Fellow Countrymen and women,

What is it that the Gambian should do to keep us together despite
widespread political, economic and social instability in Africa, despite
the turmoil in the subregion, and despite our own evidential
contradictions? This is hardly a question to command any ready answers, but
it is one to leave no conscientious Gambian indifferent.
 While I am very much aware of the importance of a political
scientific or sociologists' approach to this question, I have limited my
thoughts, or what comes of it, to the political, economic and social
consequences of the July 22 coup, with the awareness of the fact that
Gambian sociologists, historians and political scientists will undoubtedly
do justice to the historical origins and the social impact of the type of
despotism going on in today's Gambia. I must not hesitate to add that
everything mentioned in this write up is my personal opinion. An opinion
founded on personal experience, experience of friends family and
acquaintances. Based on exchanges and discussions with legitimate ordinary
citizens in positions and circumstances and of credible experiences with
the current regime. For those of you ready to disregard your consciences
and defend the status quo at all costs, this one will be up your nose with
a rubber hose. Here is my opinion.
 To refer to Gambia as a role model in the sub-region the way our
authorities and their toadies tend to do with pomposity, is to imply that
Gambia is a representation of our sub-region in terms of qualities - and
almost always reluctantly in terms of pitfalls as well. While this may be
true in many aspects, it obviously stretches our credulity with respect to
testing our social experiences or making predictions therefrom. Stretches
away from being a sub-regional model in this sense, ours have become a 'six-
feet deep' spot for many a theory or generalizations.
And certes, it is. In other places, the intrinsic conditions did lead to
violent outbreaks, bloodbaths and changes from bad to worse or better, but,
in Gambia, these effects tend to simply dwindle, as if the entire nation is
a victim of a hypnotic spell by the wizard state. As we witness the poor
farmers being asked to hold on to promissory notes for three consecutive
years now, drastic downslides in the value of the Dalasi, up trends in the
economic inflationary rate with no counteractive measures or a tandem
increase in teachers' and other civil servants' salaries. Nothing is
expected to happen, though in other nations in a similar predicament,
government will rush to increase salaries or take other measures in order
to absorb the effects of economic decadence on their subjects. During the
last presidential elections or shortly before that, when the opposition is
perceived to have commanded much credibility and popular support, and when
it was widely assumed that a change in government was just a matter of
time, President Jammeh made for the dash and was able to puncture a
steadfast opposition using questionable strategies with the help of the
Electoral Commission. The opposition parties together gained a huge number
of the votes cast, showing that a great number of the electorate wanted a
change of president. The opposition, which has failed to present a single
candidate to represent all opposition parties, made some critical noises
about the level of rigging. This yielded little dividend, for protests -
mainly by the UDP- were neither organized nor sustained. As a popular
Cameroonian comedian Tchop Tchop would put it: " Elections are like a
football match where you must prepare your players physically and
psychologically. You can consult the Pygmy witchdoctor, corrupt the referee
or motivate (bribe) your opponents…You organize your elections knowing full
well that you are going to win them. You have yourself to blame for not
having known what to do." (Candidat unique de L'Opposition).

It is not only the ordinary citizens, farmers or civil servants that are
reluctant to assert themselves against the government's distracting
maneuvers. The opposition parties have failed in their many attempts to
present a unified force to fight their course. Since the July 22 takeover,
journalists of the private press and their newspapers are suffering as
victims of the selective application of a slew of repressive press laws,
yet they are hardly seen to have organized themselves into a strong union
capable of defending and promoting their freedom and other interests. What
passes today for a Gambia Press Union is yet to consolidate itself as a
force to reckon with. Teachers, nurses, hotel workers and petty traders and
other groups are similarly disorganized, preferring to go in for a dolce
far niente rather than fight for their professional interests. Many
attempts to empower the civil society have yielded little fruit. And this
can be said of many other aspects of our society.
If we are to talk about the successes of the opposition and the civil
society measured on popular yearning for the institutionalization of basic
human rights and democracy, an argument can be made to assert that their
difficulties with laws and government heavy handedness have offered
Gambians the opportunity to discover the overwhelming reluctance of those
with vested interest in the status quo, to open up and give society a
chance to move forward. That is a priceless contribution, even though
opposition parties themselves face a daunting task in avoiding some of the
pitfalls that are second nature to African politics, such as using 'the
belly' (J.F Bayart, The State in Africa: The politics of the belly, 1993)
not ideology as their main political compass. Instead of seeking a common
platform, the opposition has fallen easy prey to the entrapment of
paleoanthropic bond, and so have their militants who tend to vote on the
basis of ill-conceived expectations.
It is quite obvious that the democratic process in the Gambia has failed,
and that the opposition parties and other sections of the civil society
seem to be dragging in coming up with workable solutions to the current
disenchantment. Yet it is curious that opposition parties, the media and
other groups have failed to positively capitalize on the inclination of a
good section of society towards a more democratic social and political
order. Recent elections results have left little doubt that the bulk of
Gambians want a change for the better. We long to have an active say in
matters of public interest, and to seek freedom from the misery of what we
have for a government of which we are victims. What then stops us from
pursuing those freedoms in an organized and sustained manner, with or
without violence? How is it that our actions - when and if we act - have
often tended to contradict our declarations in favor of democracy?
Gambia is becoming a country that is easier to govern than it is to run a
family. A civil servant appointed to high office or merely aspiring to such
an office is made to understand that the system -epitomized by the Head of
State-is of boundless benevolence, and that all thanks be to Jammeh for any
appointment. This policy, if it can be so called, creates the illusion
amongst the seemingly elite, that everything is possible with the state -
even in total economic decadence, and that individuals must give Jammeh
total support if they wish to maintain, step up to or come by high office,
or a sinecure for that matter, and the favors that go with it. The obvious
impression given by such appointees is that every presidential decree of
appointment emphasizes on the benefits of the position to the person
concerned, and almost never on the responsibilities that go with the
office.
Personal interests become superior to the duties of the office. Within this
logic, the most unpardonable crime is that of disloyalty, or the perception
of such, to Jammeh. Every other section of the constitution can be
disregarded with impunity. Thus corruption and embezzlement in the customs,
police, immigration, to name a few, becomes the mantle of success. Bribery
and exploitation in the civil service are all glossed up until one commits
the ultimate crime of political disloyalty to Jammeh. Political allegiance
to the APRC remains one of the surest guarantees against a Jammeh
sanctioned sacking or even imprisonment for allegations of a treasonous
crime. Civil servants and businessmen and women know this all too well.
This essentially blinds us as Gambians to the facts of the system as our
real problem.
What we have for a government today, has little regard for virtue and
meritocracy, and has proven many a times that it has more room for
mediocrity than critical excellence. It thrives on the impressions and not
on the substance, making subservient mediocrities feel more important than
real achievers. It is not uncommon to hear about stories of a low-level
civil servant APRC stalwart threaten to make a director lose his or her
job. A second or third rate officer who provides the APRC with
unconditional conceptual rhetoric it needs to justify its excesses and
heavy-handedness, is more likely to be the next boss than his or her more
productive but principled counterpart who is denied the recognition for
being a genuine go-getter. This situation accounts for the current
intellectual misery in our beloved Gambia.
Ours is a totalitarian system somewhat similar to that of Vaclav Havel's
post-totalitarian Czechoslovakia, in that it 'serves people only to the
extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it,' where anyone not
playing their predetermined role will face the possibilities of indictment
as an enemy of the state. (V. Havel, living in truth 1986). Due to their
seduction of the people at every level of society with pretences of true
achievements, the APRC has succeeded in permeating civil life with
hypocrisy, sycophancy and lies. This they need to do in order to
consolidate their power over the people.
However, as ordinary Gambians are confronted with the contradictions in
their daily life, they cannot help but conclude that the whole business of
national development, national unity or integration is a smoke screen
instigated with the hidden agenda of stifling any attempt at meaningful
change. Therefore, it all boils down to the power game - how much longer
can you hold on to what you have, stay in office through corruption,
embezzlement, hypocrisy and the misinterpretation of the reality. Even
though the APRC is very keen in blocking all perceivable channels of
effective resistance - claims to democracy notwithstanding - and though the
citizenry generally fear retribution and government sanctioned thuggery, it
would be wrong to assume that there is little resentment of the status quo.
It could be said that the alienated masses may not have the means to effect
changes they yearn for, but they do indulge in symbolic acts with symbolic
success on a daily basis. These are actions in which the system will be
conquered, and a new democratic and populist order put in place, in
fulfillment of what the feeble minded have all the while treated as
extraordinary expectations.


Abdoulie A. Jallow
(BambaLaye)
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that metter."
-M.L. King Jr.

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