By Baba Galleh Jallow
The conviction of six Gambian journalists by a Nigerian judge of the High Court is not an imposition of justice. It is a denial of justice. People who rightly commit crimes may justly be convicted and sentenced in a court of law. But the six journalist jailed by Emmanuel Fangbele have not committed any crime. They are merely victims of a political dispensation that is totally and absolutely under the control of one individual who has made himself synonymous with all the institutions of state, all the arms of government, and the very law itself. These six innocent people were put through the formal motions of trial, but they were presumed guilty the day they were arrested and were presumed guilty throughout the process of their so-called trial.
The kind of situation under which these six journalists were put on trial and sentenced can only happen in an environment of despotism where there is absolutely no regard for the rule of law, the constitution, and human worth as far as these run counter to the whims and caprices of the despot himself. Sending six innocent persons to jail for merely criticizing remarks by the president is the height of judicial hypocrisy and a demonstration of extreme contempt for the Gambian people, the Gambian nation, and the sensibilities of human kind in general. It is a classical manifestation of the nature of African despotism, which is guided by neither ideology nor even vision, but merely by the greed for power and an obsessive desire to impose by force what has been called “a culture of monolithic uniformity.” A uniformity of views, opinions, desires, actions, and aspirations that must all be co-terminus with those of the blind-minded and blind-hearted despot himself.
In an African despotism such as we now have in The Gambia, there is a great deal of empty talk about patriotism, about enemies of the nation, about the determination of the despot – who pretends to love the country more than anyone else – to fight and subdue all so-called unpatriotic forces in the country. The label of traitor – which the despot rightfully carries – is instead slapped on all who dare to question the words or actions of the despot. All citizens are expected to crawl on all fours, to be willfully blind to the dictates of truth and justice, and to swallow all lies and injustices uttered by the despot. Those self-respecting citizens who refuse to do so are summarily brought before emasculated judiciaries and sentenced to jail terms or heavy fines. If they are particularly critical of the despot, they are brutally murdered or made to disappear. Such was the fate of the students of April 2000, of Deyda Hydara, and of Chief Ebrima Manneh, to cite a few examples from The Gambia. The African despot is a fascist without even the benefit of a fascist ideology to guide his actions. At least the kind of fascism that existed in Italy under Mussolini was built around a set of ideas which could be analyzed and exposed for what they were. In an African despotism such as we now have in The Gambia, all there is to analyze is the dark and evil personality of the despot himself, which is so empty of substance that one is hard-pressed to find a point of analytic departure.
In an African despotism, the frontiers between penal and non-penal deeds are totally effaced. The law becomes not an instrument for the punishment of criminals, or an institution for the maintenance of peaceful order, but a bogey for the frightening of the population and a sword for the slaughter of principles and human dignities. African despotisms turn the law into a malignant instrument of remote control and surveillance in the service of the callous despot. The law watches out for wrong smiles on the faces of people looking at an image of the despot, listens to wrong words spoken in reference to the despot, browses the pages of journals for wrong words directed at the person of the despot. In every case, the law, now transformed into a monstrous public enemy number one, is ready to pounce on perceived offenders and tear them into shreds for the benefit of the despot.
In an African despotism such as we now have in The Gambia, society becomes reduced to a giant masquerade of lies and pretences. All who wish to survive are compelled to keep their minds dormant and their mouths shut. People are compelled to deny their true opinions and express only fake opinions in praise of the despot. An atmosphere of general mistrust is created in work places and public places because unprincipled liars have made it dangerous to express any opinions that are not complimentary to the despot. Unscrupulous and callous individuals take advantage of the high premium placed on sycophancy and lying to cook up stories of unpatriotism against innocent folks and deliver them up to the monster despot. Jealous individuals eying top positions in work places can have their colleagues removed by telling lies about them to the despot.
In such a society, the despot divides the people into two factions. Those who negate their humanity, ignore truth and justice, willfully lie and torture innocent individuals are considered the good and the loyal. Those who cling on to their humanity, who insist on telling the truth, who speak up for justice, who will never lie and refuse to crawl on their stomachs like miserable reptiles – those are considered the criminal elements. Society is therefore stood directly on its head: Truth becomes lies, lies truth. Injustice parades around as justice and the law is rendered an instrument of illegality and criminality. Criminals are glorified and the innocent harshly punished. These are the dialectics of African despotism, the dialectics that have dragged many African societies into the hellhole of violent conflict; the dialectics that Yahya Jammeh has now imposed upon The Gambia; the dialectics that must be understood and neutralized before it is too late. Or is it already too late?
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