Ginny,
Yes "democracy" should be different from culture to culture. It is already different. A typical example is time limit unlike in UK. The UK system is "democratic" per Se but they still have a monarchy.
In the US, not in every state does one have to prove citizenship to vote. In UK every where in UK, one have to prove citizenship to vote.
So give us a break. There is no perfect "democracy" anywhere. Yahya might be clueless what democracy is all about, but that does not minimize a well respected guy like the UN envoy. I bet if he was not from Africa this issue would not have come up.
We all know what happened in the last US elections. Observers came from the EU and they were denied access to the polls in Ohio unlike any other state they were stationed at.
So Ginny, give us a break and stop judging people.
Alieu.
Ginny Quick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hello, while these accomplishments are all well and good, it doesn't take
away from the fact that he seems to be suggesting, as he was quoted in the
original article, as suggesting that "democracy" should be different for
Africa as it is in the rest of the world.
Also, he seems to be playing down some serious accusations against
Yahya Jammeh. Threatening districts which don't vote for you, bringing in
illegal voters from other places, threatening and arresting opposition
supporters, among many other things, is nothing to just laugh at, or try to
downplay like it is nothing!
Can you imagine if George W. Bush would have brought voters over from
Mexico into Texas to vote for him? Or, if he would have went to some of the
known heavily democratic areas of the US and stated to them how, if they
didn't vote for him, that he'd not give them any government funding? And
let's say that if CNN's reporters didnt' cover the campaigning in the way he
wanted, that he arrested and detained them? If any of these things
happened, if you took Jammeh's doings during his rule in The Gambia, and
transported them to America, I'd like to hope or think that we'd stand up
and say that this is something that we'd not tolerate. So, if this would
not be tolerated in America, and if America condemns other governments for
doing these sorts of things, then why should Yahya Jammeh be any different,
simply because "This is Africa and things are different here", as Gen.
Abubakar says? And this statement is unbelieveably ignorant to me! So Gen.
Abubakar can say something like this, but what if, say, someone like Rush
Limbaugh or some non-African made this statement? If someone came and said,
"Oh, things are just different over there, those people are just different,
and democracy just doesn't work for them!" Do you know how unbelievably
ignorant and racist that would sound? Yet, an African election observer can
go to an African head of the UN, and make this sort of a statement about a
just-concluded election that many, even if they say it was "free and fair",
still have considerable apprehensions about? And this statement can
actually seem plausible? Actually become what they call "accepted fact"?
And do you know that just this morning, I heard on the BBC that the
Sudanese government may be behind more atrocities in Darfur? And Yahya
Jammeh just hosted the President of Sudan a few weeks ago? Now how callous
and awful is that? You have a black African head of state, hosting the
President of Sudan, who is behind, even if only indirectly, the slaughter of
how many thousands, if not millions, of black African Sudanese?
Tell me how do you praise-sing that? How do you white-wash something
like that? Or "the rest of the world can go to hell", etc.? This man, Dr.
Mr. Alhaji His Excellency Yahya AJJJ ABCDEFG Jammeh, (and let's add the
HIJKLMNOP, while we're at it), has no regard for democracy, the rule of law,
or anything remotely related to human rights and dignity. So let's just
stop kidding ourselves! Why don't we all, including, Yahya Jammeh, all of
us, just come out and call Jammeh what he is, even if you support Jammeh,
just call him the ruthless, heartless, dictator that he is!
I mean, at least if we started from there, we could have some sort of
honest and real "transparency and accountability" here! You are not a man
of the people if you torture and detain your own supporters and members of
your own party! And you're not a man of the people, or you don't have the
mandate of the people if you intimidate people so much so that they don't
even vote, or you have to bring in members of your own ethnic group from
another country to vote for you!
Oh, whatever, we could all talk until we're blue in the face, but talking
hasn't helped much has it! Jammeh seems to be destined to rule until "God
decides otherwise!" Guess we should all just deal with it huh? Oh, well.
Until Gambians as a whole decide that they've had enough and are no longer
intimidated, Jammeh will be there!
You can only be abused for so long before you decide that you're not
going to take it anymore and take steps to rid yourself of the abuse. Or,
you do nothing and the abuse kills you, either outrightly, or slowly, by
depriving you of your dignity, confidence, self-worth, etc.
But anyway, I didn't intend this to be a long post, but that it is.
I've come to the conclusion that you can't force democracy on people! You
can do "civic education" all you want, but if the people don't take this to
heart, if they don't implement and internalize what you're teaching them,
then it's not going to work! The UN, the opposition political parties, and
other organizations can do all they want to try to educate people or "help
support democratic institutions" etc., but it's not going to mean anything
if the Gambian people, as a whole, continue to be silenced and intimidated
by Jammeh or the thugs he sends out to do his dirty work! If people don't
go to the polls because of Jammeh's threats, or because he posts military
guards at the polling places, or any number of the other tactics he uses,
then democracy can't work, it cannot function correctly!
And when I think of all of this, it makes Gambians and friends of The
Gambia's job that much harder! Even if the coalition known as NADD would
have succeeded, it still would have been up to the people to go and vote on
Election Day. And for some reason, they did not! Maybe it was voter
apathy, but what seems to be to me, based on the pre-election coverage by
the numerous online Gambian media, is that Jammeh openly threatened
opposition strongholds, and Gambians as a whole, who did not vote for him!
It is also well known that voters were illegally registered and brought in
from Senegal to vote for Jammeh. If a UN news agency like IRIN knew this,
that everyone had to have known it. So what seems to have happened is that
hopelessness and intimidation, not to mention what factor voter inducements
and vote-buying played in all of this, caused Jammeh to emerge with the
"landslide" that he can now claim to have!
If you overlook all other factors, and just go by the raw numbers, what
you're saying is that the Gambian people have not had enough of
extrajudicial killings, torture, the trampling of the Constitution, the
muzzling of independent media houses, and the list goes on and on. And if
you do take the "other factors" into account, Gambians either were too
scared to, or didn't care enough, or a few extra dalasis meant more to them
then their long-term future.
However, going back to the abuse meted out to Gambians, is there
something else of a psychological nature at work here? I remember five
years ago saying that it's so easy for us here, who don't live in The
Gambia, to tell people not to take money for their vote, or not to be
intimidated, etc., etc. And it's easy to be preachy about the "right thing
to do". However, it's hard to say how any of us would have reacted if our
kids were starving, or a family member was sick, and someone shows up with a
bag of rice or some money! Sure, we'd like to think that we'd have done the
right thing, but would we? When you look at other dictatorships, how did
"the people", as it were, react? I've been watching a lot of programs on
the History Channel, as of late, about Hitler and the Third Reich. And the
question that kept being asked was "Why didn't the German people stop this
guy"? Well, it was a combination of German nationalism, combined with fear
and intimidation, combined with Hitler capitalizing on the fears and
prejudices of the German people. So if you look at someone like Hiteler,
and someone like Jammeh, why should we expect the Gambian people to act any
different than the German people did? Of course, we'd like to think that
the Gambian people would act differently, however, maybe they won't.
Because sometimes when you've been abused and beaten down long enough, you
just don't know any better, and as they say "the devil you know is better
than the one you don't". Sometimes the fear of the unknown is worse than
the fear of the person or people abusing you. Yeah, it doesn't make sense
to us, but when you're "on the inside" as it were, when you're the one
enduring the abuse, it's different.
So while we should work hard to restore the restoration of democracy in
The Gambia, what also needs to be addressed is the "why", as to why Gambians
continue to "support" Jammeh. And also maybe the approach needs to be not
only to "educate people civicly" etc., but to also try to address the
psychological reasons that lead to why people vote, or don't vote. Because
telling someone not to vote for Jammeh doesn't seem to be enough. What
needs to be addressed are the underlying causes of fear, etc., which seem to
be leading the majority to vote, or not vote, for their own worst interests
time and again.
Ginny
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alieu Sanyang"
To:
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: UN Envoy Makes Excuses for Gambian Strongman
> It certainly looks like the guy might know more than what you might think
> or know. Below is just an example of who the guy is:
>
>
> General Abdulsalami Abubakar is a lucky man, one of the few
> military leaders in the world to get a crown without a coup. When he was
> chosen by his military colleagues to step into the shoes of General Sani
> Abacha who had just died suddenly, mysteriously, he was not exactly a
> happy man. He thought of turning down the offer but he knew he could not
> forgive himself nor the nation forgive him. It was a call to national duty
> at a time of national distress. Abacha's agenda of sit-tightism or of
> transmutation from military dictator to a civilian president had polarised
> the country and split it down the middle. The country needed a man of
> peace, a fence-mender, a wound-binder, a man whose ambition was not
> vaulting, one who would steer Nigeria away from the knife-edge of danger.
> Abubakar became head of state but his family members were not beating the
> drums. One of his daughters cried uncontrollably for two weeks,
> interjecting amidst sobs, "But daddy, why you?" The answer is "Mother
> Fate" or looking at it another way "Lady Luck." It is fate or luck that
> had taken him to the pinnacle of leadership and Abubakar knew only too
> well that if he tempted it, he could be taken down to the valley of
> disgrace. So he said he would quit on May 29, 1999. Cynics may have said,
> "we have heard this stuff before." But Abubakar was different. He quit.
> The world loves a man of honour. So Abubakar's lap of honour started
> immediately. Ghana gave him its highest honour, the Star Award; ECOWAS
> decorated him with its International Gold Medal. The America gave him the
> Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition Peace Prize. He also raked
> home the International Globalist Award for 1999.
> At home, he has not been short of goodwill. He has represented President
> Olusegun Obasanjo at the inauguration of the Senegalese President,
> Abdoulaye Wade and received, on behalf of Nigeria, a peace award at
> Durban, South Africa, a few weeks ago. During the Sharia riots Abubakar
> went on a trouble-shooting mission to various parts of Nigeria.
> Abubakar's profile is still rising like a meteor. He had the honour of
> being named Chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Observers Mission to the
> Parliamentary Election in Zimbabwe. Leading a 44-person disparate group
> from 25 countries, Abubakar carried out the assignment with distinction,
> fairness and a sense of history which earned him showers of praise from
> the observers. If Abubakar donned all these honours and medals, his chest
> would look like a plate of fruit salad which would certainly illuminate
> his grey beard and moustache. Both have been neatly trimmed to give the
> picture of the circle at the centre of a football field. This must be his
> celebration of freedom from the tyranny of military discipline.
> Number two in a polygamous family of 10 children, Abubakar is clearly the
> most distinguished. But his own family is smaller: One wife, sic
> children - evenly distributed between the sexes - one of them a doctor,
> another a lawyer, the other an architect. The remaining three - all boys -
> are just boys in school. The Abubakar have a romance with the name Fati.
> Abubakar's mother is Fati. His wife is Fati. One of his daughters is
> Fati - three Fatis in one man's life.
>
>
> Male
>
>
> Malamin Barrow wrote:
> Abdulsalami Abubakar as head of the UN observer mission to the Gambian
> elections must be some kind of a joke put on us. The buffoon looking
> General came to notice at the time of general Sani abacha's death. Those
> who saw video clip could not fail to notice how hastily he appears to have
> been summoned to sign the constitutional document enabling him to replace
> the dreaded Nigerian dictator. Without ceremony or circumstance, he took
> out a flimsy BIRO PEN, seeminly with the ink leaking, to sign and seal the
> fate of millions of Nigerians. He just doesn't seem have a grasp of the
> seriousness of such occasions.
>
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> From : omar joof[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent : 10/9/2006 2:14:26 AM
> To : [log in to unmask]
> Cc :
> Subject : RE: Re: UN Envoy Makes Excuses for Gambian Strongman
>
> Ginny,
> No, this man does not know anything that you dont! He spent the best part
> of
> his life "saluting" British imperialism and agents of the cabalist Kaduna
> mafia. I totally agree with the rest of your write-up.
> Omar Joof.
>
>
>>
>
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