Culled from Allafrica. "This is lunacy. Allah has absolutely nothing to do with our incompetence, greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, dishonesty and out right dishonourable and uncourageous attitude that has been the result of the present situation in which we find ourselves today instead, we do. And this is the state of our nation. We never learn because of our lunacy but it takes a realization of this lunacy to make this possible. If we cannot then it goes to show the extent to which our lunacy has deepens." This quote to me, sums our mindset regarding the Gambian state. Please read on. Our State of Nationhood; Our Lunacy (Part Two) The Independent (Banjul) EDITORIAL March 3, 2003 Posted to the web March 3, 2003 Banjul We are in desperate times and our lunacy is getting all the more obvious if not incurably blatant. It is lunacy because transportation fares have increased, whilst salaries have remained the same, and yet no-one it seems, wants to know why but instead turned up to work late, or don't bother turning up at all and would rather place blame on taxi drivers with the hope that they would look kindly on passengers and reconsider the tariffs. And yet it is largely ignored that these taxi drivers also have families that are hard hit by the price increases in the domestic market. This is lunacy. It is lunacy that those who have to address these problems, have elected to make a complete detour from the burning issues of the day. The president and his entourage during their Meet the Peoples Tour rather expended their energies on declaring an anti-nawettan policy with the vain hope of boosting agricultural yields. Even if we are to agree that such a ban would discourage "footballing idleness" and encourage "agricultural usefulness" what guarantees are there that the "good yields" at the end of the day would be bought by the government. What guarantees exist that out comfortless farmers would not be provided with annoying promissory notes that does not pay school fees, secure a bag of rice and provide for the general upkeep of the average farming family. It is lunacy to ignore the fact that nothing works by coercion especially for the youth who need sport to liven them up in these days of dampening national morale. It is lunacy that while we should learn from the bitter and bloody lessons of our war-ravaged neighbours, we hear and entertain, inflammatory statements. It is lunacy because this as in the past will fan the flames of political hatred and antagonism and eventually set us on the path of self-abnegation. It is lunacy that while other nations the world over are striving for excellence we in The Gambia cushion ourselves and are apologetic about our poor performance as a nation by always looking at countries that are obviously less fortunate than we Gambians: Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and of late Ivory Coast and dare to compare ourselves with them and in the process convince our sorry selves that "at least we are not as bad as they are". As obvious and as pathetically clear that we are certainly not as bad, we should also realize that we couldn't get any worse than they are. In essence, if Gambians are only good enough to compare themselves with the down trodden, and nations afflicted by brutal civil strife, then this is lunacy. It is lunacy because in the same vein we muster on blaming all our domestic woes on "external factors" -"there is a world recession going on so we are affected by it" our leaders trumpet, fine then why do we not benefit when there is boom in the same global economy? We instead either remain the same or plunge even further down the economic ladder? This is lunacy. It is lunacy because all of these concerns are not alien to Gambians, we have experienced them before, and yet we pretend that it is an a primary occurrence, and would as a result fade away with the magic wand of fatalism- "Allah's wish" - This is lunacy. Allah has absolutely nothing to do with our incompetence, greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, dishonesty and out right dishonourable and uncourageous attitude that has been the result of the present situation in which we find ourselves today instead, we do. And this is the state of our nation. We never learn because of our lunacy but it takes a realization of this lunacy to make this possible. If we cannot then it goes to show the extent to which our lunacy has deepens. Sad for us all. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~