Cousin, thanks for your great comments.... As to the sourcing... I was using my phone so didn't get to copy properly. Hope others could throw in their thoughts

On Friday, July 6, 2012, Haruna <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Cherokee, I am terribly disappointed in you here. This opinion piece you say you culled from Balafong is poorly-sourced. I hope you will do better in the future. I think your forwards from the FT were much better.
>
> While I anticipate your improvement, The author of this article does make some salient points on permutations for change. I think however he is a tad-bit harsh on Ndokeh. This is because whatever the author imagines to be the best approach to change or the best resultant Gambia after that change, it must not be completed by eschewing Ndokeh's contributions, an idea the author recognizes in the first few paragraphs. In other words, in change's journey, both Ndokeh and the ones Ndokeh derides, chides, or reprimands, are of intrinsic value to the dialogue the author hedges on.
>
> I encourage the author to reconsider the call to boycot Freedomnewspaper & Radio, based only on personal disdain of Ndokeh's antics if unsubbornedly narcissistic. The idea of change is necessarily iterative. Making loop-arounds on occasion to stitch loose ends together. The collateral damage of change falls within these and those extremes of that loop. It is common to have a few spokes here and there gesticulate outside of the loop but the solution is not to eliminate those spokes but to trim them to size or train them on compass. All within the framework of dialogue that the author so passionately yearns for.
>
> Thank you Cherokee for sharing nonetheless. I look forward to more comprehensive sourcing from you in the future.
>
> Haruna. I speak for Ky and Giuseppe here.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. Omar Kebbeh <[log in to unmask]>
> To: GAMBIA-L <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Fri, Jul 6, 2012 3:01 pm
> Subject: [G_L] open letter to freedom - a candid letter for pa nderry...
>
> I thought this is a good. What do my fellow post and L members think..... I culled it from balafong
> Dear Freedom,
>
> I have been reading you for the past month and a half, logging on every day to see the latest blaring headlines, and occasionally not turning off your online radio broadcast when it comes on automatically. Six weeks of giving you the benefit of the doubt, casting aside all my preconceived notions of you and trying to read you as you mean yourself to be read: as a newspaper out to achieve press freedom and keep an eye on the Government, in order to bring about change in Gambia. And the results are not very impressive.
>
> You never did learn diplomacy - this much was evident right from the beginning of my reading. Yet even that - a lack of tact - could be excused, if you were objective and fair in your coverage (or even tried to be), and carried your reporting out in good faith. But you are far from that - you are out for blood, each and every time, in each and every story, never even pretending otherwise. In your theory of the world no one can come close to the President (or indeed work in our government) without being irredeemably corrupt, doing everything they do for the achievement of their own personal interests, and against the country's. Surely only a moment's thought would show you that this theory is too simplistic, that it pays short shrift to all the hard-working Gambians back home, doing their bit for the country, helping to make it better. But to insult people is one thing; to then invite the perpetrator of the '81 coup - notable even after all this time for its terror and brutality - to return and overthrow our Government is something else entirely. The former is cheap tabloid behavior, execrable yet really not harming anyone and so easy to ignore; the latter is treasonous - not in the sense used lately to put down coup d'etats, but in a more fundamental sense of being so blinded by your own hatred that you would watch the motherland burn, and everything in it, without a second thought, and actually see this as a viable solution.
>
> The thing is, Oh Freedom, I don't think you quite understand the harm you are causing. You think you are bringing change to the country, when in fact what you are really doing is making it impossible to have a dialog. You are like the drunken man at the party, shouting out proclamations and insults, thumping your own chest and showing off just how brave you are. Everyone who listens knows not to take you too seriously, but because your voice is so loud it drowns out the voices of the others, who have legitimate opinions that do not necessarily align with your scorched-earth policy. You see conspiracies everywhere. You have made the Intelligence agencies far more powerful than they ever could have been without you - you have mythologized them almost: you present them as being everywhere, arresting people who even think of thinking about dissent. By your account Gambia has one of the worst dictatorships in the world, with ordinary Gambians always living in fear, the regime always on the verge of being toppled, and the country always going over to the dogs (at any minute now, you continue to assure usassure usassure us).
>
> There are, of course, flaws in our democracy. But this is nothing strange -after all what country does not have its own set of flaws? Our republic is still a very young one - we are only on our second President. And so there are things we will have to learn together as a nation: about we the governed, and those who govern us, and our relationship with them; as well as obstacles we will have to overcome together, again as a Nation. We can only do this if we are able to communicate with each other emphatically, disagreeing with yet still respecting each other, and having the ability to put ourselves in the other person's shoes, and see the argument as they see it, if only for a moment. We are blest in that our culture is already structured in this way - we go out of our way to be kind and courteous to each other, even when we are dealing with strangers (something you could learn a lot from, even though you exist on the Internet). But the discourse which you promote, Oh Freedom, is anything but empathic - it is antagonistic to the extreme, in its crude way setting up sides for each issue that comes up, hoarding hatred and distributing it to any who are interested to any who are interested, creating an Us-vs-Them mentality that effectively destroys the lines of communication between the parties involved, making it impossible to agree on anything, even if it is beneficial to our country. You have muddied the waters, made all parties suspicious of each other, and set us back decades in the project to achieve a more perfect democracy. Something puzzles me: what do you think you can achieve exactly, with such an approach? You think you can change the Gambia by insulting anyone and everyone freely, and coming up with one conspiracy theory after another, and continually descending to the lowest for Deep down, of course, I am filled with a sense of pessimism. I cannot see you changing, no matter how hard I try to imagine it - I'm afraid tomorrow I'll load up your site, and it'll be more of the same. Well in that case I see only one option: it is time to boycott Freedom. It is time to say: yes, we are Gambian citizens and we may disagree with the government sometimes, but Freedom does not represent us, cannot represent us given the way it has chosen. Only then can we begin to have a useful dialog as a nation and as a people. Thankfully you are not the only option we have. There are far more reputable sources online - e.g. the standard at standard.gm, and the Point at thepoint.gm - sources which, if not perfect, at least try to be professional in their journalistic work given the constraints they operate under, keeping tabs on the government as much as practicable, and thereby contributing more to achieving true freedom than you ever could, Oh Freedom. คคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคค To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
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> คคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคค 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] คคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคค คคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคค 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] คคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคคค