Hello Ndey,
welcome back from the Gambia, even it was a serious and sad visit to go for
the funeral of your dear father. May his soul rest in peace.
I will comment on your observations. They were as spoken out of my own
mouth. I wrote it and told so to all my danish friends, who would listen,
after I returned in january. The ordinary people of the Gambia is suffering
I said. To me it looks like a catastrophe.
As a foreigner I have not wanted to say it openly on Gambia L because some
of you would maybe should feel like I was criticizing or offending your
people or nation. But in december I was shocked when I visited many of my
friends, that they were really suffering the daily living conditions. I
think I wrote on Gambia-L that I saw a more class-divided society. A group
who owned a living, another group which became more and more rich, and then
the masses who were suffering and becoming poorer and poorer. When I visited
the GRTV I told some of the people working there, that they should try to
focus on that and other topics. Maybe a program focused on education and how
the parents could not afford to pay materials, uniforms etc. and in the long
run that could led to parents who has to keep the children from school, and
a backlash for the educational situation in the country.
In my latest letters to the danish government and the gambian representative
in Denmark I have not only focused on the april incident, but also on my
observations on the daily livings of the gambians, the farmers left without
anything, the hospitals without medicine, just like you report it. And the
crimes and moral indignity growing.
I will not say that I´m glad you confirm my observations, but now I know
that a gambian who knows gambia has seen the same situation like I did it
with my own eyes. I´m so sorry for the ordinary gambians. How the government
will prevent a catastrophe, I don´t know. But it is serious.
Friends, all you can support back home is needed.
That is also why I keep asking you, what will you do after Jammeh, are you
ready, prepared to suffer what is needed. Some of you must go home and
contribute, if not permanently then for a period.
Regards from Asbjørn Nordam
on 23/05/00 14:54, Ndey Jobarteh at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> It is not suprising to see the women reacting to the conditions at home. The
> situation at home is alarming and words cannnot explain it.
How can a people without
> food,a people who are denied their basic needs celebrate a liberation day?
> What are they liberated from? How can a continent that is still colonised both
> politically, economically, socially and culturally celebrates a liberation?
>
> Walking in the streets of the Gambia, i just wonder were the likes of
> Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay and co are living. Are they living in Gambia or are
> they just closing their eyes to home realities.
>
> THe suffering that our people are going through is something that any human
> being even with closed eyes can feel and see. THe whole nation has turn to
> beggars in the streets, at homes against their wills. You cannot imagine
> people going to funerals and begging to feed their kids.
A nation my father would always say "you own this nation a lot, if it
> is destroyed you are destroyed, if it is developed you are developed, the
> nations is like a family and treat it like a family, so the choice is yours."
> Seeing and witnesses what poverty can do to human beings expecially a nation,
> a people full of dignity, morals etc, who had lost everything in the name of
> poverty and oppression. The words of my dad echo once again on this very day.
> I turn to my mum and i said mum, "what is this all about, i just can't
> understand" She said to me, " this is why we send you to school, this is a
> question you have to answer and resolve it"
>
> The farmers are faced with no income due to the lack of groundnut sales whiles
> Jammeh is still building and developing Kanilal at the expense of the nation.
> It is very alarming that farmers are still asked to pay tax and their laons
> when they cannot even purchase food for sustainability.
>
> The education systems is so poor that you just wonder in the next 10 years
> what kind of manpower are we going to have. The APRC government was only
> interest in building schools but what runs those school was known of their
> concern.
>
> THe health system does not exist at all. The RVH is privitised because if you
> cannot pay you won't get treatments, if you cannot buy medicine you cannot be
> treated. I just said to my self no wonder people prefer to die quitely in
> their homes than go to hospital were you are disgraced because of your
> inability to pay. The lack of instruments and materials even make it worse for
> those who can afford it because you will not escape it.
>
> The Jammeh legacy will take us more than 20 years to clear. The crime rate is
> at it's peak, prostitution is the order of the day, drugs are like cigarettes
> in the country. Corruption is a source of survival for the working population
> and the top leaders. It is hard to believe that one is in the Gambia.
>
> The situation at home cannot be solved by mere rethorics it has reach a staged
> were we need pratical solutions to the problems. The starvation at home is
> alarming, and i don't think we have to wait until it explode and we start to
> rescue it,then it will be too late.
>
> THe government is very aware and very conscious that the Gambian people are
> feedup with the whole system and they want to call it a day. I believe that
> Jammeh has to create miracles to win the next elections and this they are very
> well aware of.
>
> As i said before there are no words to explain the situation at home one has
> to be there, live it and experience it. So, despite our politcal differences
> we are having a dying nation at hand, what are we going to do cure is our
> common responsibility. We can draw all wonderful theories but one thing is for
> sure, time is against us.
>
> Guys, i must say i am very angry but thank God that it is a positive anger in
> the sense that it allows me re-think my position and role in the development
> of our nation. After witnessing the suffering my people are going through.
>
> The Struggle Continues!!!!
> Ndey Jobarteh
>
>
>
>
>
>
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