Strength of our Relationship
Former President D.K Jawara
When
I read Sir Dawdas' recently published autobiography Kairaba, the one
theme that has left a lasting impression on me is the relationship
between the Jawaras and Pa Yoma Jallow , a bond that started in the
dusty riverside trade post of Walikunda in the Gambian interior and
lasted a lifetime.We learn how Pa Yoma's generosity and relative far-sightedness combined with the warm relationship he had with Almamy
Jawara (Sir Dawda's father) who was a competing trader next door helped
shape the direction of not only a person but a whole country.
The
bumpy ride the young Jawara took in the back of Pa Yomas truck for the
multi-day journey to Bathurst to essentially go find his station in life
beyond what the adequate but ultimately confining environment of
Barajally could offer him, is illustrative of how personal relationships
often serve as important vehicles in a society with not very many
opportunities but brimming with folks with big hearts. Men like Pa Yoma
dotted riverside trading posts throughout Gambia making a living as
middlemen buying the produce from the farmers and selling them an
assortment of merchandise and often maintaining homes in both Banjul and
whatever trading post they were plying.
To
maximize their trading opportunities they cultivated ties with
established families within the jurisdictions they operated in and with time
those ties evolved into strong relationships that become familial in
nature, paving the way for opportunities such as schooling or
guardianship. Playing host to the many needy folks from upcountry often
tests the limited accomodation and overall resources of the people
involved but both guests and hosts endure and the net result continues
to provide those Gambians whose circumstances warrant these arrangements
with an opportunity to get ahead.
It
is important to note that these relationships are not confined to
traders or the greater Banjul area alone, but rather are a society-wide
trend from civil servants on assignment in different parts of the
country to regular residents of towns and villages. The common
denominator is the use of a personal relationship to help provide an
opportunity for an individual
for essentially altruistic purposes and in the process spawning a long term bond that, if nurtured, strengthens with time.
for essentially altruistic purposes and in the process spawning a long term bond that, if nurtured, strengthens with time.
People
such as Sir Dawda who emerged from these arrangements tend to have a
broader and more sophisticated understanding of our diverse culture as a
result of the exposure to people who spoke different languages and hued
to traditions and approaches that are not exactly the same as the
conservative set up of his native Barajally..He thus became the product
of the value system he was born into fused with the environment of his
formative years in the household of Pa Yoma on Wellington street. He
quickly understood the value of change and adapting as a means to
success by dabbling into everything, from changing his name, to changing his
religion, and a range of things in between.
When
politics came along , his life story uniquely prepared him to pursue a
vision that dwarfed the sectarian and self-serving agendas of his
competitors with its emphasis on expanding the political space and
aiming for self determination. He succeeded because his overall aims
were concordant with what he knew to be our strength and that is our
diverse nature. That also explains why he moved quickly to purge his
party of people who thought dividing Gambians was a worthy political
pursuit as long as it helped them get ahead.
The
legacy he has left us is one that should remind all of us that there is at
most about one degree of separation between one Gambian and the other
and that anytime we face important national questions as we currently
do, the solution will come from strategies that seek to bring the best
in people to pursue a unified purpose.The relationships that bind us
either as individuals, families, and as communities, run deeper than most
of us realise and the wise among us are the ones who strive to nurture
that.
What
has become very disheartening in our struggle to change the evil regime
of Yayha Jammeh is how constraining the overall battle for the very
life of our country has become with predictable and stale arguments
and a strong appetite for the petty.
The national discourse has careened
dangerously away from problem-solving, with those best-suited to help
craft the way forward increasingly choosing to stay out of national
life. If this current trend continues, it will have the effect of the
good Gambians De Facto conceding their nation and their future to a very
bad man and his minions.
We
have to change in order to demand and ultimately deliver change itself.
Let us rededicate ourselves to doing good and uniting folks for our
national struggle and not be mired in polarization or pay heed to those
who are not about solutions but see public discourse only as a platform
to sow discord. You can sight them from a mile away, with their incessant
need to have someone to blame, zero participation in any actual practical
effort but having the biggest mouth because empty rhetoric costs
nothing and the worst of them can't even own up to their own actual identity even as they insist that their opinions count.
These
are not the people who will deliver change because they are by nature
an aberration of what it means to be a good citizen. They won't vote, they
won't work to make other people vote, they surely wont fight when that
becomes necessary but they would have plenty to say about how other
people should shed their blood for them in their trite nameless and
faceless demands. In the end I am confident most folks will draw on the
ties that bind us and forge a way forward through consensus-building,
moderation and positive use of the extensive relationships that defines
who we are.
Karamba