*Correction: Marcel's last name is Badjie. She hailed from Kanillai. Like Chief E. Manneh and Jasaja Kujabi, no one knows about her whereabout. I heard she is a woman that resisted Jammeh's terror. 






“In this article, I propose to expose some of the many ironies and paradoxes of Jammeh’s UN speech by highlighting the fact that what is true of the international system, is also true of the national system that he lords it over. The world is composed of a series or layers of systems ranging from the global to the local and domestic. And what is not okay at the global level is not okay at the local or domestic level. If exploitation and oppression is not okay at the global level, it is also not okay at the regional, sub-regional, or national level, a fact that is clearly lost on our self-anointed African revolutionary leader. A few examples and quotations from his speech will illustrate this point.” Galleh, September 2009.

 

Bro Bailo,
 
Well put about Galleh's write-up in short analysis.
 
It was Quinton Cummings who can be credited with the saying, “They speak to you like angels and they behave like stupid human beings.” If a modification of quotes can be excusable, I would have said “They speak to you like angels, and they behave like demons.”  My insertion above is not out of arrogance, nor is it out of respect for a supposed leader of a nation, but is a plain fact. Herein again, we’ve seen the usual hypocrisy and portraying of self-righteousness. They are teething wolves in sheep’s skins. Whoever wrote that speech for him is unfair to history, because this is a clear intention to distort history. The reason why I said that is because if those elders of Jambur, Sintet and Makumbayaa were to be asked about their encounter of alleged witch crafting, and the same speech of Jammeh is read to them, the sound that comes out from their minds is “chem lakad!” The same will be with the families of Chief Manneh, Marcel Badjie, Jasaja Kujabi, Kanyiba Kanyi…and the unending list.  Jammeh’s words are mere utterances.  Probably, I just like Galleh, will go down in history for refusing to give Jammeh any credit of achievement, just because 3% of alleged development is too negligible to stand the 97% abuse of power. I think the lengthy write-up is wholly summed by this one paragraph above. It is very ironical to see Jammeh acting as a victim of cyber warriors. In the final, it is with certainty of knowledge that the news is reached to Jammeh that his time will be one day over; the same way there is no Pharaoh of Egypt today; no Edi Amin of Uganda; no Charles Taylor of Liberia; no Saihou Touray of Guinea; and the unending list of renowned dictators.  Jammeh is a dictator; a fetish leader; a criminal ruler and one that is very desperate at that. 
 
Thanks Baba. It is accurately put in text without any exaggeration once again. 
 
yj

There is no god but Allah (SWT) and Muhammad (SAW) is His messenger. Fear and Worship only Allah alone!



  


Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:48:07 -0700
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Jammeh’s UN Speech: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black
To: [log in to unmask]





Baba Galleh asked: "Does Jammeh have the moral authority to champion the cause of “universal justice under the rule of law and equity” when he is himself one of the greatest violators of the tenets of justice, equity, and the rule of law in Africa?"
He simply does not. He ought to practice at home what he preaches internationally. Otherwise he is not only making a clown of himself upon the international scene but also manfiesting the symptons of the most dangerous, self-destructive heart diseases known to moslems as Al-munafiqun faasiqun.

"Is Jammeh not wealthier than the Gambia government?" (Baba Galleh)
He indeed is through personalising our State coffers. Gambians will someday surely recover whatever stolen assets he had not taken to Morrocco or elsewhere.

"Is he not the chief capitalist entrepreneur in The Gambia today, with business interests ranging from supermarkets to hotels, transportation, butcheries and bakeries?" (Baba Galleh)

He also certainly is. Attained through armed robbery in broad daylight. The chief armed robber in the Gambia is still at large. Beware Gambians. He is threatening to commit more murders.

"Africa is not poor in material resources but Africans are the poorest of the poor because we have corrupt governments and greedy and grabbing leaders like Yahya Jammeh who hold our nations hostage." (Baba Galleh)

Wallahi Ko gongamah, Allah koh seddeh!



"Ideas are the oil with which the engine of development is greased. Stop killing ideas and Africa will be well on its way out of its seemingly chronic stagnation."


As far as Yahya Jammeh is concerned, he will not only kill ideas but would go further to kill the people with the ideas different from his; He thinks he would be the last man standing in the Gambia. Wishful thinking on his part. 



Baba, Thanks for another spot-on analysis.



Bailo






--- On Mon, 28/9/09, Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


From: Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Jammeh’s UN Speech: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, 28 September, 2009, 6:16 PM





Jammeh’s UN Speech: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black
By Baba Galleh Jallow
When Gambian president Yahya Jammeh took the stand at the 64th session of the UN General Assembly, it was inevitable that he would go on a verbal rampage, pointing accusing fingers, throwing punches in the air, and making grandiose pronouncements about Africa’s refusal to allow itself to be exploited or oppressed any further. In fact, he was so delusional as to give an ultimatum to the world body to “ensure that the continent of Africa has at least two permanent seats at the Security Council with full veto powers or else any resolution passed by the Security Council will not be binding on Africa or any AU Member State by the end of 2010.” How Mr. Jammeh hopes to enforce this threat beats the imagination.
It is true that Africa is marginalized and disadvantaged on many fronts within the international and United Nations systems. It is also true that Africa is being exploited by multinational corporations through their control and manipulation of world market prices and the failure to accord the continent the respect it deserves on an international political stage that is ostensibly one of equality of sovereign status. The irony is that Mr. Jammeh fails to realize that it is precisely because the international political and economic systems are interested only in the pursuance of their own selfish interests that he manages to get away with his ranting against exploitative “locusts” and his oppressive policies in his own country. He also fails to realize that he is able to stand before the world body and hurl invectives against Africa’s perceived enemies because of the world’s respect for freedom of expression, which he blatantly denies his own citizens at home.
In this article, I propose to expose some of the many ironies and paradoxes of Jammeh’s UN speech by highlighting the fact that what is true of the international system, is also true of the national system that he lords it over. The world is composed of a series or layers of systems ranging from the global to the local and domestic. And what is not okay at the global level is not okay at the local or domestic level. If exploitation and oppression is not okay at the global level, it is also not okay at the regional, sub-regional, or national level, a fact that is clearly lost on our self-anointed African revolutionary leader. A few examples and quotations from his speech will illustrate this point.
Jammeh starts off by declaring that “all nations big and small must adopt multilateralism and dialogue in fostering international partnership, and all matters of common concern to global peace and development.” Of course, in Jammeh’s estimation, such matters of concern to global peace and development do not include fair governance, respect for human rights, human security and respect for the rule of law at the national level. It is precisely African governments failure to accord due respect to these concerns that make possible their oppression and exploitation of innocent people and leads to the outbreak of conflicts and around Africa. Does Jammeh have the moral authority to champion the cause of “universal justice under the rule of law and equity” when he is himself one of the greatest violators of the tenets of justice, equity, and the rule of law in Africa?
What with Jammeh’s call on the United Nations to ensure that “impunity is abolished and the principle of equality among nation states . . . are (sic) safeguarded”? What best characterizes his regime and the regimes of most African dictators if not impunity and disrespect for the principle of equality among human beings? If equality among nations is desirable, what makes it undesirable among citizens of a country? Jammeh declares that “there cannot be peace and security in the absence of justice for all” and that “there cannot be justice if there is merciless exploitation, suppression, and criminal invasions of sovereign states.” Is there justice for all in The Gambia and other African countries? Is there not merciless exploitation, suppression and the criminal invasion of sovereign bodies in his own country? Of course, Jammeh is incapable of imagining that the concept of sovereignty applies to much more than the political state; that each citizen is a sovereign body within the general body politic. If sovereignty needs to be respected at the international nation-state level, it needs to be respected at the individual citizens’ level. 
Casting himself, albeit unsuccessfully, in the role of an African revolutionary leader offended at the injustice of the international capitalist economic system, Jammeh repeated the age-old accusation that in spite of Africa’s vast mineral wealth, the continent remains poor because of the nefarious activities and exploitative practices of multinational corporations (he calls them locusts). He baldly declares that “it is no fault of ours if we Africans are poor today.” While it is true that the international capitalist system is exploitative, and that Africans are being dealt a very bad hand by international finance capital, the era of blaming the West for Africa’s woes is passé. If there are international locusts, there are also continental, regional, and national locusts in the form of corrupt African governments and greedy despots who prey on the resources of their countries around the continent. Is Jammeh not wealthier than the Gambia government? Is he not the chief capitalist entrepreneur in The Gambia today, with business interests ranging from supermarkets to hotels, transportation, butcheries and bakeries? Africa is not poor in material resources but Africans are the poorest of the poor because we have corrupt governments and greedy and grabbing leaders like Yahya Jammeh who hold our nations hostage. 
Moreover, what exactly constitutes national poverty goes beyond the material or the fiscal. Africa remains financially poor because we are intellectually poor, because our greedy and grabbing despots have not allowed the prospering of constructive ideas that alone can lead to national development. Every piece of technology anywhere, every scientific innovation, every development, however great or small, is a product of the human mind. The systematic suppression of innovative thought in our continent from independence to date is primarily responsible for our financial poverty. Africa remains poor, materially, largely because our governments suppress our most precious resources – our minds. Needless censorship and the criminalization of speech is the chief culprit for our continued stagnation, not Jammeh’s so-called locusts, to whose grabbing community he himself belongs at the national level. 
When Jammeh declares that the multi national corporations’ “insatiable appetite for massive wealth at any cost has pushed them to the point of blindness and insensitivity to human suffering and loss of human life in the developing world especially in Africa,” the biting irony of his statement is lost upon him. Also lost upon him is the irony of his statement that “we must respect the fact that humanity is created to be diverse” and that “therefore there is bound to be diversity . . . in the way we live and differences in our beliefs.” He goes on to self-righteously declare that “diverse as we may (sic), we are part and parcel of the one human family created by the one and only God” and that “if we accept this principle that we are all human beings equal before the only God that created us, that differences  . . .do not make one less human than others then we will all live in perfect peace and harmony in this global village called the world.” The problem, he further says, “is that some play God and believe that . . .they are better than the rest of humanity and should dictate to them how they should live . . .” Who plays God better than Jammeh and his fellow African despots who try to dictate what words and thoughts are acceptable in countries that belong to all citizens equally? Did he not play God by declaring recently that he will “make sure” that people he sees as bringing disorder to his country are dead? 
If Jammeh just stopped for a moment and listened to himself, if he really believed in what he said at the United Nations, then he would have been a different person than he is. His irony-ridden speech is merely the proverbial case of the pot calling the kettle black. Injustice, exploitation, and oppression are wrong and deserving of condemnation and opposition, no matter where within the global system they happen to be taking place. Respect for diversity is as good for the international system as it is good for the national system. Equality of humanity is not a virtue only at the international level, it is also a virtue at the national and domestic levels. African leaders should stop whining and blaming the West for Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment because the greater bulk of the blame lies squarely on their shoulders. Ideas are the oil with which the engine of development is greased. Stop killing ideas and Africa will be well on its way out of its seemingly chronic stagnation.


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