Halifa: In your commentary, you've mentioned that I
was quite ambiguous to issues relating to REVOLUTION.
First and foremost, I intentionally refrained from
addressing issues pertaining to revolution in The
Gambia simply because, ...there was NONE!
Revolution I believe, is more complex than a mere
political ideology. A revolution simply means a
complete or drastic change of any kind. There are many
types of revolutions, ranging from a revolution in
fashions to a revolution in politics. Some involve a
change in habits, attitudes or beliefs, others involve
change in the way people make a living or a change in
the circumstance of life as a whole. Some of these
changes are made by mental exertion alone, others
involve war, devastation and killing.
Most people today when they hear the word revolution,
think of political revolution and conjure up visions
of
terror, bloodshed and change brought about by a few
with the use of force. Revolution, therefore,
means threat, fear and something inherently evil to
most people. Only a few use revolution to symbolize
hope, promise and a better life for all.
In short, the concept of revolution indicates that
complete and drastic change never comes easily. Yet
change is the essence of progress. Change is not only
unavoidable; change is necessary for survival; change
makes life worth living. If revolution implies
complete and drastic change, then revolutionaries are
people who try to bring about such changes.
Therefore, though I may qualify you as a
revolutionary, I have sound resentments about your
political diplomacy. In your view, a revolution is
only made possible if driven by power. Now, what
happens if such power is power to corrupt and not
power to build, power to subdue and not power to
advance, power to dwindle and not power to kindle,
power to suppress and not power to progress? If the
former holds, then we'll probably be reliving the
"Dark Ages". Enough said.
Unless we can eradicate amongst us, tribalism, racism,
and nepotism that's hampering our progress, and learn
to communicate, trust, and depend on one another, it
won't be long my friend, before the headlines read;
"Cry Banjul". I have more comments to make in regard
to your article, and will do so impromptu.
Regards!
Essa Thomas
--- foroyaa <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Matarr Sajaw,
>
> It was my desire to respond to your memorandum of 8
> February 2000. However,
> your subsequent intervention has conveyed the need
> to ignore some of the
> points. I still believe it is pertinent to address
> two issues, that of
> revolution and democracy. Essa Thomas did allude to
> the question of
> revolution.
>
> You will agree with me that revolution is about
> power. Who controls power,
> how it is exercised and in whose interest. This is
> what determines whether
> any change can be considered a revolution or not.
>
> Democracy is also about power exercised by the
> people. How much power do the
> people exercise in order to safeguard their general
> interest determines the
> degree of democracy in a country.
>
> What we have always advocated is for the exercise of
> power by the people
> from below. This is inconceivable without a
> conscious mass movement. A
> people must be fully conscious of their interest and
> sufficiently organised
> in order to have power to be architects of their own
> destiny.
>
> Hence, when one considers states like ours, one sees
> two poles of power -
> the military and the mass movement. Where the mass
> movement is not
> organised and conscious the power of the armed
> forces must hold sway. Where
> the people are conscious and organised, the armed
> forces must work according
> to their interest instead of serving the interest of
> those who are against
> the welfare of the people.
>
> When the coup occurred, the coup makers had control
> of the military and the
> mass movement. Euphoria was the order of the day.
> Both centres of power were
> on one side. In order not to be dragged in this
> euphoria, we maintained our
> independence.
>
> Even though announcement was made that political
> parties were banned, PDOIS
> continued to write letters. The letter of 24 July
> 19994 is a clear example.
> The objective of the letter should now be clear to
> you. It was a strategic
> instrument which had the fundamental aim of
> establishing a clear line of
> demarcation between PDOIS' political principles,
> strategies and tactics and
> those of the people who had taken over power. We
> called for the maintenance
> of political parties, observation of fundamental
> rights, a national dialogue
> to determine a transition framework for emergence of
> a democratic and
> constitutional order.
>
> It was clear to us that those who had taken over
> power could either hand
> over power like Tumane Toure or show interest in
> staying in. These were the
> only two options.
>
> Hence, we had address these two options
> strategically by calling on the coup
> makers not to have any hunger for power and conceive
> their mandate to be
> provisional or consider participating in elections
> if they had interest in
> power.
>
> Since the AFPRC came to power through the use of
> arms the only way to
> restore democracy was either to overthrow them by
> the bullet or draw them to
> the ballot box. Since the Gambian people had never
> been given the
> opportunity to become an organised and conscious
> force, no potential existed
> immediately after the coup for them to take over
> power from the military.
> Needless to say, any external military intervention
> would have led to the
> total disintegration of the country into warring
> factions.
>
> Hence, the option that we saw was to work for the
> restoration of democratic
> constitutional order. This was our strategic
> objective during the coup
> period. We created a platform around the strategic
> objective. This is why we
> could defy Decree No. 4 and relied on our appearance
> in court to promote the
> agenda of restoring democratic constitutional rule.
>
> This idea of a political transition, which we
> advocated for in our letter of
> 24 July 1994, became the agenda as the international
> community demanded for
> a transition programme.
>
> On the other hand, Jawara started to argue that just
> like Haiti he had a
> right to come back to power through armed
> intervention. We decided to take a
> firm stand against any form of armed intervention.
>
> In this regard, we constituted a third force during
> the coup, which was
> opposed to an armed intervention, as well as the
> continued stay in office by
> the coup makers without a transition programme
> established by the Gambian
> people.
>
> Ultimately, the coup makers called for a four year
> transition programme. One
> could see that Rawlings has stayed in power for
> almost 20 years because of a
> long transition programme despite a term limit of
> two terms after Ghana went
> to elections. Many Gambians people, however, were
> opposed to the four year
> transition programme, but had no instrument to
> express their opposition. We,
> therefore, created an instrument.
>
> In order to ensure the people's participation in
> determining the people's
> transition programme, we established a Democratic
> Front in October 1994.
> Petitions were written and many youths with
> conscience stormed our office to
> distribute the petitions and collect signatures. The
> Democratic Front was an
> instrument for promoting transition to democratic
> constitutional rule. We
> knew that a mass movement for democratic
> constitutional rule could be
> created through that instrument if those in power
> stood against it. It was a
> cause worth suffering for if that was the cost.
> After an arrest, a meeting
> took place meeting the then Minister of the Interior
> and my very self on the
> issue of the arrest and detention of the young man
> with the declarations and
> petitions I issued. The launching of the Democratic
> Front is in video tape
> and we can send Mr Trawalley's address to anyone who
> may wish to purchase
> the video tape from his company.
>
> It became very clear to the regime that it had to
> enter into some form of
> national dialogue or will find it extremely
> difficult to maintain any form
> of euphoria around the coup. It is, therefore, not
> an accident for the
> regime to take an independent move to establish a
> National consultative
> Committee to work a people's transitional agenda. Of
> course, the national
> conference we called for included representatives of
> political parties,
> trade unions, traditional elders and religious
> leaders. The one established
> by the regime did not take cognisance of political
> parties.
>
> Notwithstanding, the Gambian people accepted the
> membership as some what
> independent since it comprised members from the Bar
> Association, trade
> unions, press union, the medical and dental
> association, women organisations
> and other civic leaders. There was no qualm about
> the members.
>
> Once the NCC established the two year term period,
> we adopted another
> strategic platform. We moved away from the
> Democratic Front and made it our
> duty to see to it that the transition programme
> would lead us to the
> restoration of freedom of political expression and
> political
=== message truncated ===
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
