Haruna:
I guess a formal welcome to GAMBIA-L is in order.
You do have a pretty unique conversational style, and I must admit your pieces have the capacity to both amuse and educate. And so I'm glad to be reading you on GAMBIA-L.
Clearly, your complaints about PDOIS are not practically addressable, and having witnessed prior performances of yours on the matter, it appears that your views are set in stone. Under the circumstances, it is probably prudent to decline the invitation to convince you about PDOIS.
I am happy to have persuaded Malanding despite your belated attempt to muddy the waters. And neither Suntou, nor myself, considers PDOIS as a communist outfit. There appears to be some religious zealotry in Suntou if his recent postings on Ahmadiyya's are anything to go by. In light of the monumental task facing us as a nation, what with the illegal arrests, detentions, torture, and unexplained disappearances and deaths, I am not the least concerned about which religion a fellow Gambian affiliates with. I am happy to have a nonbeliever for President if the person is committed to the rule of law.
I should content myself by informing you that PDOIS is not only the oldest functional party in Gambia, but also the only party whose leadership are invited to share their views about politics with fellow citizens. In a two-way free and fair electoral contest under a governance system grounded in the rule of law, PDOIS of today has the ability to defeat the APRC nationally. The dominance of the PPP, and now the APRC, has more to do with their corrupt governance and lawless elections than acceptance by the people, and with your acumen, I thought appreciating this would be obvious.
As you have clearly made up your mind, I do not think you are realistically open to persuasion about PDOIS obvious merits.
LJDarbo
Haruna Darbo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Lamin,
How are you? I am glad you are here for I enjoy your company and indeed hold
you in high esteem. On rare occasions, your emotions overwhelm your
intellect and an opportunity arises for us to share differing views. This is such an
occasion.
"Malanding: Remember Saints in the mid- to late-70s? When other members of
your class, including myself, were struggling with ordinary maths, a select
group of you were grappling with the stupefying concepts of Additional
Mathematics under the tutelage of Father Flynn. If not him, then Father somebody, but
I think it was Father Flynn. After Saints, I stayed away from the
mathematical sciences and wouldn't know how to tackle metric concepts especially in
relation to socio-political questions." JDAM
Thanx for the reminiscence, I think it was father Flynn. I remmember him
fondly. It is however unfortunate Lamin for an honourable citizen like yourself
to not appreciate the value of metrics or the actuarial sciences especially
in juridical decision-making. I know you're probably joking but our friend
Malandikukeh asked a very significant question that stood to accrue enormous
value for PDOIS were you to have taken it seriously. Consider that by metrics he
meant yardstick as opposed to derivatives, limits and continuity. The
problem you have created for yourself is that you have used voluminous metrics and
actuarial considerations in your juridical decisions, and more importantly in
assessing the worth or lack thereof, of Jawara's thirty some odd years of
leadership to conclude that it was devoid of any meaningful achievement. You
also obviously must have considered metrics in certifying the ordainment of the
1994 coup and in assessing the worth or value of Yahya's leadership in
comparison to a potential PDOIS leadership. I find it disingenuous (for want of
more benign adjective) therefore to retire ever so discretely from an
assessment of PDOIS' worth or lack thereof spanning both the PPP and Yahya. I was so
looking forward to a stellar performance and possibly earning PDOIS new
converts. I share that simple statistics such as mean mode and median would do the
trick. In fact, the use of add-math may further blur your analysis in this
area.
"Although another outsider, I am at least aware that through its principal
information organ - FOROYAA - PDOIS has contributed tremendously to awakening
and nurturing the political consciousness of Gambians."
I disagree with you here Lamin. As you intimated, Foroyaa is a PDOIS party
organ. All communist parties have party organs, and like Foroyaa, they help to
diseminate the message of the party to the citizenry. I regualrly receive a
newsletter from Siemens. The newsletter always teaches me about a new idea but
at the end, it shares that I can only yield value from the idea if I
purchased a Siemens component. So a party organ such as Foroyaa is a propaganda or
advertising organ and to keep your interest in reading it, they cut and paste
parts of the Gambia constitution to give the mirage of an educational paper.
Although I applaud PDOIS for the vision to establish a party paper. If you
say Foroyaa therefore has contributed tremendously in awakening and nurturing
the political consciousness of Gambians, you are inadvertently admitting that
that political consciousness was already present in Gambians prior to
Foroyaa. Since Foroyaa is, by your own admission, a party organ, I understand you to
share that PDOIS engages in intellectually engineering acceptance by
Gambians. Please convince me otherwise.
"It is my understanding that PDOIS has a multi-purpose centre for the
proliferation of education, especially in the socio-political area." JDAM.
Would you mind sharing with us the name and location of this centre? If it
is for the proliferation of education I would presume it is public, easily
accessible, and its value assessible.
"And the leadership are usually invited by youth-controlled community and
civic organisations to give speeches. I have a video of Halifa giving one such
speech at Tujereng in Kombo South." JDAM.
Lamin, I also can share that Halifa spoke to our Sixth form class at GHS
upon invitation, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. To this day however, I cannot
recall what he spoke about or what it had to do with our lives. One thing you may
want to share with PDOIS is that if over the last two decades, they have
given multitudes of speeches and churned out zillions of editions of Foroyaa but
are still in the political doldrums, it may be a good idea for them to invite
citizens to give speeches at their central bureau in order that they may
appreciate the value of what citizens have to say. I don't mean invite PDOIS
youth organs but ordinary voting citizens. It could prove useful. I'm usually
not in the business of advising political parties and certainly not PDOIS who
always know what I'm thinking or what I should think about.
"Outside party political functions, I do not recall the leadership of any
other political party being invited to share their socio-political views with
fellow Gambians." JDAM.
And look at their poll records at elections. Lamin, this ought to at least
inform a more inclusive strategy for PDOIS as opposed to rely on invitations to
speak.
"In my view, the reason may be attributable to the fact that in our pre- and
post-1994 systems, both the dominant parties have no sensible programmes to
sell to Gambians, and hence continue to exploit the easy option of steering
national life in darkness." JDAM.
You must admit Lamin that given their shortcomings in vision for Gambia,
Gambians desire them over PDOIS. Or maybe Gambians still haven't gotten PDOIS'
extraordinary and divine message for governance yet.
"To preempt a retort of why their relatively insignificant political
representation in government, I suggest you search for answers in the atrocious
unaccountable systems of PPP and APRC." JDAM.
Lamin, Men how can you ask Malandikukeh to search for records that are not
there (unaccountable systems). You did not pre-empt the retort of why their
relatively insignificant political representation in government. So I will ask
retort to you: Why PDOIS' lackluster (insignificant is too extreme for me)
performance at the polls over two decades at least?
"If you require quantification of the benefits of PDOIS "relentless
programme of political education and civic consciousness", I do not have the
mathematical wherewithal to do that," JDAM.
It would have been very easy to quantify or even qualify the value of PDOIS'
relentless programme of educational proliferation if it were there. Lamin,
what you confuse with education am afraid is ideological indoctrination under
the guise of philanthropic education. I'd like you to engage in a simple
poll. That may satisfy Kukeh's query:
Get a ballpark figure of Gambians PDOIS educated say last year and share
that with us.
Then share with us how many of those PDOIS-educated citizens are PDOIS
militants or party members or children of PDOIS party members and sympathisers.
I guess you know where I'm headed with this. I have some more detailed
questions if you'll indulge me. At the end, we will not only be able to quantify
but qualify the worth of a PDOIS Relentless CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS exercise.
"but I take it the evidence is obvious in the number of other parties
obliterated from the national consciousness with the passage of time. The PPP
itself is one such victim, and the party was at the centre of national life for
three decades." JDAM.
It is terribly unfortunate and counterproductive for PDOIS to keep comparing
itself to PPP, a party you admit is as good as dead. If you wish to keep up
with growth and life in PDOIS, it may be time to compare it with living
organs and organisms. Ironic idn't it? Besides, you were all too happy to partner
with the PPP to form NADD just about a year ago Lamin. One exercise that may
give you a yardstick is to compare the health of PDOIS under PPP and under
APRC and ammend your activities accordingly. I take it PDOIS prefers APRC to the
PPP era. I know why but I can't share that. It would cost you $100,000.00 to
complement my funds for a research hospital in the place of the state house
mosque when I become President of Gambia.
Lamin, this is the one area that I think you and I have polarly opposite
views on. It is healthy though because I give you the opportunity to convince me
that I should support PDOIS as opposed to APRC or UDP/NRP. Trust me if you
can convince me, Kukeh and Suntou will be a piece of cake for I will join you
in persuading them. You know Suntou is already leaning that way. If he were to
lean any further he'd fall into the ditch. A friend of mine told me that it
generally gets pitch dark before total darkness. I suppose you guys and gals
at PDOIS would say "Darkness usually comes before Minuit". I haven't seen a
handful of folk so hopefull about darkness as you PDOIS folk.ll : >>>)!!!
Holla back.
Haruna.
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