KB,
Many thanks for your kind words and brilliant -as ever - contribution in the
debate. You were spot on when you commented that:
"These are a people
that think that they are the only smart people in The Gambia. All they talk
about is changing society and changing the way people think. They never stop
to do some introspection and for at least once admit that they might be the
ones with a problem and not the rest of society. No one is asking PDOIS to
act like sheep and just follow the flow. But commonsense dictates that if
someone has been doing something for more than two decades and have very
little to show for it, may be there is a need for a change of strategy. No
one is endorsing tyranny of the majority here, but commonsense also dictates
that if more than 90% of the voting population does not think too highly of
PDOIS, may be PDOIS should try and change itself and cease engaging in the
futile struggle to change the rest of society."
 The fact that PDOIS has been reduced to a rump of irrelevant has-beens is
not in doubt as we keep seeing relatively new-comers like Hamat Bah beating
them to the number two spot electorally for the second biggest opposition
party in the Gambia. And like all things past their use, they cling on
stubbornly to their misconceptions, tortured logic, debunked delusions of
grandeur, self-importance and intellectual arrogance by hook or crook. This
is regretable -if even privately i don't give a hoot about socialists and
their derelict ideas. PDOIS could have seized the initiative, join the fray
against Jammeh and make amends for their treachery during the so-called
transition period. But no they remained above the fray and became largely the
butt-end of the new class of closet intellectual apologists for a regime that
defies everything they claim they stand for. The problem with irrelevant
has-beens like Halifa and the PDOIS is they still think they are relevant. In
their warped dreams, they might be.
Well, i'll leave James to answer their "questions" As an aside, i have three
questions for Halifa to answer:
1. When did Sidia actually get hold of that letter reprinted in Halifa's
posting?
2. When did he [Sidia] actually get to inform the Central Committee [notice
the ripples of similarities with Stalin/Bolshevik style of authority] receipt
of the letter?
3. Did they reply to the letter?
4. What meeting did Halifa attend in Ghana from February 25 to March 3, 2001?
5. Was he aware of these developments vis-a-vis receipt of the letter and the
London Briefings before he left for Ghana?
To turn this discourse into a decent one and not degenerate into the cauldron
of the regretable i suggest and indeed caution Halifa about what he throws at
me or else. If he thinks he can bully and threaten people with adjectives
i.e. invectives and vitriols that disparage people and that do not conform to
certain standards of decorum, let him be forewarned that it will be very
nasty. Very nasty, indeed. In the event, Halifa knows what i mean. Let him
take cue from your approach and display courtsey, decency, humility and
decorum in the way he addresses people here. Otherwise the terrains of
Gambia-L would be very muddy. Very muddy, indeed. In my book, respect is not
only mutual but is earned. Halifa can be as old as the biblical Methuselah,
that doesn't earn him respect if he disrespects people here. I hope he takes
the cue.
All the best,


Hamjatta - Kanteh
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