Was July 22nd a Revolution?

The Independent (Banjul)
OPINION
July 26, 2004
Posted to the web July 26, 2004

By Baba Galleh Jallow
Banjul

Ten years ago this month, a group of soldiers of the Gambia National Army
overthrew the thirty-year old regime of Sir Dawda Jawara and set up the
Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC).

Two years later, the members of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council
decided to retire from the army and turn the Council into a political
party: The Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC).
The almost identical abbreviations of AFPRC and APRC raised some eyebrows
and started crystallizing doubts as to whether anything had changed -
whether in fact there had been a transition from a military to a civilian
regime.

More gloomily, it tended to crystallize fears that what was loudly hailed
as a revolution carried out by self-proclaimed "soldiers with a difference"
was not just another African military appropriation of civilian functions
in governance.

It was not long before our "soldiers with a difference" cured us of any
illusions that they were any different from other African soldiers in
power. What we had in the first two years after the coup was the typical
military regime - complete with zooming jeeps full of gun-totting soldiers
in dark glasses, total disregard for human rights and the rule of law,
frequent outbursts of alleged coup attempts, a growing number of still-
birthed investigations into criminal acts such as the gruesome murder of
AFPRC Finance minister Ousman Koro Ceesay and the increasing disempowerment
of the civilian population in tandem with the increasing empowerment of the
military. The "transformation" of the AFPRC into the APRC did not change a
thing as far as the over-riding dominance of the rulers over the ruled was
concerned; if anything, it worsened; which is why in spite of all the
fashionable protestations of patriotism and the dubbing of the July 22nd,
1994 coup as a revolution, we find it contingent to ask whether in fact it
was a revolution.

We now live in a world that no longer allows for blanket condemnations and
the shooting around of unsubstantiated allegations and denials. We live in
a world in which it is absolutely imperative that allegations and denials,
like claims and protestations, are backed up with empirically verifiable
evidence. Our position here is that the July 22nd coup WAS ABSOLUTELY NOT a
revolution and we will proceed to defend our theses - why we KNOW that the
coup of July 22 1994 does not qualify for the lofty title of a revolution.

Literally speaking, revolution means POSITIVE change. Whether it's a
scientific revolution involving the dismantling of established scientific
paradigms or whether it's a revolution of a political nature involving the
dismantling of established political institutions, the essential mark of a
revolution is FUNDAMENTAL and POSITIVE change; change for the better. The
conflict which occurs at the time of a political revolution is a mortal
conflict, which does not necessarily mean the loss of human lives, but
which certainly means the death or total replacement of one political
culture (presumably a backward, parochial one) by another political culture
(which has to be radically different, participant and progressive). The
absence of this radical shift in political paradigms is a sure sign of a
failed revolution, if in fact such a political change can be legitimately
be called a revolution.

Can we honestly say that there has been a radical change of political
culture - political habits, attitudes, behaviors, rules, understandings -
since July 22nd 1994? Can we honestly say that voting patterns have changed
since 1994? Can we say that the sick Mansa mentality (the divine right of
kings) that characterized the days of Sir Dawda Jawara has been replaced by
better perceptions of government and governance since 1994?

Has the Gambia's political "mind" changed since 1994? The answer to all
these questions is clearly, NO. If anything has changed in terms of
political culture, it has changed for the worse: A fairly tolerant and
cultured dispensation has been replaced by a dispensation that thrives on
naked intimidation, coercion, the bullying of opponents and critics,
opposition to political enlightenment and change, and a troubling politics
of total exclusion. If July 22nd brought any change to The Gambia, it is
merely a change in the faces of the people who run this country. Such
change is not adequate to bestow the honor of revolution on the July 22nd
coup, whatever Mr. Jammeh and his train of denial choose to believe.
Gambian history of the late 20th century will never archive July 22nd 1994
as a revolution. It will be called what is was, and remains: a military
coup that not only failed to keep its promises to the Gambian people, but
that also continued to thrive for at least a decade, on the emasculation
and subjugation of the Gambian people.

Indeed, July 22nd is further disqualified from meriting the title of
revolution by many other factors, one of which is its dismal failure to
open up the Gambian body politic - its dismal failure to bring freedom and
the opportunity so Gambians can develop their potentials to the fullest.
Instead, it has brought a level of bondage and subjugation that was
unthinkable ten years ago. Political change cannot be called a revolution
if it does not create the conditions for the people to develop their
potentials to the fullest and aspire to the very best that their society
has to offer.

For instance, the Bolshevik revolution which overthrew the Russian Czar in
1917 was conceived as a revolution, but it ultimately failed because while
it simply replaced one parochial, intolerant and dictatorial political
dispensation with another. While it claimed to be a Communist revolution,
it never went beyond the stage of the overthrow of the bourgeois classes by
the proletariat, to use Marx's language. The final stage of the Communist
revolution as envisaged and espoused by Marx and Engels in the Communist
Manifesto never materialized: as usual, human greed and covetousness made
it impossible for the leaders of the Russian revolution to create the free
and equal society which was supposed to be the essence of communism. The
ideal, according to Marx, was that the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
working classes, was simply a transformatory stage in the revolution and
would lead ultimately to what has been dubbed a utopia, an unattainable
ideal. Certainly ,some of Marx's theories were hardly flawless. But part of
Marx's so-called utopia was, to say the least, feasible. It is that part of
the utopia that the American Revolution created for Americans. It is that
condition that all governments revolutionary or not - must create for their
citizens. Part of Marx's dream was of a society in which the state is "an
association, in which the free development of each is the condition of the
free development of all." Our point here is not to say that a revolution
must be Marxist in order to succeed, but that a revolution must create the
conditions for the free development of each and every member of the society
to merit the name of a revolution. Mere change of government and leaders
fall far short of being a revolution.

A revolution can only be a revolution if it was conceived and executed as a
revolution. Mr. Jammeh and his colleagues in the military before July 1994
needed not only to plan a revolution, but also to have been fully
conversant with the concept of revolution itself and to know all the
dynamics of a revolution. They needed to be adequately conversant with
revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. In other words, they
needed to be much better read than they were then: As a bunch of high
school graduates, there was no way that Mr. Jammeh and his colleagues could
have understood the profound implications of the concept of revolution. It
is one thing to call a military coup a revolution to stroke one's ego; it
is quite another thing to have anyone take you seriously; which, in the
final analysis, is what matters.

Make believes do not make revolutions.

Finally, some of the very basic things Mr. Jammeh could have done to at
least partly qualify for the honor of being called a reformer are these:

1.Mr. Jammeh claimed to have seized power in order to prevent anyone from
clinging indefinitely on to power, as Sir Dawda did. Ten years later, he
still has not limited the number of times he could seek re-election. He has
become more power hungry than the president he replaced on July 22, 1994.

Loosen the government's control over national radio and television.

These media belong to the people, not Mr. Jammeh. The resources used to run
these media are either taxpayers' money, or money borrowed in the name of
the Gambian people to be repaid by the Gambian people. So why should Mr.
Jammeh monopolize these media to the exclusion of all other political
leaders in the country?

3.Restore the independence of the Judiciary and respect for the rule of law
that he has so ruthlessly ravaged. Sacking nine Attorneys General and
scores of other ministers WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD OF EXPLANATION within a ten-
year period is hardly worthy of celebration.

We need not go any further: Long live the forces of truth, justice, freedom
and equality.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Copyright © 2004 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by
AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~