.  At least when I do
NOT like certain ideas I argue with people on the other side.  But the
Dictators back home will sack you from your job, put you in jail or burn
your home down or close your radio station or even kill you.  As for the
dictators on List Management, they simply ‘de-list’ you.  Can you believe
that some of them have the nerve to call me a dictator and an intolerant
person?

Just witness the pathetic state of G_L the past few days after List
Management (through Camara) tried to muzzle me and went ahead and summarily
‘de-list’ Ngorr Ciise.  There are numerous important topics of discussion
that went untouched.  SM Dibba finally got rewarded for his treachery.
Baabaa Jobe already started setting the tone in Parliament by shouting
Halifa Sallah down.  The Chief Justice that presided over the bogus
Commission of Inquiry looking into the Massacre of our children on April 10
and 11, 2000, stood in front of the Gambian press and said that all was well
with our judiciary.  In the aftermath of the parliamentary elections APRC
thugs are now attacking PDOIS supporters.  When those attacks were inflicted
on UDP supporters people used to say that UDP were the aggressors and they
were hateful.  Did we hear from our ‘decency police’ on G_L talking about
ideas that would stop these abuses?

Karamba, we have a very serious problem.  If Yaya and his gang were our only
problem, they would be easy to neutralize.  Our problem goes far beyond Yaya
and his cohorts.  We have people in the ‘opposition’ that do NOT have their
priorities right.  They do more damage to the opposition than Yaya can ever
do.  But we have to fight Yaya and also fight the opposition within the
opposition.  Thanks again for your contributions.
KB



>From: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: The Power of Ideas
>Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 22:25:21 EST
>
>When it is all said and done, ideas and their propagation constitute  a
>significant component of the human experience. Nowhere is the captivating
>nature of ideas felt than in a literate and free society with it's endless
>supply of people with an equally endless stream of imagination.

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