Halifa, With your usual rhetorical manoeuvre has managed to box himself into the corner of the vestiges of retrospective pedagogy that you stuffily accuses me of. Since you employed so much of polemical pedagogy and semantic sophistry to answer my concerns and lamely debunk my postulations, I shall reply with those two pronged fronts. However, first things first. In a posting dated 07/12/99 entitled On My Postulation you quoted a previous posting which was a response to my first piece since the debate started. In that response you wrote "...... I will postulate that the 1997 constitution has all the basic faults that could be found in the 1970 constitution and other laws under the Jawara regime, and has fundamental provisions that are indispensable for a democratic society that the 1970 constitution did not have." Apparently upon your return members had chosen to ignore this and again you wrote triumphantly that: "upon my return, I have not seen any response to contradict this postulation. What has happened to the critics of the 1997 constitution? Some argued that I was allowed to do the talking during the coup period. Who is holding people from tearing this postulation into shreds......" Halifa, should I infer from the - what has happened to the critics of the 1997 constitution - that you are not a critic of the 1997 constitution? Again where did you get the lopsided idea that we have raised issues of any kind that makes comparative analysis of the 1970 and 1997 constitutions? Was there any dispute about the development of the 1997 constitution over the 1970 constitution? Fairly and squarely, the 1997 constitution did away with much of the monarchical proclivities, gender discrimination and most of the democratic deficits that were inherent in the 1970 constitution. It did usher in more powers for the elected representatives of The People, separation of powers and Teutonic shifts of emphasis in expression of the democratic will of The People in THEORY. The realities on the ground are however different as we all know. Suffice to sum up here that our dispute was not with how many points the 1997 constitution gained over the 1970 constitution. Rather our dispute was premised on the blanket Indemnity Clause, the term limit and age of the presidency, how still the executive (presidency) still has enormous monarchical dispositions that the Constitution Review Committee has not fundamentally stripped off the 1997 constitution and how Jammeh later tampered with the draft to suit his designs and ambitions. It was a deliberate deviationist ploy and intellectual dishonesty on your part to bring up a point that was never in dispute; that of the 1997 constitution's developments over the 1970 constitution. The idea that Saul and I found the 1970 constitution preferable to the 1997 constitution is a figment of your feverish imaginations and very hallucinatory brought up solely to gain cheap points. In your posting of 17/12/99 entitled Reply To Hamjatta , you chided me that I "saw the opportunity to philosophize on common place notions that have no bearing to the point at issue." Stripped of the hyperbole, I admit guilt to the charge that I "saw the opportunity to philosophize" but temperately and seriously tells you in your face that my philosophizing did have a "bearing on the point at issue" and they are not mere "common place notions." In a reply to an earlier piece of mine you elegantly went on about dilating on the nuances and constituents of Cultural Studies, Political Science and Economics. You did actually and tacitly present them in isolation of each other. And you did divorce social scientists from beliefs/belief systems. In as much as you pre-empted the philosophizing it is a bit rich of you to chide my excitement to have a go at your naive inferences on knowledge and a tall order for you to try to harness my opportunism to philosophize. I make no apologies for seeing "the opportunity to philosophize" and did so in a grand manner. In your rebuttal of my thesis on the aforementioned, you resorted to the highest form of rebarbative and imbalanced polemical pedagogy that has all the echoes of semantic sophistry. You wrote after bunkum repetitions of earlier postulations, that: "since Pan Africanism is a social phenomenon, it has a corpus of economic, political and cultural programmes and policies which could make it a reality. One must study the economic, political and social factors which make it a viable option for development in the African Continent. This is precisely the reason why I said I DO NOT HOLD a Pan African belief. I DO HOLD THAT the economic, political and cultural programmes that could be classified under Pan Africanism are viable," (All emphasis mine) Halifa what are you playing at here? Isn't it risible and self contradictory for you to "HOLD THAT the economic, political and cultural programmes that could classified under Pan Africanism are viable" and funnily maintain that you "DO NOT HOLD a Pan African belief"? Is this the "simple manner" in which you sought to "state simple concepts.....so that it can be understood by even a simpleton"? Well, "simpletons" like me do not know what to make up of your denunciation and pronunciation at the same time. It seems to me your are in need of tutoring on the nuances and semantics of HOLD in the context that you used it so you can render able your malfunctioned "faculties of differentiation and discernment" despite your intellectual profundity. Now you may ask precisely what defines HOLD. I shall refer you to the Oxford Dictionary (ninth edition, ed. by Della Thompson by BCA by arrangement with Oxford University Press) HOLD in the context of your postulation is defined as a: verb transitive (often followed by TO + infinitive or THAT + clause) THINK; BELIEVE (e.g. held it to be self evident; held that the earth was flat). Hence it is clear here without any dint of ambiguity that HOLD THAT translates a belief in something. Is it becoming clear to you how you shot yourself in the feet with your risible and self contradictory proclamation of Pan African belief and on the other hand denouncing my attempt to label you as a believer in Pan Africanism. Do you now see the reason why I earlier said you are leading towards an intellectual cul-de-sac when you attempt to divorce social scientists from beliefs/belief systems. Isn't it a dead end for you to belief and disbelief at the same time? Since you 've got the point now on HOLD THAT, I hope you will come up with a clearer and unambiguous statement on where you stand with Pan Africanism. Again since the carburettor of your thoughts were disjointed and rendered hapless by the semantics of the central theme of your rebuttal on the Koro issue, that of "circumstantial evidence", it is quite proper for me to begin debunking your spurious assertions by stating what "circumstantial evidence" would constitute. Here again I shall make our point reference would be the ninth edition of the Oxford Dictionary which defines circumstantial evidence a s: (of evidence, a legal case, etc). tending to establish a conclusion by inference from known facts hard to explain otherwise. To simplify matters further we turn yet again to the Oxford Thesaurus (1996, compiled by Betty Kirkpatrick by BCA arrangement with Oxford University Press). which spells out that circumstantial evidence is based on circumstances indirect, incidental, evidential, deduced, presumed, inferential, conjectural. In your posting you wrote: "circumstantial evidence can provide facts that a journalist can publish which can enable people to have an idea of the truth even if one does not have sufficient evidence to state it as the truth." I ask you this after we both had agreed on what constitutes circumstantial evidences and in your own words that circumstantial evidence does act as an essential source in investigative journalism, what do you infer/deduce/presume from the lack of official police investigation, puerile handling on the part of the state and shirking of responsibility in invoking the Coroner's Act to hold an inquest into the circumstances surrounding Koro's mysterious death? Halifa the lack of police investigation into Koro's death and subsequently the impotence on the part of the state/AFPRC government to invoke the Coroner's Act to hold an inquest on the mysterious death of a State minister is circumstantial evidence. You have complained being starved of leads after exhausting all possible investigative avenues; well here is one lead I'm offering you. The lack of police investigations or the lackadaisical nature of it and the unwillingness on the part of the AFPRC government to invoke the Coroner's Act to hold a public inquest is circumstantial evidence and a lead. Particularly, I did find offensive your petulant ripples of holier-than-thou afterthoughts in your closing remarks about the Koro tragedy. You wrote: "we did everything that was possible to get to the facts and we concluded as everybody is concluding now, that there should be a coroner's Inquest. If it fails to do so, anybody can speculate whatever one wants. However, no one has the moral authority to question our integrity because of the manner we approached this." Oh yeah. Good gracious. What a banquet of sanctimonious tosh!!!!!! How can you claim to have to done "everything that was possible to get to the facts" when you overlooked the obvious circumstantial evidences that I mentioned above and did you carry out any forensic DNA examination of the site to scientifically ascertain whoever were present during Koro's death? Do you now see the sham that is coming out of your pretentious attempts to look smart and professional investigative journalists? Do you now see why I called you a novice journalist on his/her first assignment. Halifa you don't have the resources or the training to carry out a scientific forensic scrutiny of the site that Koro was found. The State could and should have done this even if it means acquiring help from outside the borders of the Gambia. What was at stake was too much to be left in the hands of muted silence and in the puerile hands of your investigations that reeked from the outset of absurdity, naivety and simplicity? Halifa if you fail to follow the lead I just offered you, I will have every moral authority question your integrity. And get this: you shall lose my confidence and consequently my vote come the 2001 elections. Also get this: had this tragedy occurred in Britain and the State acted just as it did in the Gambia without any police investigations a Coroner's Inquest, the bereaved family would have used this circumstantial evidence to land a legal case whose merits would far over weigh it's demerits in court. And guess what would happen if Koro's family decides to use this circumstantial evidence in court today. Yes, it would be thrown out of court for the simple reason that it refers to a period in our history which no one can question, investigate and prosecute our venerable leaders and those who acted in their names. Thanks to a blanket Indemnity Clause that your precious 1997 constitution which you so vigorously campaigned for, gave to the erstwhile AFPRC and their lieutenants. Your precious faultless 1997 constitution which you so vigorously advocated and campaigned for, renders Koro's family hapless in their pursuit for justice for their son. Is it become clearer to you how your misplaced enthusiasm has landed you in a miasma of murky circumstances that questions both your judgement and integrity? I hope this salves your conscience. It is very laughable and risible for you to suggest that there was no panic in the ranks of the ruling elite and the soldiers when Koro died. See how holier-than-thou you sound and look when you pretend to be omnipresent. Halifa have you or any of your reporters been at the Royal Victoria Hospital mortuary when Koro's body lay there for the first time? The panic and open out burst amongst soldiers in uniform was revealing. I was there just opposite Gamtel Telecoms House, an eyewitness to the panic and tears that rolled down the cheeks of soldiers and civilians alike. This was prior to your so-called "investigative journalist" and Koro's burial. Now log that in your selective and subjective memory. By then you had unwittingly brought calm within the AFPRC ranks. Are you proud of your role now that the picture is becoming clearer? A historical disquisition of you/PDOIS from 1994 to today would discover how you metamorphosed from cautious doubters to grudging acceptors of the military take-over; and upon your legal drama with the former AFPRC, transformed from grudging acceptors to enthusiastic supporters of a process that even simpletons can decipher from the outset as flawed and hell-bent on perpetuating the ruling clique; and from enthusiastic supporters to defenders of a flawed and bogus transition whose sole purpose was to legitimise an illegal usurpation of power taken at the back of The People. If as you maintain that you are: 1. Committed never to participate in a government (process) that is taken without the participation of the people. 2. Committed never to participate in a government (process) that is not serving the interest of the people. 3. Committed never to take power at the back of the people' One wonders why you went to such painstaking lengths to help (unwittingly?) legitimise the illegal through a process that is both flawed and designed for the sole purpose of perpetuating the AFPRC? Is it because of historical immediacy, misplaced enthusiasm or you Halifa/PDOIS (the Fox who knows so much) had been spoofed by Jammeh/AFPRC (the Hedgehog who knows but one big thing. As the debate intensifies and the bullets punch more holes into stories and alibis we shall find. In the end the truth and nothing but the truth shall prevail. Good Evening. Cordially, Hamjatta Kanteh hkanteh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------