*Looking Beyond the Power-Grab*

By Baba Galleh Jallow

Every revolution is inspired by outrage. Outrage at the specter of a small
minority in power oppressing a large majority of citizens. Outrage at gross
injustices and often unbelievable socio-economic and cultural hardships
majorities endure under oppressive political regimes. Revolutions succeed
not only to the extent that they are also inspired by a burning desire to
politically empower the powerless majority so that never again will they be
oppressed by a minority, but also to the extent that they genuinely follow
through and actualize such popular empowerment. The nation always bears
within itself the resources requisite for its own empowerment.

Revolutions fail to the extent that they fail to look sufficiently forward.
They fail to the extent that they miss the need to look carefully beyond
the moment of empowerment and critically engage the challenging idea of
what comes next, of how do we fix this. They fail to the extent that they
loudly talk of what they have come to fix and how to fix it, but give
little thought to the practical challenges involved or how to sensibly
overcome them in order to actualize what they proclaim as their mission.
Revolutions fail when at the moment of empowerment their top priority is
not what they proclaim but the glittering promise of fantastic power and
glory.

One is tempted to suggest that a failed revolution is no revolution at all.
It is rather a power-grab that, like everybody else, may freely choose to
proclaim itself a revolution and insist on being called and hailed as a
revolution simply because it can do so. A true revolution, by definition,
cannot have failed. A revolution is a flexible constant that manifests
itself in an ongoing, never ending process of positive renewal and growth.
A power-grab on the other hand, is an unfortunate political event that
remains unchanged for as long as it lasts. Where a revolution actively
looks forward to and creatively seeks to actualize popular political
empowerment, a power-grab forbids looking forward and promotes a culture of
obnoxious political subjection in order to prolong its stay in power.

A power-grab often assails our senses with the free and ubiquitous rhetoric
of revolution. Through a vernacular of offensive and parochial jingoism, it
makes lofty pronouncements of revolutionary cause and intent and roundly
condemns all the colonizers and neocolonizers that ever existed on earth.
At the very moment of its empowerment, the power-grab already thinks of the
nation as composed of friends and enemies, so-called patriotic and
unpatriotic citizens. This unfortunate bifurcation of the nation-body
betrays the power-grab’s fractured and utterly disjointed misunderstanding
of national mission, national empowerment, what revolutions are all about.
The power-grab prides itself and often loudly brags about the frequency and
efficiency with which it severely deals with traitors and enemies of the
nation, always the one percent who must never be allowed to destroy the 99
% at State House. Like a large iron tent with great iron walls, the
power-grab plants itself firmly upon and over the national space even as it
perfects its damaging politics of insults and enmity. The power-grab grows,
nurtures and sharpens its sweet tooth for power even before the moment when
it actually grabs power. And because all other motivations and
justifications for the power-grab are marginal to the power-grab itself,
they are manifested only as flamboyant rhetorical devices to be swished and
rattled around to deflect attention from embarrassing failures and to
justify the power grabber’s only real expertise: a politics of insults and
enmity.

The power-grab never really captures the essence of political power beyond
the physical act of grabbing power and installing itself as a government.
True political power is manifested not in a state’s monopoly and misguided
application of force over its citizens, but in a state’s demonstrated
willingness and capacity to generate and actualize a culture of popular
political enlightenment among its citizens. A state is only truly powerful
to the extent that it presides over an empowered nation. It is the
crippling powerlessness of the power-grab that explains why it is so
obsessed with demonstrating just how powerful it is. The power-grab fears
the very idea of an empowered people, and because it is inextricably part
of the people, it cannot help but feel as powerless as the people. Rather
than seek and discover its proper station and role in the national scheme
of things, the power-grab assumes what it feels is the most convenient
position at the top of the human pyramid and insists on staying there no
matter what. From its illusory citadel of power, the power-grab
manufactures enemies left, right and center and criminalizes looking
forward and the very notion of popular political empowerment. Through a
deliberate series of brutally repressive measures, the power-grab forcibly
imposes its parochial identity on the nation.

By discouraging a forward looking politics and criminalizing popular
empowerment, the power-grab inadvertently feeds and fuels the real
revolution. It galvanizes opposition to itself by provoking questions over
the limits of political power and authority, questions over ownership of
the nation, and questions over what comes after the inevitable decline and
fall of the power-grab. The politics of repression inspires thoughtful
engagement with the practical challenges of the nation and a burning desire
to actualize a politics of universal mutual respect characterized by
universal citizen empowerment. It highlights the need to look forward and
nurture a genuine understanding not only of our future practical
challenges, but especially of our present political realities. Repression
drives home the important lesson that the challenges of the future are
really the challenges of the present.

The revolutionary culture that emerges from political repression manifests
itself not in the pursuit of numbered visions (e.g. Vision 2020) or of
numbered goals (e.g. Millennium Development Goals), but in persistent
critical engagement with current socio-economic and political problems
which, in turn, inspire a constant search for answers and solutions to such
problems. In essence, what most inspires the revolutionary consciousness is
how to transcend the ugly and damaging politics of the day and actualize a
politics of natural justice, which is only possible in a nation of
politically empowered citizens, not only in terms of being able to vote
their national servants in and out of office, but especially in terms of
being reasonably conversant with their constitutional rights and
responsibilities. The revolutionary consciousness eagerly and
enthusiastically engages the challenge of empowering the people politically
not through moribund civic education commissions, but through concrete and
coherent national institutions and processes geared towards actualizing a
nation of politically empowered citizens.

Many power-grabs pay lip service to the important task of political
empowerment by setting up moribund civic education commissions. Faithful
cronies and mis-inspired loyalists of the regime – all without adequate
civic education themselves – are hand-picked to chair and sit on such
commissions. A solemn inauguration ceremony is held where the unspoken
understanding is firmly established and confirmed that only “patriotic”
lessons in civic education must be given. The civic education panel makes a
few public appearances and falls forever silent which, paradoxically, was
the idea all along. As far as the power-grab is concerned, all people need
to understand and always keep in mind is that “we are in power because we
enjoy the mandate of heaven not of the ancient Chinese kind which could be
lost, but of the kind which could only be lost when heaven itself expressly
says so to everyone’s hearing and physically intervenes to make it happen.

Unlike the genuine revolution, the power-grab hates the very idea of
political empowerment because it might suggest stepping down and becoming
ordinary citizens again – as if it is ever possible for any citizen to be
anything but an ordinary citizen. Refusing to imagine the day when it will
step down, the power-grab fights anything that tends to suggest the idea of
such an unimaginable day. Concepts like national equality, natural justice,
informed voting, freedom of expression, freedom of association, human
rights and the rule of law are branded vestiges of colonialism and the
obnoxious neocolonial stooges who are identified and neutralized to enhance
the longevity of the power-grab. On the other hand, the genuine revolution
is inspired and fed by these very concepts. It creatively engages in
measured contemplation, looks steadily forward and beyond the period of the
power-grab, and thoughtfully plans for the actualization of a better and
brighter nation of politically empowered citizens who will never again
succumb to a power-grab.


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