Political correctness - that hideous knee-jerk reaction to issues of importance but which others are loath to discourse, because they happen to be "sensitive" and it would be "insensitive" to discourse such "sensitive" issues for it would "offend" others – seems to have found a niche on Gambia-L of all places. Perhaps, that in itself shouldn’t be that be surprising. For political correctness is as inherently an African ordeal as they come. If at any rate, much fusillade is made about it in the West – which it is largely associated with – it is because it is only recently it had taken such large-scale dimensions there and have yet to come to terms with it. But with Africa, this hideous epi-phenomenon is as old as the Continent herself. Whilst in the West it has taken the form of supposedly protecting issues "sensitive" to minorities, in Africa, it is largely in the domain of language and discourse, from the tabooing of sex in public discourse to the maddening and oft ludicrous assigning of ethnic politics to the back-burners of "sensitive" issues. Just as tabooing rational sexual discourse and enlightenment in the public realm has and continues to cost Africa dear in human life as the AIDS conflagration consumes Africa’s active populace, the lack thereof any rational discourse and healthy enlightenment of ethnic chauvinism, myths and myth-making in politics continues to ravage the Continent with no nation-state spared from this hideous disease. It would neither be an act of gross exaggeration to claim that Africa probably gave birth to political correctness – which should explain why it is naturally embedded in our discourse and restrains its vibrancy – nor would it be remiss of me to assert that in political correctness Africa might be guilty for once of disservice to the human race.

Whenever mention is made of the ethnic narrative in the Jammeh Mess, especially "Jola" chauvinism at any rate amongst its educated cosmopolitan elite, it leaves many impervious to demonstration. For these folks, the Jammeh Mess is entirely a Mobutu-esque phenomenon: a crackpot kleptomaniac murderer post-colonial happened to be accursed with. Any talk of the emotional attachment the majority of the "Jola" [especially the elite] people have for Jammeh is drubbed as loose talk. However, from the very outset, Jammeh was very conscious of his ethnicity and indeed, emotionally attached to it, especially the grand narrative of the "Jolas" as discriminated aborigines who had suffered from the mainstream. Crackpot he is, though on this issue his cards were and still well rolled up his sleeves: never mutters a word publicly on the issue and even if he does, always selling himself as the all-inclusive compassionate guy. In retrospect, Jammeh made indirect references to the "plight" of his "people". In his nation-wide tours he made in the early days of the coup, Jammeh is often heard telling his audiences, especially in the Fonis and to the "Jola" people, that they should stop being watchmen, maids and all the whatnots associated with bottom rung of the Gambian social ladder. He would SINGLE-OUT the "Jolas", chastise them of their failings socially and threaten to deport them to the Fonis if they didn’t volunteer to go back and till their farms [Note the emphasis]. He would in fact make seemingly unkind and rude remarks about "Jola" existence in the Suburbs. It is matter of rich irony that there was never a "Jola" backlash against Jammeh for singling them out and ridiculing them. Rather, he was and still is rewarded with total allegiance. The irony though subtle is not difficult to see through. On the face of it here is a well-meaning leader interested in the social amelioration of his people. Yet, upon closer look, one finds a big deficit in Jammeh’s Campaign to return "Jolas" back to the Fonis. Why SINGLE-OUT "Jolas" out of all the people who had suffered under Jawara as targets for social amelioration and a possible return to the provinces? How many others have migrated from rustic communities to come to the suburbs for a better deal? Why should they be exempted from such chastisement and indeed, social amelioration if any? The answer is simple: because like the "Jola" elite, he staunchly shares the view that "Jolas" under the PPP especially after the ill-fated 1981 failed putsch of Kukoi, were a marginalised lot. Most of these people even turn to how the word "Jola" through years of repression and discrimination had subtly become connoted with a social class of the menial type; watchmen, maids, messengers and the highest you could is military and police hierarchies which not many urban dwellers wanted to be part of then. Indeed, as one Mafy Jarju puts it, "Besides, if the Jolanization syndrome that you so tirelessly try to portray is real, then even the SOS for foreign affairs position would have been given to Mr. Mbye Sagnia who is at the EU in Brussesl. Some of us on this Gambia-l were taught by Mbye Sagnia who is arguably the best French Scholar from The Gambia. He was born at Kombo Berending and he is a Jola. He was frustated out of the Jawara regime after having been left to inhale chalk for years at Armitage School.

THIS PRESIDENT ( YAHYA JAMMEH ) IS HERE FOR ALL GAMBIANS REGARDLESS OF LANGUAGE AFFILIATION. QUITE A CONTRAST FROM 30 YEARS OF MARMARGINALIZING THE FONIS ESPECIALLY AFTER THE KUKOI COUP." [All emphasis his.] I don’t know whether Mbye Sagnia is the best French Scholar the Gambia has or his problems if any with the PPP are real, all I can say is that there are countless cases like Mbye Sagnia and suffice to add that the majority were spread between the ethnic groups during the PPP. Intellectual frustration with the PPP was most certainly not a phenomenon confined to "Jola" intellectuals. In fact the core of what opposed Jawara came from the Baddibus and Bakau, hardly what you would call "Jola" dominant areas. It is a matter of historical record that the Fonis were traditional PPP heartland since its formation. Needless to say, it was mere self-imposed ethnic grievances and myth-making that is the basis of such ludicrous assertions by Mafy. The charge that "Jolas" were the only specially targeted ethnic group for marginalisation is at best froth and nonsense and at worst infantile ethnic tantrums.

Since Jammeh had now a premise for discriminating in favour of his marginalised "people", the stage was beautifully set for affirmative action, Jammeh style. Albeit unspoken and unlegislated. And so in an un-precedented manner, the civil service, police, army and other law enforcement authorities that Jammeh was to set up later, started crawling with "Jolas". Thanks to Jammeh’s unlegislated affirmative action. As one opportunist, Fanta Comma, the Chief who lost his chieftaincy recently in a high court litigation challenging his legitimacy in Sami district, put it to me some time in 1997, it pays to have a Badgie or Gibba as a surname in Jammeh’s Gambia. He confided to me that he wouldn’t mind and in fact largely thinking of subtly changing the Comma in his surname to Badgie and even considers marrying a "Jola" woman. This he opined is just akin to being in Europe and marrying a white woman to legalise yourself so you can milk the system at the highest level. Shortly after he told me this, I was to learn that he got appointed the Chief of Sami District. You couldn’t make it up but it is simply the truth. So, imagined and indeed, self-imposed ethnic marginalisation or grievances became the premise for unlegislated affirmative action in the Gambia and the domination at any rate of "Jolas" in especially the top brass of the military and law enforcement agencies.

The army and the law enforcement agencies are a special case since they are Jammeh’s biggest, staunchest and fanatical constituency. Here, I am made to understand by one insider, that quotas have literally been set by default as ethnic intakes are closely scrutinised by Jammeh himself and a few close aides. All new intakes are vetted for political and or other affiliations and ethnic numbers checked by Jammeh and his henchmen to "balance the books" properly. Indeed, the case has been made that in the final analysis, since Jammeh has no intention of ever stepping down even if routed in an election, the army would be the instrument to impose his will on the Gambian people. If it comes to an all out war, then he is ready for his henchmen control the top brass to the bottom rung of the army and the police. These top brass and to some degree the bottom rung, it must be emphasized are unwaveringly and fanatically committed to the "cause" and irreducibly Jammeh to their core.

Brigands of political correctness supplying antidote to the charges I levelled against Jammeh above are quick to point out the likes of brave and conscientious Senegambians like Shyngle Nyassi and others of different ethnic make up who are part of the opportunistic circle preying on Jammeh as signs that there is no connectivity of the "Jola" conspiracy to the Jammeh Mess. Here, I must pause and debunk carefully their assertions. The best plausible example of who Shyngle Nyassi reminds me of is Noam Chomsky. Chomsky, him of Jewish extraction, is perhaps the best-known ferocious critic of Zionism and at constant loggerheads with mainstream American Jewry. Chomsky is an outcast in the American Jewish Establishment largely considered a heretic just as mainstream "Jola" opinion holds Nyassi in similar contempt. Just as for every Chomsky there are more than 20 Zionists, so for every Nyassi there are probably 20 out there who think highly of a crackpot like Jammeh and who would not hesitate to express support for him. If indeed, "Jola" intellectuals, elite and mainstream opinion is not in favour of Jammeh, and in the very words of Mafy "If Jammeh is playing the ethnic card, all of these secretaries of state would have been Jolas, and surely, he could have filled all these positions will Jola intelligentsia even from this Gambia-l alone" then why are these some two dozen "Jola" intellectuals on Gambia-L not joining the fray in condemning the murder of school children and other forms of repression that are mounted against others of other ethnic make-up? The truth, though difficult to gulp, is that the vast majority of the "Jola" people are not opposed to Jammeh and would vote for him come 2001. On the opportunistic vultures preying on Jammeh and of different ethnic make-up, these are mere paid pipers to parrot the Jammeh all-inclusive compassionate narrative with no influence or power except when they are let loose to unleash terror on civilians. Hardly an empirical of gauging complicity. It is matter of everyday life reality in today’s Gambia that real and all powers emanate from Kanilai. Suffice to assert here, that power resides solely with Jammeh and indeed, asymmetrical. Jammeh is a law unto himself.

This "Jola" conspiracy shouldn’t be viewed separately from its Casamance connection/strands. Banjul and in fact the Gambia is now a hotbed for MFDC overt and covert activities with the open knowledge of Jammeh. Jammeh is well known to dine, wine and entertain with elements of the MFDC high command especially the evil and ubiquitous Alexandre Djiba, the movement’s spokesman. It is an open secret that injured MFDC combatants are known to be treated in Gambian hospitals. Djiba’s comments on BBC Radio during the weekend that "the Gambia, Casamance and Bissau are one country" was for the first time a top official of the MFDC to lay bare their objectives in the open. Though this movement on the face of it espouses civic nationalist self-determination for the Peoples of Casamance, there is incriminating evidence as Wade found much to his horror that at best this is an ethnic aspiration mounted by a largely "Jola" elite in Casamance who are cooperating with elements in the Gambia as high as the president himself and do harbour a grand design of establishing a "Jola" nation-state straddling the Gambia, Casamance and Bissau. As Jammeh and his cronies in the MFDC are learning to their chagrin, Wade is no Diouf. Liberal he is but no political naivete. Wade has grasped the reality of the matter in Casamance: That the insurrectionist whilst speaking the language of pseudo-Marxist Pan Africanism, they are nothing but ethnic purificationists and myth-makers who harbour ethnic plans for the Senegambia Region. By sidelining Jammeh from the talks, he had deprived the MFDC one of their staunchest allies: Jammeh. Small wonder then that upon Jammeh’s butt being kicked out of the peace negotiations, Djiba made such incharitable bawling; commenting then that without Jammeh mediating, there could be no peace Casamance. A Freudian Slip on Djiba’s part? You bet! By recognising the ethnic strands and aspirations of the MFDC and its Gambian connection, Wade had bumped into a fundamental political truth: All nationalist aspirations in their embryonic stages take civic form and can be inclusive but in their logical conclusion, all nationalist movements in history have ended up in ethnic bigotry and reclamation of atavistic myths. By disposing of Jammeh, Wade has done a service to the Senegambian people. He must not flinch from his position of granting only a devolved or federalised autonomy for Casamance and not trade Senegalese sovereignty in the name of some peace that will revitalise other ethnic claims. For after Senegal, the next stop will either be the Gambia or Bissau. For the sake of the sub-region, he must not budge an inch. He should in fact be courting moderate voices like Seedy Badgie and Diamacoune who really interested in an inclusive federal Casamance.

Of course, choosing to labour on a controversial but hardly "sensitive" issue like ethnic bigotry in the Gambia and upbraiding the vast majority of "Jola" people for being in this with Jammeh will bring to the fore protests and false charges. It, however, is no facile generalisation, to comment that the vast majority of the "Jola" people don’t either want to see/belief in Jammeh’s evil attributes and as a result would over-look it to endorse him in any plebiscite. It is also no facile generalisation to claim that there is a conspiracy on the part of "Jola" elites, and intellectuals both in the Gambia and Casamance to resuscitate atavist ethnic claims on areas straddling the Bissau, Gambia and Casamance. Some would object that these are "sensitive" issues and must be swept under the carpet, but as Dr King Jr. puts it in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail, "like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured." As the rabid political correctness brigade prepares to attack me, I hope they ruminate on King’s wiseacres. We must all in the drive to "cure" the Senegambia Region of the nasty "boil" that is Jammeh and his MFDC cronies, gently and warmly exhort our "Jola" neighbours, families, and friends that a vote and or support for Jammeh and the MFDC is a vote/support against the Senegambia Family.

Hamjatta Kanteh