Culled from Allafrica.  "This is lunacy. Allah has absolutely nothing to do
with our incompetence, greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, dishonesty and out right
dishonourable and uncourageous attitude that has been the result of the
present situation in which we find ourselves today instead, we do. And this
is the state of our nation. We never learn because of our lunacy but it
takes a realization of this lunacy to make this possible. If we cannot then
it goes to show the extent to which our lunacy has deepens."  This quote to
me, sums our mindset regarding the Gambian state.  Please read on.

Our State of Nationhood; Our Lunacy (Part Two)

The Independent (Banjul)

EDITORIAL
March 3, 2003
Posted to the web March 3, 2003

Banjul

We are in desperate times and our lunacy is getting all the more obvious if
not incurably blatant.

It is lunacy because transportation fares have increased, whilst salaries
have remained the same, and yet no-one it seems, wants to know why but
instead turned up to work late, or don't bother turning up at all and would
rather place blame on taxi drivers with the hope that they would look kindly
on passengers and reconsider the tariffs. And yet it is largely ignored that
these taxi drivers also have families that are hard hit by the price
increases in the domestic market. This is lunacy.

It is lunacy that those who have to address these problems, have elected to
make a complete detour from the burning issues of the day. The president and
his entourage during their Meet the Peoples Tour rather expended their
energies on declaring an anti-nawettan policy with the vain hope of boosting
agricultural yields. Even if we are to agree that such a ban would
discourage "footballing idleness" and encourage "agricultural usefulness"
what guarantees are there that the "good yields" at the end of the day would
be bought by the government.

What guarantees exist that out comfortless farmers would not be provided
with annoying promissory notes that does not pay school fees, secure a bag
of rice and provide for the general upkeep of the average farming family. It
is lunacy to ignore the fact that nothing works by coercion especially for
the youth who need sport to liven them up in these days of dampening
national morale.

It is lunacy that while we should learn from the bitter and bloody lessons
of our war-ravaged neighbours, we hear and entertain, inflammatory
statements. It is lunacy because this as in the past will fan the flames of
political hatred and antagonism and eventually set us on the path of
self-abnegation.

It is lunacy that while other nations the world over are striving for
excellence we in The Gambia cushion ourselves and are apologetic about our
poor performance as a nation by always looking at countries that are
obviously less fortunate than we Gambians: Liberia, Sierra Leone, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and of late Ivory Coast and dare to compare
ourselves with them and in the process convince our sorry selves that "at
least we are not as bad as they are". As obvious and as pathetically clear
that we are certainly not as bad, we should also realize that we couldn't
get any worse than they are. In essence, if Gambians are only good enough to
compare themselves with the down trodden, and nations afflicted by brutal
civil strife, then this is lunacy.

It is lunacy because in the same vein we muster on blaming all our domestic
woes on "external factors" -"there is a world recession going on so we are
affected by it" our leaders trumpet, fine then why do we not benefit when
there is boom in the same global economy? We instead either remain the same
or plunge even further down the economic ladder?

This is lunacy.

It is lunacy because all of these concerns are not alien to Gambians, we
have experienced them before, and yet we pretend that it is an a primary
occurrence, and would as a result fade away with the magic wand of fatalism-
"Allah's wish" -

This is lunacy. Allah has absolutely nothing to do with our incompetence,
greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, dishonesty and out right dishonourable and
uncourageous attitude that has been the result of the present situation in
which we find ourselves today instead, we do. And this is the state of our
nation. We never learn because of our lunacy but it takes a realization of
this lunacy to make this possible. If we cannot then it goes to show the
extent to which our lunacy has deepens.

Sad for us all.







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