UDP US Chapter didn’t misled freedom radio Audience
Dear Editor (Mr. Mbye),
Please kindly allow me to set the records straight in regards to who is wrong and right on the dispute between Mr. Faila Baldeh and the US section of the UDP. I listened to the radio dispute.
Your editorial caption seems to defend Mr. Faila Baldeh and rejects the UDP US section as populist non-tolerant Mandinka folks trying to undermine internal critics. However the venue of this dispute is not anymore internal or within UDP, instead Mr. Baldeh has brought his grievances to your medium thus the UDP has to treat it as such and react to it as if it is a public dispute. It would have been a tactical suicide if they take it lightly.
Your role as publisher and editor is clear and you did that quite well in this matter. That is, you brought discontented party member grievances to the limelight of the public. It’s important that members as well as non members have the media where they can report and spread their views. This is helpful because it sometimes forces the party or association to listen better to its members or in any case their stakeholders. Now the question is whether Mr. Baldeh has chosen the best media to voice out his views or not?
I think he has not chosen well if he is a member of the UDP party. The UDP has many channels to voice out such grievances and he should have exhausted all those channels of influences before coming out with this topic at a time when the party is consolidating its resources for an election year. Because everyone knows that such change has to be effected way back before the election year. If UDP will change Lawyer Darboe they will require a huge logistical and advertisement undertaking to sell the new person to Gambians. Secondly such changes cannot be forced through a newspaper which as an entity is following its entitled goals and objectives, which a big party like the UDP can’t afford to react to. Leadership change must be a long term strategic objective which should only be abruptly changed in case of emergency.
However Mr. Baldeh has chosen well if he is just a voter and voted for the UDP many times and want them to change strategy. I don’t dispute his loyalty to the party and therefore as a voter he has the right to get something for his efforts and vote. By going to the press he can stimulate a constructive discussion and since we are in an election year we can all debate the merits and demerits of a leadership change in this crucial year for our country. But by giving the impression that he is talking on behave of the UDP, which is unfortunate since such discussion should be made in closed door UDP meeting as a party member. If a member of any club just goes online and charges his own club of cruelness and tribalism then we question the motives of such actions.
The reaction of the UDP section is understandable because it’s about defending unity and morale within their ranks. They show that you can only talk for them if they give you the allowance to so. Otherwise you have to do so as an entitled private voter. Any organizations from enterprises to even families have their rules governing what should be said outside and how it should be said. In this line of argument I think the editor’s call for the disbanding of the UDP US section is premature and cannot be in the true interest of the Party.
I will conclude on tribalism because very often when we discuss national issues, the notion of Mandinka intolerance implicitly comes out. This dispute is no exception. I think we can even turn it around and say that there is an increasing intolerance towards Mandinka contributors to the media and even discomfort among some people of other ethnic origin that UDP has many Mandinka supporters. This I find disturbing because for example the biggest base of opposition to Jawara rule came from the Mandinkas in the Gambia. The consequence of such a prejudice can also lead to the hardening of the Mandinka ethnic group one day or the other. This is not what we want. We want national identification and that cannot be achieved if we push anyone or group to the sidelines.
Kemo Kinteh Switzerland
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