A great piece Baba, as always. Summed in one word............. A DUMB, SICK,  and  WORTHLESS MIND. 

    On Tuesday, May 10, 2016 11:27 AM, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 

 Jammeh’s wayBy Baba Galleh JallowOccasionally, the excesses of a dictatorship get sooutrageous that people get tongue-tied as to what else to say. How do we makesense of a consistently senseless pattern of behavior of a man who prideshimself in going his own way, even if that way is patently self-destructive anddestructive of so many innocent lives? The unfolding drama in Banjul over theJammeh regime’s murder of Solo Sandeng and its subsequent arrest of UDP leaderOusainou Darboe and members of his party executive is revealing. The sayingthat fools hang themselves when you give them a long rope may be manifesting inthe Jammeh’s determination to deal with this sensitive situation the only wayhe could possibly think of – with heavy handed insensitivity. Rather thanmanage the situation sensibly by allowing Gambians to protest peacefully and gohome peacefully from the very start, Yahya Jammeh has ignited and is fueling afirestorm that would hopefully consume his tyrannical regime and rid our dearcountry of a political cancer that has been spreading in its body for the pasttwenty-two years.Apologists for the regime’s blatant injustices have arguedthat members of the UDP had broken the law by not seeking a police permit tohold their peaceful call for electoral reform and subsequent demands for anexplanation as to what happened to Solo Sandeng. That law would have deserved respectin an environment of law and order – an environment where the police and securityforces are not mere appendages of a callous dictatorship. In the Gambiansituation, the police have repeatedly denied requests by the UDP and otherlegitimate applicants for permits to hold peaceful rallies for the simplereason that Mr. Jammeh does not approve of them. The idea of seeking permissionto hold protests and  rallies islegitimate only under a system characterized by respect for human rights andthe rule of law. In a situation of utter disregard for human rights and therule of law, it is well within the rights of the citizens to go right ahead andhold their peaceful protest and rallies without suffering the pain andindignity of applying only to be refused their constitutionally guaranteed rightto freedom of expression. Let the unjust regime eat its heart out or do itsworst. Moreover, if the ruling party needs no permit to hold its rallies, whyshould any other legitimate political party or group of citizens need any suchpermit to express their legitimate public opinion? The idea behind permits ismerely to inform the police so they could provide security and maintain order whilethe protests unfold. In Jammeh’s Gambia, protests are considered privilegesthat may or may not be granted and enjoyed by the citizens as the government - whichto say the head of state – wishes. By trying to prevent people from even attending the courthearings of Mr. Darboe and Co., the Jammeh dictatorship is finally completingthe process of political suicide it started back in 1994. The more it bulliespeople who choose to attend the hearings, the more people find the bullying andinsults they have been subjected to for the past two decades unbearable. Jammehhad always banked upon the notion that Gambians were cowards who were so afraidof dying or going to jail that they would take everything and leave everythingin the hands of God. That is precisely what the dictatorship hopes would happenagain. But this time around, things are likely to get out of hand because theUDP-inspired crisis happens at a point in the country’s history when people aresick and tired of the suffocating stranglehold of the Jammeh regime. Thus,rather than drive people into their customary silence and passivity, thebullying will elicit exactly the opposite reaction. More people will getemboldened, more  outraged and more determinedto insist that The Gambia does not belong to Yahya Jammeh and his security forces– that it is a mutually owned and mutually shared home for all Gambiansregardless of party affiliation or status. And the harder the regime cracksdown upon the people, the larger the crowds are likely to grow.Of course, the bottom line is that Jammeh has long been avictim of hubris – which is the fate of all tyrants and demagogues in history.For over two decades, hubris has rendered him deaf to the voice of reason and blindto the light of truth. He has doggedly chosen ignorance over knowledge,darkness over light, injustice over justice, and truth over lies. Hubris hascaused him to commit heresy and utter such blasphemies like “I will rule TheGambia for a million years” – a statement he knows to be manifestly false andagainst the natural laws of the God who created him and his power. Hubris hascaused him to ignore exhortations to observe justice in dealing with the humanbeings under him, to allow Gambians to enjoy their God-given rights, and amongmany other things, not to attempt imposing Sharia law on the Gambian people. In“Gambia: Why Sharia is not an option” (2013) we outlined the many reasons why itwas a very bad idea for Jammeh to attempt imposing Sharia law on The Gambia,one of which was that people – Muslims and Christians alike – would kick backagainst the idea. But of course, being afflicted with blinding hubris, hisarrogance wouldn’t stop itching until he proved all his critics wrong. He hadto show that his critics always lie about him; that in fact, he could dowhatever he wanted to do with our country and all its people. Now we have seenthe backlash against his ill-fated declaration of The Gambia as an Islamicstate in the fact that current protesters include people carrying bannerssaying “no to an Islamic state” among other manifestations of refusal tocomply. Scanning the crowds of protesters, one notices a few women wearing theveil, which they perhaps wore before the Islamic state crap, and one noticeswomen wearing their traditional head dress or no head dress at all.     Now “the genie is out of the bottle” as one writer recentlyput it. The spell of fear is broken. Jammeh has reached what we may call “beyondcrisis point”. The only way he can go now is down and out. Whatever the outcomeof the current UDP case, Jammeh is doomed to historical infamy and notoriety.He joins tyrants and demagogues like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, MuamarGaddafi, Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Sani Abacha, Jean Bedel Bokassaand all the evil dictators and tyrants in history’s hell. He has willfully carvedfor himself a cold, perpetually nose-offending niche in the infamous dustbin ofhistory where he, of course, will forever languish. He probably never heardAristotle say “Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is themost terrible of all when he lives without law and without justice.” And he hadrefused to hear those who heard Aristotle convey the unassailable truth of theages to his hubris-afflicted ears. Well, we just say all praise be to God, theLord of Truth and Justice, to whom all power belongs, now and forever. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interfaceat: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.htmlTo Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-lTo contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:[log in to unmask]¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤



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