Mr. Jallow,
Your comments and articles on the Gambia-L are quite interesting and educative.
I do not have much to say, but the fact that people on the L are supporters of
Halifa and the Co. does not necessarily make them worshipers of Halifa.
Whatever political difference one may have against another person, you should
give them the credit they deserved.
You can rightly say that most gambians do not understand the ideas that Halifa
and Co are spreading in the political arena in the gambia, but you cannot deny
that they are a group of patriotic gambians with wealth of knowledge and
experience to educate the gambian people. Since the coming into being of
Foroyaa in the 80s many gambians have become politically aware including you
Baba. Halifa and his group are doing a wonderful job. I will describe them as
a government out of office serving the gambian community. I will sight one
example to show you that they are doing better than another politician or writer
in the gambia. Did you know that these guys are operating their own schools in
the gambia. Their kids are among the best school children in the country both
morally, and academically. As gambians we should therefore give them the dues
they deserve.
In regards to their role during the transitional period, fair minded gambians
should only say thank you Halifa and the Co. for helping prevent chaos and civil
war in poor country like the gambia. Mr. Jallow you know very well that the
cost of war in a nation can only devastate the country and the economy more and
than anything else. We as gambians therefore, will take anything that will cost
of less than what civil war cost other countries in Africa. We needed people
who will stand and say we cannot affort to put this country into turmoil. As
far as am concern this is what Halifa and his group did during the transitional
period. A bright example will be the sudden death of Ousman koro cesay " peace
be upon him". His death is the most mysterious thing that could happen to our
nation. He was a patriotic citizen serving his country. After his death
gambians rushed to say in every corner that he was killed by the AFPRC which
could be true who knows. Foroyaa wrote to say in stead of spreading romours
that will add fuel to fire report to the police any evidence that one may have.
Tell me Baba is this not a better and honest approach than spreading romours
that can anger people and create violence.
In a final note, I will state that we need honest politicians that are down to
earth and willing to live the live that the rest of gambian population live.
People who are knowledgeable, and not greedy for wealth are materials. The last
thing we need are people who run away from the hardship in the gambian and
trying to lecture us as to how much they can disagree with other opinions. The
political debate should be on the ground in the gambia. No matter how much you
hate or indifference with somebody's ideas give them the dues they deserve.
Long live the debate and the struggle to free our people from tyranny and
selfish leadership.
Thanks
Demba
chernob jallow wrote:
> Preface
> Distraction from Gambia-L, even for two weeks, like in my case, can be
> costly. Reason? Chances are you'll miss sailing on the eddies of infrequent,
> rational public opinion, occasionally enlivening Gambia-L and spontaneously
> propelling its readership into spurts of literary crossfire and
> tongue-wagging.
>
> Yet again, my learned friend Halifa Sallah, has come under fire for
> canvassing for support of, and supporting, the 1997 Gambian constitution,
> which betrayed Gambian public opinion for presidential term-limits,which
> gives President Yahya Jammeh and Co. carte blanche to rule unstoppably
> indefinitely,which entrenches an Indemnity Clause which says that Jammeh and
> ex-council colleagues cannot be held accountable for their actions in the
> past,which is derelict with obnoxious military decrees out of sync with
> democratic governance. Halifa also stands criticised for playing footsie
> with Jammeh over the president's litany of excesses, which merely exist on
> the fringes of Halifa's and PDOIS' political imagination.
>
> This time around, Saul Khan and Hamjatta Kanteh are putting the political
> geezer on the bridle and saddle of intense scrutiny. I have been down this
> polemical terrain before with Halifa on this same forum. Well before I
> joined Gambia-L, another Gambian, on this forum, had also taken Halifa and
> Co. to task on the same issue. Inside The Gambia, Halifa has had to flicker
> away numerous criticisms on his transitional role from some of his political
> opponents.
>
> What started as a trickle has now turned into a torrent. Years hence,
> Halifa's transitional legacy - marked by unquestionable patriotism and
> self-effacing leadership on one front, and political deviationism and death
> of outrage on the other - will continue flashing on The Gambia's political
> radar screen. History continues...
>
> And now this:
>
> Halifamania
> Time was, I was afflicted with an ailment called Halifamania. Looking back
> over the years of my high schooling and long before I ever became a son of
> ink, I used to be a dire-hard PDOIS supporter. I would trek near and distant
> places just to hear Halifa and colleagues speak on the hustings. I would
> mill around PDOIS'offices with a hushed zeal to peek into the to-ings and
> fro-ings of PDOIS leaders inside their offices. One day I got in there with
> the help of a dear friend. It was a scintillating experience. My good friend
> Haruna Farage, now working with the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal in Tanzania,
> also enabled me to get cosy access to Sidia Jatta at his Bundung residence.
> Sidia and I would discuss Gambian politics while he plays his Kora under the
> mango tree.
>
> Only my lacking of a voter's card prevented me from voting PDOIS in the
> 1987/92 general elections. But my exuberance over PDOIS was unassailable. I
> hung onto Halifa's and PDOIS' political vocabulary fore and aft, thinking
> that whatever they said was the gospel. Was the truth. Was unquestionable.
> Was irreplaceable. My affinity with PDOIS was just too much for me to submit
> myself to dissension over the party's policies and its leaders' political
> behaviour. Silly me.
>
> But dilating too much on our affinities with PDOIS, a political party whose
> emergence in the 1980s, helped spruce up Gambian political
> consciousness,makes us merely peddlers of banal banter. It is meaningless.
> Understandably, a chunk of PDOIS supporters are prepared to adore and
> sanctify Halifa and Co. regardless of their political follies. I no longer
> belong in that category. That was then.
>
> And this is now. For much of this year, I have been very critical of Halifa,
> first on his role during the transition period, a subject currently
> rejuvenated on this forum, and on his incontinent Pan Africanism bereft of
> objectivity and dissension. Each time I have taken Halifa to task, I have
> noticed some rumblings of discontent, emanating perhaps from die-hard PDOIS
> fanatics. Probably they are miffed that Halifa's poverty of thinking as
> depicted in his arguments or his political follies, are being hit and hit
> hard. To be sure, Halifa is a public figure commanding a following. So it is
> only natural that some members of this following, more infatuated than in
> love, with Halifa, to react viscerally rather than rationally, to anything
> critical of Halifa and PDOIS.
>
> Consider this: "Your article contains no iota of truth ....you should be
> objective, give the man the credit he deserves....he is not an opportunist."
> Bass Ndow was commenting on my piece regarding Halifa's rejoinder to
> Ayittey's and Shirima's article. He thought I had a private beef with Halifa
> and his party. He imagined I was being dismissive of Halifa's sacrifice to
> return to Africa and work for the continent. As if Halifa's patriotism or
> willingness to return to his homeland formed the crux of my piece.
>
> I am an opinion writer, who makes no fetish of personalities. I don't care
> whether it is Koli Tengela or Halifa Sallah, Nelson Mandela or Otto Von
> Bismarck, Cherno Baba Jallow or President Yahya Jammeh. I go after issues,
> never mind their criticality or controversiality. Throughout my years of
> writing, I have learned never to give in to majoritarian tyranny, or shy
> away from speaking my mind on issues even if my opinion runs counter to
> popular opinion. There comes a time when you have to be on your guard, or to
> borrow a popular refrain from Halifa, be a 'master of your own destiny.'
>
> Leave aside personality worshipping. Leave aside also the game of chicken
> and sugary love. let's debate the issues head-on. Halifamania has the
> tendency to sap our frankness and objectivity. To idolize Halifa or anybody
> else for that matter, without even a whiff of dissent on their misguided
> deeds and sayings, is to fall prey to lovey-dovey cronyism.
>
> More reactive than assertive to Saul Khan's and Hamjatta's Kanteh's
> challenges to Halifa,Alpha Robinson recently remarked petulantly: "Halifa,
> whatever you decide, be rest assured that there are many Gambians and
> non-Gambians who treasure your role in our history ....no one can turn us
> against you." Such convivial banality and sycophantic hobnobbing can be
> fatuous nonesense. Of course, Alpha's choice to place Halifa on a pedestal
> is his legitimate perorogative, but it is imperative that our public figures
> be held in intense scrutiny. No democracy, if it is to be well-variegated in
> accountability and transparency, can thrive with an electorate eager-happy
> to exchange pleasantries with its leaders, and not rational skepticism on
> every action and saying of those in leadership.
>
> The solace is Halifa received Alpha's panegyric stakes with a pinch of salt.
> Halifa is a politician not too enamoured of praises nor does he take
> criticisms lying down. Put him under fire, and Halifa degenerates into
> vintage Halifaism: chest-thumping, table-pounding and grandiloquent,
> rhetoric. Intellectual arrogance and pomposity beomes his last bastion of
> hope to ward off critics. But atleast, paying lip service to praises should
> enable Halifa realize one thing: a public figure who is constantly in search
> of fame and glory, and who blushes and pleases anytime a supporter throws
> him tossed salads of plaudits, is one that risks valuing his beliefs and
> principles largely on the direction or misdirection of received opinion,
> which can be sycophantic, subjective and gibberish.
>
> Therefore: Halifa must continue resisting every urge, every attempt, every
> whisper, from his loyalists and fanatics, to elevate him to sainthood or
> celebrityhood. Because he's neither a saint nor a celebrity. He's a public
> figure who has demonstrated unflinching keenness in the pursuit of better
> governance for his people, but who also is prone to human failings,
> intellectual follies and immaturities. And who aslo stands criticised for
> the not-so-impressive-part of his role during the transition.
>
> PS: Saul Khan and Hamjatta, I am enjoying the debate. Keep up the momentum.
> And don't let yourselves be distracted by comments that add nothing to the
> debate. Sometimes the best response is no response at all.
> ______________________________________________________
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