Dear Alieu, Sorry for not being able to get to you earlier.Your topic is very interesting and I believed the discussion should continue.However even though we have some differences in opinion I dont think we are that much far away from each other.I do try hard to imagine what type of society you are struggling to put on paper,as said in my earlier posting,it must be one we all might be wishing for our dear country and continent but my greatest worry is that how do we get to that society.You might not see my point that if Dr Jammeh had hold onto his promises we would have had society that all of us would be proud of, because,as said, that would have been a step towards a greater victory. Whiles you are still working on your ideas I wish to take up a point Of which I believed,as long as power and politics are concern,is of great importance.I have dealt with the issue here in a different debate and I believed it is actual here too. Alieu,I believed that without solving this problem of organizational method we would not be able to get too far.This issue have have been dealt with by many great theoretician and non of them have since produced anything to solve the problem.There might never be a universal solution to this problem,this is simply because of the different natures of our societies.For us as Africans we have a unique experience in organizational method and revisiting this experience we will be in a better position towards finding a solution. By the way we must agree that this is a problem.Why ?because I believed that the relationship between the ordinary people and power will be the basses from which we can take care of collective victory and advance it in the interest of the people and society,and this relationship must have an organisational form.That is to say in practical terms,after victory over colonialism,the PPP came to power with the support of the great majority of the Gambian people.The victory of the PPP was born out of the collective struggle of the Gambian people.D.K.Jawara was brought to the party by the People who believed that he could provide a leadership that will be in the interest of the Gambian people.Through a close look at the events in those days one would find out that D.K.Jawara was in no position to manipulate power,the decisions that were made was collective ,the people had a say and were deeply involved in the life of the party,these were ordinary Gambian People who had a direct contact with the party,because it was their party.When victory was consolidated,through this very party ,D.K.Jawara was able to gather power in his own hands and very rapidly eroded all the possibilities that were there to enable ordinary people to take part in decision marking.The character and the nature of the party changed,from being an arena for collective decision marking and consultations,to an instrument of political oppression.All constitutional reforms that gave him more powers were done without the participation of the ordinary people in any form of debate.The Party gradually turned into a mechanism that was to serve the President instead of grounding the victory with the majority of the Gambian people.In short the Party as a form of organization becomes an easy mechanism for the manipulation of power.Look at all the Parties in this world,in power or in opposition,and tell me which of them is entirely depended on ordinary people in decision marking ?Tell me which role are ordinary people playing in these party.I would tell you that what all these political parties have in common is that they have the intellectuals at the helm of power who make decisions and talk on behave of the party,they are the ones who are or will become the president ,the ministers,the directors etc not the ordinary people.The ordinary people are not capable of becoming parliamentarians,or ministers or directors.All they are capable of becoming is local party chairpersons,paying dues etc,they become non thinking beings as far as the Party is concern,they are only cable of carrying out assignments given to them by the party leadership who are the intellectuals.With this form of organization there could be no form of guarantee that the intellectual will not manipulate power,no matter how sincere they are,this is a historical fact. Alieu in your ideal society,you must be able to solve this problem of organizational relationship,I believed without solving this problem we might not get to that society were power is mass based. For Freedom Saiks Dear Saiks, Glad that we are at the threshold of agreeing to a framework of analysis. It is extremely necessary that we set out on a firm basis. That will make the discussion more enligthening. Just to address few things before embarking on my second part, understand Power and Politics here to be referring mainly to how a person/s is/are able to both establish himself/themselves in a secure position to rule, in this case, a country, and at the same time enjoy the undivided confidence of the ruled or the led. If at all and according to the way you put it, that Gambia would have had a different story to show to the World if the President had kept to his promises, then that would even not fit into my ideal society. I can only qualify it under the category of my No. Two Hypothesis. Remember, I have defined Power Base as the "degree of popular support" and the "ability to maintain stability and cope with opposition". Yes, one can rightly conclude or expect that, if the Gambians had had course to enjoy from those beautiful hopes as declared by the President, then the regime would certainly would have a resonable degree of popular support from the people - again as I define it. I now ask. Is that really enough? Does that make the opposition dormant? Does that deter outside threat? I mind, does it say much about how dynamic a regime is to both outside and inside forces? Certainly not. Under such circumstances therefore, Gambia wouldn't have still been stable, so to speak. It is how concious we are to addressing these factors together as a whole which is crucial to my ideal type of society. So, perhaps if you had mentioned that the President wanted to look after the peoples' welfare and also indicate and justify why the President sees it fit to fortify himself so as to continue satifying the task of looking after the peoples' welfare, then that could be considered to fit into my ideal type of society that would ultimately bring about stability. I will labor, as I progress, to detail further with my own examples how this can come about, I will be looking at questions such as what the role of opposition should be and that of those who wish to bankrole such an opposition in my ideal society. I am to inform you that most of political societites in Africa do not share characteristics of my ideal society. I would wish to reintroduce my opinion on Political Maturity in relation to colonialism and the Monicagate issue. They may either implicitly or explicitly appear in the discussion as we proceed. I will throw more light on them later. To be continued..... God blesses us all for a better world. Alieu ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------