Halifa, Many thanks as usual for your charming memo. Before proceeding on to the central theme of your last posting, I just wish to state for the record that a call for an alliance amongst those who disagree on fundamental issues but share the same conviction that Jammeh is a harbinger of civil strife in the Gambia, is not a move designed to subsume one political party into another. It doesn't mean an alliance of say the UDP with the PDOIS or NRP would mean that the latter would be reduced to appendages of the former. No. What I have been calling for is just a replay of the Senegalese type of patriotism which has peacefully brought about much needed change. It would be a great loss indeed to the Gambia to see any of the main opposition parties reduced to being appendages of any other major party. That wouldn't augur well for our young pluralist democracy. By any means necessary, coalition partners in whatever alliance that we might come up with in the end, should maintain their independence. This is my position. And another thing. By insisting on an alliance between say the PDOIS, the NRP and the UDP each time I speak, I never mean it to be designed in such a manner that the PDOIS or the NRP would be junior partners in the alliance or vice versa. What I argue for is politicians on the ground to speak with one voice that represent the national collectivity against the Fascist regime. Whether Hamat or Ousainou or Sidia heads the alliance is not important to me so long as there is the understanding that it is premised under the principle of a national crusade to save the country from internecine civil strife. Frankly my choice of a leader of the coalition would be Sidia even we are on the opposite ends of political spectrum. Not only is he more matured and astute politically than the others but this could help strategically to enthuse the whole nation under the umbrella of a unity of purpose campaign to save the Gambia. But this is hardly the time to discuss who heads what when we are yet to iron out the wrinkles of what we want in the alliance. Frankly, your last mail did show ripples of inconsistency in your thought on both the APRC's political fortunes and when to strike a bargain to go into an alliance with the other political players. For instance you wrote categorically that: "The current alarm being generated that without opposition parties becoming one at this very moment change will be illusive is something I find to be working in the interest of the APRC. What you people are actually saying is that the government is a popular one, and that no single opposition party can challenge it." One can infer from that statement of yours above that the APRC wouldn't last a first round of voting. This self-confidence runs very contrary to the self-doubt that was inherent in your proclamation on Radio 1FM that if Jammeh/Darbo doesn't get an out right 50% of the votes casted, you would get into an alliance with other players during the second round. The fact that you are entertaining and contemplating the very idea that Jammeh might not be defeated during the first round of voting contradicts whatever dismal projection you attribute to the fortunes of Jammeh as not a popular gov't. Why wait until the second round when the ante would have upped so such that the ruling gov't might do anything usurp such a process. Why not start now and set a trend in African politics? By insisting on an alliance, I am not saying that "no single opposition party can challenge" the APRC? All I am saying is that better we go into NOW when the climate favours it than wait and see how something in the future we cannot guarantee, turns out to be. In fact if sentiments and the populism that follows that UDP around can be gauged as an opinion poll, then one can safely conclude on the face of it that it is riding to electoral victory. But there is no guarantee to this. And I don't want ejecting Jammeh out of our political system be the ego ride or crusade of one political party. I want it to be about the Gambia and Gambians as a collectivity. To usher in an era of decency, respect and sense of purpose that spells a stakeholding society where each will see it as his/her duty to defend decency and respect for each other. To usher in primacy, ultimate fealty and awe reverence for the Liberal State that arbites fairly the plurality that we live each day of our lives without any regard to our political, social and economic inclinations or origins. This is my view and hope. You also took note of my view that if politicians fail to act and inspire the People to peacefully eject Jammeh out of the system, others notably armed anarchist and reactionaries which now litter the landscape of the Gambia from other troubled spots of the sub-region will by default exploit the situation. However, you failed to grasp the thrust of my argument that the opposition speaking in one voice can serve as a deterrent FOR THE TIME BEING to any such situation [Not the emphasis]. If the intolerance of Jammeh continues, every rule of politics and or crisis dictates that someone will appoint him/herself as the promised messianic figure who has come to salvage the nation and we would be back to square one again as we were in 1994. This is why the opposition must forge the alliance NOW than later when it might be too late to prove to everyone that Gambians are united against the evil that is Jammeh. Finally, your thesis that criticising both the present and the past is endearing you to voters in the Gambia has an anti-thesis. No-one is saying you should not criticise the past. Rather the complaint is it is turning you into and has indeed turned you into soft and low risk critics of the present experience of Jammeh. By constantly bringing up Jawara each time Jammeh does something evil only serves to give comfort and allure to Jammeh and his Fascist apologists. And the talk that it is winning you support might be in the Gambia cuz I'm not there but here in the UK, it is losing you support amongst the many that I normally confer with. This is not saying that you shouldn't criticise the past and Jawara but questioning the wisdom behind the emphasis you make on it each time Jammeh breaks every law of the land. This is not helping the struggle to help free the Gambia of Jammeh. One can understand your grievances against the Jawaras and OJs of yesteryears but by using them to dictate your conscience, that simply doesn't add up for a man who is well meaning for the welfare of the Gambia and the Gambian people and has done practically a lot to show it. I will break it here. Speak to you later. Hamjatta Kanteh hkanteh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------