Due to the confusion on the part of many on the choice of the subject heading “of Goats and Politics”, let me pause a little to explain the reason behind it. Like I said before, from Youssou Ndure’s most recent album, there is a very beautiful and inspiring song called baye. In that song Youssou explains the wisdom of goats mingling with their goat folks and warns of the danger of them mingling with other species of the animal kingdom. In it he explains how the offspring of a particular animal befriended a crocodile once and never returned to its mother by evening time. He sites the example of hyenas mingling only with hyenas, tigers with tigers, lions with lions and elephants with elephants. Continuous throughout the song he warns the goats to be careful of the company they keep. He constantly appealed to the goats to realise that if they don’t keep company with their fellow goats, they might find themselves accompanying the “Cherreh” or the “Dahinne”. One of the vocalists of the group summarises it thus: With goats he can eat his “Cherreh”, with goats he can eat his “Dahinne” and finally use the hide to make his drum. He therefore declared that he would always vote for the goat. The meaning I deduced from the song reminded me of the joke about politics that I was told a couple of years ago. It then dawned on me that I should try, in my own little way; to explain why we are in the situation we are in today and how dangerously we tend to be mingling with the other species of the animal kingdom. Anybody of sound mind and cares about the country cannot fail to realise how dangerously high the political climate in The Gambia is today. Militant supporters on both sides of the political divide seem to be bracing themselves for the ultimate showdown. Speeches from both sides indicate a total lack of tolerance, bordering on absolute hatred of each other. The media coverage is doing very little to calm things down. The efforts of the likes of Ousman Manjang, Mohamed Sillah and Emanuel Joof to try to calm things down is a clear manifestation of this impending danger. I should know ‘cause I do spend some time with each of them from time to time and each time our discussions focus on the good job they are doing and how important it is that we avoid any form of conflict in The Gambia. To me, the goat is synonymous of The Gambian People while any form of conflict will only make us accompany the “Cherreh” or the “Dahinne”. This is complicated by the fact that recently Gambians have been exposed violent crimes unknown to us until very recently. Hardly a week goes by without you hearing of some violently attacked. While I am not xenophobic, I am very wary of what role the huge number of refugees we are harbouring, many of whom have witnessed some form of violence that most Gambians cannot imagine possible. This, I cannot do unless I explain why The Gambian populace is so polarized, with some on either side of the political divide, are ready to lay down their lives for what they consider a just cause. Call me selfish, call me indifferent but I, Pamodou Gassama, am not willing to die for any of their causes. I very much believe in Elmer G. Letterman’s quote: “A man’s greatest strength develops at the point where he overcomes his greatest weakness”. To me man’s greatest weaknesses are pride and ego. Add to that narrow mindedness and intolerance, and you have a primed time bomb. Having posted part 2 of “Of Goats and Politics” that concluded the areas that I strongly feel that the former regime let us down, The next part will deal with how the AFPRC/APRC took advantage of them and built a solid support base. Have a good day, Gassa. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------