Jabou,
Since you seemed to be so consumed by your anti- PPP rhetorical pieties, you
seem to imagine that anyone who begs to differ with you and the PDOIS must be
a PPP sympathiser. Your submission that i'm a UDP/PPP supporter on this basis
is, of course, risible. Those who know me very well will be stupendously
surprised by any such suggestion that i'm a PPP/UDP stalwart. Whilst it
remains the case that i have convictions that are not necessarily true of not
only the PPP, but the rest of the political parties in the Gambia, i ONLY
endorse their belief that Jammeh is wrong for the Gambia and must go in
October. This the reason why i have crafted what i call the principle of a
cessation of ideological quarrels and let pragmatic compromise take its
course as we forge ahead in our bid to restore sanity back in the Gambia.
Which is to say that there is some sort of respite going on here as we deal
with the basic stuff of containing and eliminating the dictatorship; and not
necessarily a carte blanche endorsement of the past. I, like many, have my
quarrels with the past: but if polemicising this only goes to add allure to
the poses of the dictatorship, then i'm better off leaving these quarrels on
the respite agenda. That is the point you failed to grasp. There are things
about our recent past that are deplorable as there are things that were
decent and sane. I say lets look forward and not reduce everything to a
post-mortem of the deplorable things of the past. As liberals, we believe in
change as a mode of progress wherein we look beyond the triteness of
fanatical obsession with individuals and episodes and look forward with an
open-mind on the possibilities the future may have in store for us. For me
the past is neither to be glorified nor mindlessly deplored. Rather, the past
must be astringently appraised with the intention of drawing the appropriate
lessons in order to forge ahead progressively. For Gambians not to become
prisoners of their recent past, we must not let ourselves be consumed by this
deplorable pastime of anti- PPP rhetorical pieties. This is not only an
exercise in futility but also an exercise that will only serve the interests
of the dictatorship.
On the current Opposition Alliance, you quizzed and commented:
"What is the reason these so called "balloons between people of similar
objectives" were not floated to the other parties like PDOIS etc? The answer
I got on that one was that they thought that PDOIS would not be receptive to
them, so this was based on a perception by supposedly well meaning ad neutral
elements who were suposedly organizing this meeting for one and all."
Perhaps, since you are a PDOIS stalwart, you should pose this question to
Halifa: were there any independent attempts to narrow down the differences
between the different political parties? I, for one, would be very interested
in his answer to that question. It goes without saying that you are amongst
the many who have now fallen prey to the PDOIS propaganda that no agenda has
been tabled before the different political parties and the current Alliance
is bereft of an agenda. If only PDOIS were more honest! For both historical
and clarification purposes, i will give a brief insider history of an honest,
independent and fair-minded attempt at brokering a common political platform
for the different political parties to fight Jammeh in October 2001.
Now, shortly after the London Briefing Sessions, the idea of an Opposition
coalition to fight Jammeh in October was hot on the agenda of the MRDGUK.
Subsequently, it was agreed that an ad hoc committee be set up to work on a
comprehensive political framework that can flesh out the modalities of a
coalition of the Opposition to fight Jammeh in October. This ad hoc comprised
of three individuals: Dr Faal, James and my humble self. After various
brainstormings, dissents, demurrers, phone conferences, meetings at James's
place, consultations with interested Gambians and the rest of the works, we
finally produced two principal documents:
1. Framework for Tactical Political Alliance of Gambian Opposition Parties:
Manifesto Policies (Good Governance Charter)
2. Framework for Strategic Political Alliance of Gambian Political and Civil
Society Organisations
The introduction of the Tactical Political Alliance reads:
"The Framework proposes that the Alliance contest the election on, among
other things, a Good Governance Charter - a portfolio of ten core policies -
which shall facilitate the Structural Reform of the Gambian polity, and the
entrenchment of good governance."
Whilst the introduction of the Strategic Political Alliance reads:
"The central goal of the Strategic Political Alliance (SPA) is to contribute
to the efforts of creating long-term (i.e. strategic) solutions to the
political problems of the Gambia. This shall be pursued by bringing together
political, representative and civil society organisations and individuals to
work on practical and sustainable means of institutionalising human rights,
democracy and good governance, and remedying the different types of political
problems and challenges."
If my memory serves me right, James tells me you were amongst the few on this
List who were consulted on these document and early preview copies of the
said documents were sent to you privately. And i believe that George Sarr's
website still retains copies of the said documents and probably still
viewable. When we got permission from the Movement's executive to go ahead
with our proposals, we forwarded the documents to all Gambian political
opposition groups bar, of course, the PDP. That is to say that from the NRP
right to the Decree 89 politicians, all opposition groupings received these
documents. Needless to say that those who read the documents in their
entirety had no doubts that they were the ideal to serve as a basis for a
political alliance. And so how did the respective political political parties
respond to the said documents? Bar Dibba - whose position i still haven't got
around to knowing fully - the rest from the PPP right to the NRP enthused to
the fundamental propositions entailed in the documents. In a conversation
with me when he was in London, the UDP leader, Mr Darbo, told me that he
told James that what we had proposed in our documents was exactly what they
had in mind and are ready to incorporate our proposals in the scheme of
things that make up their programme of political action. The response of the
PDOIS was one of typical vacillation and common discourtsey.
As it happened, it was James who personally liaised with the PDOIS. After
making sure that the PDOIS received the said the documents, he made personal
follow-up phone calls to gauge the party's stance. The only response that we
received from PDOIS was a mail from Halifa telling us that the said documents
were indeed received and the PDOIS' Central Committee will look into the
proposals and get back to us by the 19th of July. To this very moment, and
after several enquiries, PDOIS doesn't have the common courtsey to respond to
our proposals. There is both a rich irony and moral conceit here. Heretofore,
whereas many are ignorant about our efforts, PDOIS is busy dishonestly
misinforming and bamboozling political constituents and players alike that no
agenda is on the works on the table of the current Alliance; and they [the
PDOIS] are the clean ones with a political agenda. This, of course, is
nonsense. The current Alliance buys into the agenda we have designed and will
incorporate it in their plans with the ultimate aim of over-hauling the body
politic along the lines of our proposals. The moral conceit being that PDOIS
is now busy pinching from our proposals and deceitfully selling them as their
original proposals without any such acknowledgement that they are in receipt
of documents that is a forerunner to what they are now piously proseltising
to Gambians. In the universities, such wilful acts of deceit are called
plagiarism. Let the PDOIS have the basic decency and acknowledge the fact
that there is a comprehensive action plan to remedy the Gambia's ailing
polity.
Which takes me to question of PDOIS' objection to the manner in which the
YMCA political talks ensued was a reason why they never bothered to turn up
at the said talks. Where to begin? Assan Musa Camara's informal approach and
the hastiness involved in the convening of the meeting? Let's start with the
basics that seemed to escape our focus. It is an incontrovertible fact that
when it comes to Jammeh, PDOIS is afflicted with a moral burden i termed as a
deep seated ambivalence. Reason being chiefly that PDOIS has left no stones
unturned to prove the point that the UDP is a mere Trojan horse serving as a
conduit to fight the PPP cause. Whilst Jammeh is busy reducing our country to
a tragic wreckage, they are filling column inches of their organ, FOROYAA,
with specualtions about factional bickerings within the UDP; as NCP and PPP
forces that had coalesced to form the UDP slug it out for the soul of the
party. Long before the abrogation of Decree 89, FOROYAA editorialists were
whiling their spaces, time and resources on what the future of the UDP will
be after the abrogation of Decree 89. One such speculation was that factions
were beginning to emerge pitting Waa Juawara against Darbo.
Do you honestly believe that a party that engages in such unproductive
exercises of undermining the potent of a would-be political partner is really
on the lookout for a political compromise? Do you honestly believe matters
were helped when the abrogation of Decree 89 unleashed the very political
forces that PDOIS feels dogmatically antithetical to? The incontrovertible
and fundamental moral truth will remain this: PDOIS was always going to find
an excuse to file demurrers against any attempt to coalesce opposition
efforts to combat Jammeh in October. Therewith, PDOIS was never going to be
part of this Alliance or any other that has the heavy presence of the PPP.
This is the incontrovertible fact that cannot be spun or altered. PDOIS ought
to be honest about this and state it as it explicitly as possible. The PDOIS
owes the Gambian peoples that.
As per the manner in which the YMCA materialised, as a democrat, i would have
loved it to be different in the sense that it would have been more
democratically ponderous and enlightening. But the idea that this is the main
reason why the PDOIS didn't attend the said talks, is a perverse reading of
the situation. Even if the PDOIS were informed formally with an official
letter to this effect, we will still be recipients of their pettiness and
querulousness. For these peoples, everything entails intellectual
grandstanding; and even expedient projects have got to be treated as if we
are about to elect the next Fellow of All Souls or the president of Harvard
University. Which is not to say i approve of everything that chanced at the
YMCA; rather, PDOIS craftily exploited the procedural discrepancies
associated with the YMCA talks.
The truth about PDOIS vis-a-vis the current political configuration is its
lamentable and deep seated ambivalence has finally riddled the party with
contradictions and to clear that clutter, it has resorted to myths and
mythologising its position and the Alliance's. As the French anthropologist,
Claude Levi-Strauss rightly commented, the purpose of such myths is to
provide a logical model of overcoming contradictions. PDOIS can bamboozle the
simple-minded with such myths but it shall ultimately fail. The current
struggle is not about Jawara. For all his faults, Jawara was a decent man
whom we ought not to mythologise; rather, we ought to objectively put his era
in context and draw the appropriate lessons in order for Gambians to move
forward. This is the fundamental moral point anti- PPP clerics keep missing.
The current struggle is about decapitating the ugly head of the dictatorship
of Jammeh and no amount mythological inventions can subvert that fundamental
moral truth.
All the best,
Hamjatta Kanteh
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