You're most welcome Uncle Mo. I had been informed you are studying the philosophies of Kant, Socrates, and Haruna, reason why I didn't mess with you much over the tail-end of 2012. I did not want to unduly interfere with that laborious project.(:

All the best for the New Year 2013.

Before I forget, I am close to completing the first in a series of books, the first of which is entitled: Democratica - A Lifestyle Synthesis. I would love and appreciate the graces and patronage of you, Yero, and our other cous. Demba, and our friends and colleagues here. Perhaps we can begin fighting again after you get your copy. I will come to you again after you complete your studies so we may partner to write one or more in the series

I anticipate publication this spring if I can successfully wade through the jungle of printers and publishers. It will be reasonably priced and made available in electronic format for accessibility sakes. In it I attempt to tackle many subjects that have unnecessarily inured much consternation for man over the ages and some that may have been considered taboo prior. That is until yours truly entered the arena of philosophy and astrophysics. Strabo, eat your heart out.

As an example; I ventilate the warrantless tussle between Religions and Science and a novel idea of force fields in order to yield value from Kurt Lewin's theory. It promises to be a great read particularly for the Gestalt movement.

I love you all.

Haruna.

-----Original Message-----
From: Modou Nyang <[log in to unmask]>
To: GAMBIA-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tue, Jan 8, 2013 3:45 am
Subject: Re: [G_L] I give you Hon. Mai Fatty of The GMC Party.

Uncle, thank you for sharing this sober article from Mai. I am with him on this one all the way and i dedicate it to my friends at Gainako Demba and Yero.

 

Thank you,

Nyang

From: Haruna <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, January 7, 2013 8:56 PM
Subject: [G_L] I give you Hon. Mai Fatty of The GMC Party.

Courtesy: Freedomnewspaper.com

Haruna.


‘DR. JOBE WILL NEVER TAKE THE INITIATIVE TO RETURN TO HOME TO LEAD A CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ,’ MAI FATTY
‘DR. JOBE WILL NEVER TAKE THE INITIATIVE TO RETURN TO HOME TO LEAD A CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE OR MASS PROTEST THAT HE IS PREACHING OUT OF FEAR FOR HIS OWN LIFE,’ MAI FATTY

REJOINDER ON DR. SEDAT JOBE’S RADIO SPEECH – A PERSONAL OPINION

Mai Ahmad Fatty

Thanks and Praises due to the Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, the Giver and the Taker of life, and in Whom my destiny resides.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Sedat Jobe’s speech on Freedom Radio today the 7 January 2012, on a range of fundamental issues affecting our country. I commend Dr. Jobe for recently emerging from his eleven years of hibernation, during which period some of the worst horrific crimes against our people were being committed (excluding his brief political campaign in support of Yaya Jammeh) in the 2006 elections, when he is on record to have branded the opposition ‘ignorant’ and incapable of ruling.

Dr. Jobe has a point on the difficult and sensitive issue of unity among the opposition parties. The issue of a united opposition is a complex one, and not as simple and facile as many would imagined. STGDP and others had worked on it for years even before GMC was born. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that more could be done, the failure of which I take partial responsibility. He averred that the opposition are not seriously ‘shocked’ enough by the regime’s inhumanity to provoke them to set aside all of their differences, to come together and establish a united front. This is an unfair characterization and bemoans a clear misanalysis of the dynamics.

Around the 2006 general elections, Yaya Jammeh ordered the arrest and prosecution of NADD opposition leaders. From their homes they were sent straight to Mile 2 Prisons where they languished in inhume conditions for over a week contrary to law. The government then publicly announced falsely declaring that Hon Halifa Sallah had disappeared and at large, when he was actually under their custody at the time. I volunteered with Lawyers Ousainou Darboe and Antouman Gaye to undertake the legal defence of the three NADD leaders without pay. Jammeh had previous to that imprisoned Lamin Waa Juwara, who was also one of the NADD leaders then. In effect he had four opposition leaders under custody at the same time just before 2006 elections namely – Halifa Sallah, Hamat Bah, Omar J. Jallow and Lamin Waa Juwara.

In the process of securing their release from unlawful custody through the courts, I had to personally go into Mile 2 Prisons to obtain the signatures of the unlawfully detained opposition leaders with a notary public for a bail application. Eventually the courts granted them bail on very difficult conditions. Before the next hearing date, Jammeh backed down in the face of stiff resistance from former President Obasanjo who came to intervene on behalf of the Commonwealth as a sitting President of the Federal Rep. of Nigeria. It was during that visit when President Obasanjo brokered an inter-party MoU between the ruling Party and the opposition parties, containing terms of fair-play and dispute resolution. The APRC had no original intention of honouring this Document.

It is important to appreciate that Jammeh did all he could, utilizing all of the coercive powers of the State to destroy and to disintegrate NADD at a time when they were still actively working on selecting a consensus flag bearer. The arrests and subsequent trial of these leaders made national news for a while, and it could not have eluded Dr. Sedat Jobe’s attention, who had much earlier resigned from government. However, not only did Dr. Sedat Jobe campaigned for Jammeh in that same elections, he is also on record for having publicly branded the opposition at a Jammeh 2006 campaign rally as a bunch of ignoramus who were unfit to rule. This unprovoked diatribe attracted a written reaction from the opposition. Judging by his profuse moral pronouncements recently, one would have expected that Dr. Jobe would be restrained by his moral principles not only to campaign for Jammeh in that election, but also that his sense of moral propriety would have conditioned him to condemn the opposition leaders arrests, detention, and bogus trial at the time. What I meant is that Dr. Jobe should have been ‘sufficiently shocked’ by the clear injustice at the time and be motivated to speak and act against it. But alas, he was mute, and in fact campaigned to secure electoral victory for the perpetrator of crimes, after he had long resigned from government. Six years later, the opposition is still waiting for a statement from Dr. Sedat Jobe or on hind sight an apology without success. Therefore, when Sedat Jobe castigated the opposition as not being sufficiently ‘shocked’ by the inhumanity of the regime to compel them to come together, he came across as both disingenuous and pedantic.

The opposition leaders have all been to jail at different times, and continue to face inequities. I was tortured under custody for merely acting as counsel in a certain criminal trial, while some of us faced assassination attempts. Most, if not all of us opposition leaders are dead broke or in debt because we invested every butut into domestic political programs. Being an opposition leader or opposition activist in The Gambia under current circumstances, amounts to a contract with poverty, and potential assassination or unlawful imprisonment at any time. It is phenomenal sacrifice.

While we welcome Dr. Jobe into the struggle eleven years too early, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are not at the start of the struggle. Many people have paid with their lives, and others continue to go through hell on the ground for years. Not only the domestic opposition, but the online media and external civil society in both the UK and the U.S have been very active for many years. Their efforts are what we continue to consolidate upon today. Dr. Jobe is currently threading on the foot-steps of the opposition in his tour to Paris, London or Brussels, and during his consultations, he might have discovered that we had already been to those same places much earlier and met those same institutions on identical concerns. Sincerity demands that we acknowledge the truth but not disparage or be contemptuous of previous efforts by the opposition or others and proceed on the false impression that a new foundation is just being erected.

It is easy for some to say; ‘well you have been outside since the election’. I have been much more effective with what I could do for my Party and people outside under current circumstances, and this is where my Party needs me most personally, for the meantime. AND yes GMC continues to work on the ground as a political party with limited resources, regardless. The ‘struggle’ is no one’s monopoly. If anyone feels you could do better, the road to The Gambia is open for you. What may be stopping many from venturing back home is the intrepid fear admitted by Dr. Sedat Jobe himself on radio, when he said that if he were to return home now, they would pounce on him. From his own utterances, it is clear that like many Gambians, Dr. Jobe will never take the initiative to return to home to lead a civil disobedience or mass protest that he is preaching out of fear for his own life. It is unfair for anyone to make specific demands for sacrifice of others that he/she is unwilling to make.

This is not an indictment against anyone or advocating for anyone. The fact that Dr. Jobe recently decided to join the side of goodness is remarkable. I praise his call for us to speak and to act with one voice. Let us all work together to accelerate the end of tyranny. The opposition bashing is not the solution. The liberation of The Gambia is the responsibility of all Gambians. The Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, Syrians, etc taught us not to wait for politicians.  They did not wait for politicians to lead. Their populations by themselves without politicians did what they had to do, and I do not mean to assert that politicians should fold their arms and do nothing. Yaya Jammeh is a result of the collective failure of all Gambians. We must all take responsibility for the kind of political system and leadership we have in our country. We can put an end to this mess if are ready to do so as a people. The choice is ours, all of us together.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 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] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 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] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html