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The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:25:23 -0400
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     Haruna, what sentiments do you share with Bamba Mass about what I 
wrote? Do you also disagree that it is PDOIS that drives the opposition 
political agenda?

     Well, there is a basis for my acknowledgment that it is PDOIS that 
is driving the opposition political agenda. What is the opposition 
political agenda anyway?

     There is an agenda for the individual opposition political parties, 
and there is an agenda for all the opposition political parties that 
they wish to share in common.

      The agenda for all the political parties is that they wish to form 
a coalition, a united front, against the ruling government to bring 
about a change of leadership and government. This agenda first started 
when the opposition political parties decided to come together to form 
NADD.

      PDOIS  has been instrumental in the development of the concept, 
objective and purpose of this agenda, to the extend that some people 
surmise that the NADD agenda was a PDOIS agenda. This is the first 
point to note.

      After the collapse of NADD, for reasons too familiar with most of 
us, and having realized that it is almost impossible for the opposition 
political parties to singularly make an impact against the incumbent 
government, the idea of an opposition political agenda resurfaced.

      And it is the same idea, getting all the opposition political 
parties together to form a coalition, a united front, against the 
ruling government to bring about a change of leadership and government.

       But this time around a new concept was introduced. A party-led 
coalition. This concept was not developed or fully explained; its 
objective and purpose was not thoroughly harnessed, and as a 
consequence lost its traction. Nobody knows what are the objectives of 
this agenda, and therefore, nobody takes it very seriously.

        Then comes Agenda 2011. Characteristic of PDOIS, the concept was 
fully developed, it has an objective and a purpose.

         And it is the only opposition political agenda on the table at 
the present. So who is driving the opposition political agenda?

         Rene

-----Original Message-----
From: Haruna Darbo <[log in to unmask]>
To: GAMBIA-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Fri, Aug 12, 2011 7:21 pm
Subject: Re: [G_L] [>-<] Mathew K on Coalition and the Point Newspaper

Uncle Mass, I share your sentiments on Rene the no.1 PDOISard. I just 
want to caution you that he's your brother not sister. I made the same 
mistake when I was first introduced to Badjan. I must admit the name 
Rene is not usually for males in Gambia. Perhaps he could start 
spelling his name right.

Haruna. Thanx Mass for sharing. I haven't even read all of what Badjan 
wrote in that note but I know I'm safe with your reaction knowing the 
history of Badjan, the diehard PDOISard. He could see a redhot iron and 
grab it to find out if its really hot.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bamba sering Manka Mass &lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;
To: GAMBIA-L &lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;
Sent: Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:54 pm
Subject: Re: [G_L] [&gt;-&lt;] Mathew K on Coalition and the Point 
Newspaper

It looks like my dear bajan is day dreaming when she suggests that 
PDOIS drives the opposition political agenda. That is what most of you 
think and thats why most of you think you can take us all for a ride? 
Well madam you are in for the surprise of your life if you and your 
prophets think Gambians still live in the 18th century.
Just continue day dreaming I only pray you don't knock anything that  
might hurt you for despite political differences you still a Gambian 
and my sister. I must tell you with your comming out for the first time 
exposing your thoughts out to all readership, is good but maybe others 
didn't know as for Us in the UDP we knew already that PDOIS thinks they 
drives the opposition agandas and we laugh at those thoughts. Because 
if that is the general feeling, then how comes you cannot drive 
politics in the Gambia. You know thats a detard illussion of the 16th 
centuries come up and mature up please those days of cat and mouse are 
gone Gambians are far mature than those childish thoughts of yours.
Gambia has a bigger problem that affects us all and together we can 
tackle it. Stop your those thoughts at the doors of your party 
headquaters please and confront the Gambia problem thats what you set 
your party up for not playing cat and mouse with the lives of Gambians.
As for whether UDP would stay well as you are not a member of the 
party, you cannot know our policies and there so ignorant you would be 
about us. But not to waiste time, only time will tell you if we are 
here to stay.
Thanks and stay dreaming.
 


 
king


 
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:43:25 -0400
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [&gt;-&lt;] Mathew K on Coalition and the Point Newspaper
To: [log in to unmask]


    It looks like Mathews take on PDOIS  is not govern by any sense of 
rational inquiry, but by a desire to malign and castigate as is always 
the case when he writes about PDOIS. 

    It also looks like Mathew does not have a through grasp of the 
dynamics that surrounds the political reality in Gambia, if so, he 
would not have been making statements that runs contrary to what is 
actually happening on the ground. 


   When opposition to a political dispensation is not characterized by 
a sense of principle and purpose; when such opposition is merely the 
desire to change the leadership of the country, because it has fallen 
into the wrong hands (into the hands of the JOLA minority), the 
political narrative becomes an intensive campaign of vilification, 
demagoguery against the status quo, and criticisms just about anything 
and anyone who stands in the way of bringing down such a leadership. 


    PDOIS bears the brunt of these criticisms because of its principle 
stand on issues of governance; and the mission and vision it has 
articulated so profusely that does not favor the "lets get rid of them 
by any means possible" or "lets get rid of them now, then decide the 
fate of the country later,"  that is being propagated by our political 
pundits and diaspora intellectuals who will rationalize any argument as 
a justification for their position. 


    Because Mathew is so critical about anything PDOIS, he will jump at 
every opportunity to make scathing statements about PDOIS or its 
leadership, even if such statements are not grounded on facts or 
reality.


    For how else can Mathew infer that the fate of PDOIS is 
inextricably tied to the success or failure of the United Democratic 
Party. This is the most lamentable statement I have ever read as a 
political commentary in Gambian politics. It is neither grounded on 
fact or reality. The fate of PDOIS has never been tied to the success 
or failure of the UDP, and never will. 


   The simple reason for this is that, the vision, mission, principles 
and policies that guide the existence and survival of PDOIS as a 
political party for more than three decades, just cannot be equated 
with the UDP that has a different vision and mission. And If Mathew 
tends to make this summation based on electoral gains, let him be 
reminded that it took almost a century for the ANC to succeed in South 
Africa. 


    And no matter how big a political party or its following, without a 
strong foundation it will come tumbling down like Humpty dumpty. What 
happens to the P.P.P.?  Whats happens to the N.C.P? They were the 
largest and biggest political party and opposition political party in 
the country prior to 1994.  


    Who drives the opposition political agenda? Mathew may not agree, 
but certainly it is PDOIS. They are the ones who are making the public 
statements; writing the political blueprints and objective standpoints 
that seek to guide the evolution of a process, that will help 
eventually to bring about a change of government. What irks people like 
Mathew is that they don't want a process; they want PDOIS  to fall 
behind the UDP and help to hand over the government to them. This is 
not going to happen. All the name calling is not going to do the trick. 
                                   

      "In my singular opinion, PDOIS owes it highest loyalty to itself, 
and its storybook in The Gambia’s political
landscape has been solely a marketing strategy whose aim is to 
articulate by word and actions, the brilliance of the ideal; its own
ideal, with the hope of attaining political power by whatever means 
through a highly suspect and superficial political brinkmanship.
PDOIS’s trite approach to the formation of a coalition is predicated on 
its nebulous, if not Ad Nauseum subliminal references to the leadership
of the United Democratic Party. But the UDP does not answer to PDOIS’s 
agenda nor is it obliged to fulfill what the PDOIS leadership seems to
characterize as the precondition to a coalition formation. For a 
coalition to come into fruition, PDOIS must subordinate its authority
to UDP without attempting to dictate the agenda, for only then will its 
hope for an eventual elevation to national and international prominence
ever come close to becoming reality"

   Arguably the above statement is devoid of intellectual inquiry, that 
has the basis to argue any of the points that enumerated.









 From: suntou toura &lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;To: The Gambia and 
related-issues mailing list
&lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;; gambiapost 
&lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;
Sent: Thu, Aug 11, 2011 4:57 am
Subject: [&gt;-&lt;] Mathew K on Coalition and the Point Newspaper

www,senegambianews.com
Excellently written and well argued. The UDP have to up the anti, the
base is there and the youth connection, the brave Gambian women wing is
prime and ready. Let us give peace a chance by politically standing our
grounds. Let the Leadership continue to appreciate the urgency of NOW.
We can do it.
Thanks MKJ.
Suntou
Mathew backs UDP-led coalition, lambasts PDOIS leadership, The Point
newspaper
Published 08/10/2011 - 9:27 p.m. GMT

Rate This Article:0






Credit - ousainou
Ousainou Darboe, UDP leader speaking at a political rally
Slide Show


Of phantom heroes and degenerate journalists
 
By Mathew K Jallow

In today’s Gambia, the Orwellian dystopia is no longer that vision of
impending doom. It is real and it is here; surreal and mind-numbing,
not just because we let it to fester, but also because a whole nation
has allowed its dignity and pride to be subservient to Yahya Jammeh’s
unforgiving Machiavellian small-mindedness. Any effort at qualifying
The Gambia’s level of despondence under Yahya Jammeh will be an
understatement.
But now, as another election season dawns on us and the political echo
chambers churn out a false sense of outrage and fake fury, the
political debate is being framed for failure, and no one is impressed.
It is painfully obvious that the Peoples Democratic Organization for
Independence and Socialism has still not learnt from simple arithmetic
that under Yahya Jammeh’s monarchy, its fate is inextricably tied to
the success or failure of the United Democratic Party; and not the
other way around. The past three election cycles saw an alliance of
political parties marketed as the panacea for the opposition’s woes;
the terminal solution, if you will, that will write the last chapter of
Yahya Jammeh’s inglorious reign and his Armed Forces Provisional Ruling
Council party’s post-mortem and epitaph. But I beg to differ; even
though I have oscillated from a coalition advocate, to my impersonal
but scurrilous criticisms of UDP’s leader Ousainou Darboe’s failure to
recognize, not only the existential threat UDP poses to the reign of
Yahya Jammeh’s military regime, but also to his party’s seeming
inability to leverage the obvious threat of UDP’s power and prestige to
Yahya Jammeh menace, in order to turn that political advantage into
electoral success.


The absence of coalition notwithstanding, Ousainou Darboe’s UDP has the
potential to grow into a formidable political war machine that can
overcome any barrier created by Yahya Jammeh’s infinite state power and
resources. But even this close to the elections, the UDP’s ground-game
appears to lack the sense of urgency Gambians attach to ending the
political tyranny and economic nightmare that have turned our country
into an Orwellian oasis in the middle of our part of Africa.
Consequently, this make or break election season has yet to assume any
broad significance to the general Gambian electorate, not necessarily
out of political apathy, but in my view, out of the opposition’s faulty
messaging and irrelevant message. This reality was encapsulated in two
recent editorials primed on the pages of both The Point and Foroyaa
newspapers. Once again, impelled by dogma and fixated on scoring cheap
political points, PDOIS set the blogosphere ablaze with its moral
grandiosity and delusional political brinkmanship; all to no effect.
But what drives PDOIS’s veneer of messianic sanctimony and its sense of
its mythical aura, also drives its inflated sense of its political
statute and clouds its sense of objective judgment.
By its imperial pontification, PDOIS has seized the opportunity to
gleefully; if not maliciously frame the debate entirely around painting
the UDP leadership as godless political straightjackets. But the
reverse is the reality. My point is this, PDOIS’s demagoguery and
holier-than-thou approach to the formation of a coalition has a
disingenuous quality to it that is textbook Darwinian. But the sooner
PDOIS recognizes that in spite of the make-believe image it tries to
project of itself for public consumption, it is UDP that drives the
opposition agenda; not PDOIS. In my singular opinion, PDOIS owes it
highest loyalty to itself, and its storybook in The Gambia’s political
landscape has been solely a marketing strategy whose aim is to
articulate by word and actions, the brilliance of the ideal; its own
ideal, with the hope of attaining political power by whatever means
through a highly suspect and superficial political brinkmanship.
PDOIS’s trite approach to the formation of a coalition is predicated on
its nebulous, if not Ad Nauseum subliminal references to the leadership
of the United Democratic Party. But the UDP does not answer to PDOIS’s
agenda nor is it obliged to fulfill what the PDOIS leadership seems to
characterize as the precondition to a coalition formation. For a
coalition to come into fruition, PDOIS must subordinate its authority
to UDP without attempting to dictate the agenda, for only then will its
hope for an eventual elevation to national and international prominence
ever come close to becoming reality.


In the same vein, The Point newspaper’s attempt at sanctifying Yahya
Jammeh’s image and that of his AFPRC party, whether done deliberately
or inadvertently, underscores the paper’s lost glory and its lack of
purpose and direction.
In its editorial, the paper admonished politicians to hone in on issues
relating to agriculture, education and health, but failed to make any
reference to the corruption and gross human rights violations that
include murders and extrajudicial killings, which are uppermost in the
minds of Gambians. The Point newspaper’s effort at defining the
political talking points for the opposition is not only mischievous but
appears to be self-serving, and goes beyond mere self-censorship to
currying favors with the regime.
The Point newspaper’s visionary, the late Deida
--
www.suntoumana.blogspot.com





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