Mr Jallow
You totally miss my point, I'm afraid. The point is not whether Yaya won the
election or not. I'm not disputing that he won. Indeed, in a political
culture such as ours, where the people cannot draw a line between politics,
economics and religion, where politicians with power like Jammeh can use the
resources at their disposal - both coercive and persuasive - with reckless
abandon, it is not a great feat to win elections. I put it to you, with all
due respect, that in terms of political culture the AFPRC/APRC has added
nothing new to what existed during the Jawara era. The culture of political
ignorance is worse today, or at least as bad it was during the Jawara era.
The same ills you so eloquently attacked in your poems in the dying days of
the Jawara regime are today perpetrated even more recklessly by the Jammeh
regime. So there's nothing to point out here. Besides, as I said, this is
besides the point I'm making. What I'm saying is that it is in your
capacitry as a former public servant that you are being addressed and
querried and there is no way, sir, that you can undo this reality. You shall
be held accountable.
As to your question as to who writes history - it is neither me, nor you,
nor Gambia-L. History writes itself through our actions or inactions. When
the AFPRC/APRC story, the story of your abdication from the homeland, the
story of your utterances since you left the homeland, the story of your
historic apology to Mr Jammeh, and the story of the current debate on this
List is told, it shall be told exactly as it happened, is happening.
Pa Small.
>From: Ebou Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Not Ebou Jallow and Yaya Jammeh
>Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 13:16:15 -0800
>
>Mr. Small,
>
>Thanks for the honest inquiry. However, I believe that I also need
>to deconstruct the gist of your questions in order to establish a
>level playing field. Your "principle of public accountability" is
>essentially a political process, and that means the fundamental
>issues of judicial objectivity and impartiality are subordinate to
>passioned interests and strategem. The teleological agenda of such a
>practice is not justice but political control through opprobrium.
>Politics cannot generate neither the truth nor justice, it helps only
>in establishing the preference of one discourse over another i.e.
>everything in politics is essentially relative, their is no objective
>standard of justice or truth. Now if the Gambian people had the same
>concerns that you apparently have, then they should have voted
>President Jammeh out of office in the last elections. After all, it
>was former President Jawara who use to say that "Vox Populi, Vox
>Dei". Now the people have spoken and entrusted the state in
>President Jammeh's hands. He is the sole authority to speak on
>behalf of the Gambians, and not me or the Gambia-L. I am not a
>public servant but a private individual like you living humbly
>overseas.
>
>Finally, I want to ask you Mr. Small who shall write the "history"-
>is it you, me or G-L? History, at least as the accretion of
>evolutionary facts, is the synthesis of our individual narratives and
>and the collective discourse as a people. The last time I check
>lately, history has been so far on President Jammeh's side. We can
>either choose to collaborate and ignore our differences for the sake
>of the Gambia, or tear each other apart like little children
>wrestling for toys. The choice is ours to make and write that
>history.
>
>Thank you Sir.
>
>=====
>Ebou Jallow
>Georgetown University
>Washington, DC
>
>__________________________________________________
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>
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