What Yahya did and succeeded so far was what Dadis wanted to do......"Dadis Must stay", and failed miserably, almost losing his useful life in the process. Should Yahya be allowed to succeed, Gambians will be left to wallow in the wretched residue of their own designs. This will not stand. Thanx Galleh. I plead with you to continue. Can't wait for the Caesarian-Section. Haruna. -----Original Message----- From: Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> To: New Gambia-L <[log in to unmask]>; New GambiaPost2 <[log in to unmask]>; STGDP <[log in to unmask]>; GPU-USA Group <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 10:36 am Subject: The Real July 22nd Revolution - B Section The Real July 22nd Revolution - B Section: Broken Promises By Baba Galleh Jallow Yahya Jammeh and the apologists for his regime are always quick to dismiss any thoughts coming from people like me as mere grammatical expressions, hot wind that will quickly dissipate into nothingness, and that is of no serious consequence whatsoever. They are always quick to dismiss such statements as the opinionated rantings of angry critics, mere empty polemics undeserving of any attention at all. But the real July 22nd revolution is neither a grammatical expression nor an opinionated ranting or empty polemics. It is not a statement at all. It is a phenomenon. An essence. One as real as The Gambia itself. It is a spirit that penetrates every pore on the skin of the Gambian body politic; it is part of the very air that every Gambian breathes. It enters and exits the nostrils and blood stream of Yahya Jammeh, as it does the nostrils and bloodstreams of all Gambians. Trying to dismiss it out of hand is like trying to dismiss the very idea and essence of Gambia out of hand, for these are themselves embedded within the Nation Mind that expresses the spirit of the real July 22nd revolution. Every grain of Gambian sand, every particle of Gambian soil, every drop of Gambian water, is infused with the spirit of the real July 22nd revolution. Like the Gambian land itself, the real July 22nd revolution is embedded within the essence of the Gambian past, the Gambian present, and the Gambian future. It traverses and transcends the very concepts of Gambian temporality and spatiality. The spirit of the real July 22nd revolution expresses itself on the pages of the Gambian online media that have sprouted forth in the last few years. For this reason as well, the real July 22nd revolution may not be, cannot be, dismissed out of hand. Even the most fanatic of Jammeh apologists cannot deny the import of Gambian listservs like the Gambia L and the Gambia Post, for they are themselves active participants in these public fora. Nor can anyone in their sound minds deny that what is published on Freedom Newspaper, Gainako, The Gambia Echo, the Gambia Journal, Senegambia News, Jollof News, and Maafanta, among others, deals mostly with issues of interest to The Gambia and Gambians. These are all expressions of the spirit of the real July 22nd revolution, the one that evolved in stubborn resistance to Yahya Jammeh’s politics of impunity. Through their pages, the real July 22nd revolution asserts its right to say no to injustice, no to oppression, no to mindless wastage of our national resources, and no to Yahya Jammeh himself, because he has betrayed the trust of the Gambian people; because he has turned his own people into his worst enemies; and because he routinely inflicts unjustifiable acts of bullying on innocent people. Through the pages of these online media and these listservs, the real July 22nd revolution asserts it right to have a say in the affairs of the Motherland. No one can deny it that right. And no one can wish it away. Yes, the spirit of the real July 22nd revolution is an angry spirit. It lays claim to rightful indignation at the cavalier and unjust manner in which Yahya Jammeh presides over the affairs of the Gambian nation. If Yahya Jammeh were to have just one lasting legacy, it will be the legacy of having acted so unjustly and oppressively that he provoked the birth of the spirit of the real July 22nd revolution. Having seized power from Sir Dawda, Yahya Jammeh had a choice to act differently than he has acted. He had a choice to do the right thing and the honorable thing, and thus honorably to complete the mission he had claimed to set out to complete. He chose to act dishonorably; he chose to barter his personal integrity for the trappings of power. And he tried to bully Gambians into becoming unquestioning cowards who will nod to everything he does, assent to everything he says, right or wrong, truth or lies. To a some extent, he has succeeded. If I call my friend in Gambia and start criticizing Yahya Jammeh, my friend immediately cautions me to stop that talk. Anything that has been reduced to ‘that talk’ provokes terrible dread in the hearts of the people and therefore represents an unhealthy presence in society. Gambians do not deserve to live in perpetual fear; fear of the army; fear of the police; fear of the NIA; fear of Yahya Jammeh. A true revolutionary leader inspires love and respect, not disgust and crippling fear, in the hearts of his people. In a truly revolutionary Gambia, my friend could have loudly responded to my criticism of Yahya Jammeh that definitely, he should do better. But no, he is afraid that his cell phone is tapped; or that someone passing by might be an NIA informant! Yahya Jammeh stands accused of turning The Gambia into a state of fear, and many Gambians into a mute mass of silently suffering victims. This is an unacceptable condition that the real July 22nd revolution seeks to remedy. The real July 22nd revolution poses a number of legitimate questions to Yahya Jammeh; questions over his decision to repeatedly make solemn promises to the Gambian people and repeatedly break them with total impunity, without even as much as a single word of explanation; questions over his assumption of the right to rule The Gambia indefinitely; questions over why he heard the voice of the Gambian people loud and clear, but chose to set it aside and pursue his own personal agenda. We will explain. The real July 22nd revolution knows that shortly after he and his henchmen took over power and installed themselves as the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council, Yahya Jammeh repeatedly declared that he had no intention of staying in power beyond a transition period of four years. A loud protest from the general public led him into setting up a National Consultative Committee. Chaired by the late, widely respected Gambian poet and physician Dr. Lenrie Peters, the membership of the NCC included such prominent public figures as Bishop Michael Cleary, Anglican Bishop of Banjul; Lawyer Howsoon Semega Janneh; Businessman Raif Diab; noted Historian Alhagie A.E. Cham Joof; Poet and writer Gabriel Roberts; the murdered Point editor Deyda Hydara; Bishop Tilewa Johnson; Women’s activist and respected journalist Amie Joof-Cole; Labor unionist Pa Modou Fall; chiefs representing several districts across the country; some members of the July 22nd Movement; and my humble self, among others. The NCC’s brief was to carry out nation wide consultations with all sections of the Gambian public with a view to finding out how long the majority of Gambians wanted the soldiers to stay in power before handing over to a civilian regime. The Committee was to also sound the public’s opinion on the question of term limits for the president; should there be any? If so, how long should they be? If not, why not? The NCC launched into its task with genuinely patriotic fervor. All members believed that if the soldiers needed their help and asked for it, they should be given that help with an open heart. The respectable figures on the committee left their personal businesses and devoted days and weeks to the honorable task of national duty. After several weeks of painstaking work with different groups assigned to different divisions, districts and wards across the country, the NCC reconvened in Banjul and put together its report, meticulously making sure that the responses of the Gambian people are properly represented in both writing and graph form. It found that the majority of Gambians wanted a two-year as opposed to a four-year transition period, and that a majority of Gambians wanted two five-year term limits for the president. Yahya Jammeh dutifully accepted the report. He thanked the NCC and solemnly promised that he would follow the wishes of the Gambian public to the letter. Soon afterwards, he declared that the AFPRC has shortened the transition period to two years and that he would make sure that the draft constitution of the Second Republic would have a two five-year term limit for the president. In an interview with a Gambian news outlet, Yahya Jammeh is on record as saying that he would never allow anyone to stay in power for more than ten years; “In fact, ten years is too much” are his exact words. Why then is he in power sixteen years later? The real July 22nd revolution claims the right to know. The real July 22nd revolution recognizes that Yahya Jammeh willfully orchestrated an excuse to break his promise to the Gambian people without even an explanation, not to say an apology. As the two-year transition period neared its end, Yahya Jammeh willfully orchestrated the phenomenon of the opinion leaders. Members of his government and the July 22nd Movement hired buses and ferried loads of so-called opinion leaders from all over the country to State House in Banjul to beg Yahya Jammeh to stay in power. Whatever their numbers, these so-called opinion leaders represented a minority of Gambians. During the NCC consultations, many Gambians did indeed ask that Yahya Jammeh should stay in power indefinitely. Their words and opinions were duly reflected in the NCC report. Even the views of those who literally asked that he should stay in power for a thousand years were duly expressed in the report. But these were in the minority and their views should never have been allowed to over ride the views of the majority. Yahya Jammeh could have acted honorably and refused to accept the pleas of the opinion leaders, were it not a fact that he was complicit in the staging of the whole strange spectacle. Even before he decided to forever drop his military uniform, Yahya Jammeh repeated a fatal blunder committed by Sir Dawda Jawara just a few years before at Mansa Konko. The real July 22nd revolution presents this episode as incontrovertible evidence that Yahya Jammeh’s interest was not in correcting the wrongs of the past, but in seizing and staying in power, no matter what. Now he is in the habit of loudly declaring that he will be in power for the next forty years, ten years longer Sir Dawda, the man he accused of having overstayed in power. Having thrown his first promise to return to barracks to the dogs, Yahya Jammeh proceeded to finish the job with supreme indifference to his own personal integrity and the feelings of the majority of the Gambian people. He had the provisions for a two five-year presidential term limit expunged from the text of the newly drafted Constitution of the Second Republic. It was common knowledge that the constitutional review commission had included such a provision in their draft in accordance with the findings of the NCC report. For this action, Yahya Jammeh stands further accused of insulting the intelligence of the Gambian public and trampling on their rights to periodic and peaceful changes of leadership for which they opted. Were he not so incredibly greedy for power and wealth, Yahya Jammeh could have left the provision intact, served ten years as President of the Republic, and gracefully stepped down and aside for another Gambian leader. Then, he could have laid legitimate claim to revolutionary stature. Great revolutionary minds never fall for the trappings of unending power and wealth, for they would know that these are merely transitory and illusory. Little minds, on the other hand, are incapable of seeing beyond the glare and the glitter of the power moment. Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in Apartheid’s notorious prisons but chose to serve only one term as president of a liberated South Africa. He could have served for at least two terms. And he could have chosen to serve for as long as he desired. It is not inconceivable that were Mandela to attempt staying longer in power, he could have easily won re-election. He can rightfully lay a claim to revolutionary stature, which he has earned anyway. Yahya Jammeh cannot. Even if all the Fundamental universities in the world were to grant him honorary doctorates and professorships, Yahya Jammeh can never become bigger than what he is – a leader who has broken his promises to the Gambian people; who heard the voice of the people but set it aside to pursue his own dreams of power and glory; and who has sold his personal honor and integrity for the transient trappings of wealth and political power. Yet, how big his name sounds beside the name of that great mind. Nelson Mandela remains Nelson Mandela, in spite of the numerous awards and honorary doctorates he has received. Yahya Jammeh is now Sheikh Professor Doctor Alhaji Yahya Abdul Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. These names and titles ring hollow and empty in the ears of the real July 22nd revolution; they represent an almost unbearable embarrassment to the national conscience; and they have been duly labeled, catalogued, and stored in their rightful place within the larger scheme of things. The real July 22nd revolution knows that men who adopt lengthy names and tendentious titles often have something very small to hide – their minds; an inner emptiness they are always trying to fill, but which remains hopelessly empty. God willing, in C Section of this series, we shall continue to demonstrate why the real July 22nd revolution accuses Yahya Jammeh of having a little mind. Among many other things, we shall demonstrate that little is the mind that, perched on the pinnacle of martial power, goes hunting for witches among poor villagers, causing poor elders to publicly soil their garbs, killing some in the process. Little is the mind that allows itself to be afflicted with Hubris. Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤