Thank you Sariang.

On Jan 16, 2018 2:39 PM, "sariang marong" <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello Brother Baba,
> A very insightful piece thank you.
> Best regards,
> Sariang
>
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
> <https://overview.mail.yahoo.com/?.src=iOS>
>
> On Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 4:14 AM, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> *Talk, Talk, Talk*
>
>
> By Baba Galleh Jallow
>
>
> We have argued elsewhere that the fall of a dictator does not mark the end
> of the fight against dictatorship. Rather, it marks the beginning of the
> fight against the many negative legacies of dictatorship. Our capacity to
> succeed in transforming our country into a better place is contingent upon
> our capacity to neutralize the many negative legacies of dictatorship.
> These range from social disorder to institutional corruption not only of
> the monetary sort, but also of the moral sort. And we can neutralize many
> of these negative legacies by honestly, truthfully, and respectfully
> talking about them at the national level. Only then can we take our country
> and our society to the next level.
>
>
> The failure of Africa’s independence era leaders to transform our
> countries into viable nation states was a direct result of their failure to
> neutralize the dictatorial culture of the colonial state. As a child of
> colonialism, the African nation state was born out of social disorder and
> institutional corruption. Colonial rule was a physical manifestation of
> social disorder and institutional corruption, and an inventor of moral
> corruption. The colonial state existed not for the development of the
> people it ruled, but for the power and enrichment of the crown it served.
> Its reason for being was to pursue the twin goals of political imperialism
> and material exploitation of the colonized. Its mode of operation was
> essentially coercive and it had little interest in the lives of the
> colonized except as an alien and backward species of Homo sapiens deserving
> little respect and firm control. It rattled the mandate of the civilizing
> mission and cast itself in the role of a benevolent dictatorship for which
> the colonized should be grateful. Unfortunately, the essential character of
> this malevolent colonial state survived the cheers of independence and
> continues to stunt the advancement of societies in Africa 2018. Our
> independence era leaders’ failure to recognize and neutralize the
> dictatorial character of the colonial state explains why Africa is still
> called a dark continent and why it is subject to jaundiced imagination as
> an uncomplimentary part of the human anatomy. In Africa 2018, every day
> brings new challenges and new crises, and everyday magnifies old challenges
> and old crises. Every day too, the African state remains prostrate and
> seemingly helpless against the relentless onslaught of national crises that
> grow bigger by the day but that can be easily managed and neutralized with
> little cost to the state and abundant dividends for the nation.
>
>
> The fall of the colonial state called for a radical transformation of
> African societies. A radical transformation from societies ruled by an
> exploitative colonial dictatorship to societies intelligently governing
> themselves. Since good self-governance is a mark of social intelligence,
> our independence leaders should have enhanced the intelligence of our
> national societies. They should have placed maximum premium on the value of
> the human person and vigorously exploited the intelligence of the human
> person for the common good. Rather, they simply stepped into the shoes of
> the departed colonial rulers and continued doing business as usual. They
> failed to direct their energies at transforming our societies into truly
> free and empowered peoples by promoting everything positive about the
> institutional framework of the nation-state system they just adopted while
> neutralizing the negative legacies of the colonial state that just
> departed. They failed to initiate and promote a healthy national
> conversation about the challenges of nationhood. And more seriously, they
> muzzled all aspects of the national conversation that did not explicitly
> serve their individual selfish interests. Consequently, African societies
> remain mired in the crippling contradictions of free bondage to hostile
> politics, poverty, stagnation and even degeneration in many vital aspects
> of our national life. Things always seem to be getting worse in Africa
> because the social conditions that made them bad in the first place are
> themselves always getting worse.
>
>
> In Gambia 2018, we have not only some vestiges of colonial dictatorship to
> deal with, but also the legacies of recent postcolonial dictatorship, what
> we might term the green crisis. Even where the political intolerances of
> the colonial state and the ousted dictatorship are reasonably neutralized,
> there remains a culture of popular intolerance propagated by the ousted
> dictatorship. Many Gambians have a we-versus-them mentality that
> characterized colonial rule and was magnified under the Jammeh
> dictatorship. Ultimately, the crisis boils down to our incapacity to
> imagine and actualize a collective national identity that can overshadow
> our political and increasingly, our ethnic differences. Of course, no one
> is calling for people to abandon their political affiliations or shun their
> ethnic identities. What we need to do is imagine, actualize and manifest a
> national identity premised on our collective spirituality as human beings,
> as national relatives and as friendly neighbors who will not insult or
> demean each other over political and ethnic differences.
>
>
> Yes we should be proud of our political affiliations and our ethnic
> identities. And yes, we should be free to promote the interests of the
> collectivities to which we belong. We certainly should all be proud to be
> Gambians, as we are. But neither political nor ethnic or national identity
> has succeeded in creating the kind of peaceful and progressive society we
> are meant to be. While we are all proud of our national identity as
> Gambians, we still fight over political affiliations and ethnic identities
> that, paradoxically are inimical to our collective wellbeing as Gambians.
> Wishing ill, speaking ill and acting ill towards each other is wishing ill,
> speaking ill and acting ill against ourselves. These unhealthy habits
> cripple our collective capacity to rise up to the challenges that erupt
> around us every day. They prevent us from taking the practical actions
> necessary to address and neutralize many common crises that plague our
> society from day to day, year to year. This has been an abiding crisis of
> African independence; but it doesn’t have to be the crisis of the New
> Gambia. We know what the problems are and we have the capacity to tackle
> them head on if only we take the necessary action.
>
>
> The tricky part is that crises of the sort that continues to cripple
> African societies are best addressed by African governments simply because
> they are the best-equipped directors of collective social action. In the
> case of hostile political and ethnic divisions, our government needs to
> initiate as a matter of urgency a protracted process of active national
> dialogue. Our government needs to dedicate some resources – institutional,
> personal, and monetary – with the mandate to carry out a national and
> sustained campaign against political and ethnic hostilities in our society.
> Issuing an occasional press release is certainly better than doing nothing.
> But it is not enough to effectively address and neutralize the politics of
> hostility in our society. And the longer we fail to do something concrete
> that yields noticeable levels of political and cultural civility in our
> society, the larger our national political and ethnic crises will grow. If
> we fail to take practical measures to neutralize the simmering political
> and ethnic tensions in our society, we will be repeating the costly
> mistakes of the past and setting ourselves up for disastrous failure. And
> all we need to do is talk, talk, talk. Deliberately talk to each other in
> an open, honest, respectful and edifying manner about what, above
> everything else, unites us as Gambians and as human beings. A sustained
> process of healthy national conversation about these issues on radio, on
> television, on social media, in the press and at public gatherings across
> the country is indispensable in our quest for proper national advancement.
> And we can keep talking to each other in this manner into a bright future.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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