I believed this discussion is  getting out of context,if questioning the
democratic character of the election system and or the weakness of American
democracy should be a credit for the Jammeh regime it is not because some of
us are putting forward such questions but those who are questioning the
legitimise of  our  questions.If Dennis Jet,the leader of International
Center at the university of Florida could say that if what happened in Palm
Beach should have been the case in Latin America or Africa,American election
observer will be the first to demand for re-election,an American whose
organisation have participated in monitoring elections in Africa,Latin
America etc if he could say so ,why should we shy away from raising the
issues that we are raising ?just because we have a dictator back home.This
intellectual arrogance and short-sightedness might be the very dancing floor
that this fascist regime is waiting to do the last dance.Whether we as
observer raised our critical voice or not,Americans will do it and are doing
it,they know the history of their constitution and  under what circumstances
it was written,as some one was recently reminding me that the founding
fathers were slaves owners who also have to protect their future interest,no
wonder crisis are taking place in our generation under different
circumstances.

For Freedom
Saiks
----- Original Message -----
From: Dampha Kebba <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 9:24 PM
Subject: Re: The Wages Of Indifference


> Hamjatta, a brilliant and timely piece. I like your 'flushing cockroach'
> analogy. In my opinion, that is our most fundamental problem today. The
> stubbornness with which certain people peddle 'bad ideas' is just
> mind-boggling. But we must resolve to debunk these nonsense each time they
> surface. Trust Yaya and his cronies for reaching perverse conclusions when
> faced with clear challenges. As you pointed out and Winston Churchill
> discovered years ago, Democracy is not a perfect system. But it is the
best
> thing out there. I agree that it is irritating to have people denouncing
> Democracy and most of the time would not present credible alternatives. If
> they are courteous enough to give us alternatives, their choices range
from
> the bizarre to the downright illogical. Some of these people are
criticizing
> a system that they do not even understand. We have to be very careful how
we
> interpret what is going on in Florida in the Gambian context. The
population
> of some of the counties in Florida is larger than the whole Gambian
> population. The challenges that face the Floridians are different from the
> challenges we have back home. When we advocate for democracy in The
Gambia,
> no one is suggesting that we should adopt all the proven mistakes and
export
> them to Gambia. That does not make sense. We should try to learn from
other
> people's mistakes. What is most significant in Florida is that there are
> mechanisms in place for dealing with the debacle. The current structure
> allows for matters to be resolved with little or no risk for bloodshed.
Not
> everyone is going to be happy with the outcome. That is not the point. The
> focus is to at least convince the overwhelming majority of Americans that
> the process was fair and the outcome is legitimate. To use the Florida
> fiasco as justification for dictatorships is absurd, hypocritical and
> downright dishonest. The more logical thing to do is to try and outdo the
> Americans by ensuring that we have a system where every vote counts. This
> should be a minor challenge bearing in mind the population of The Gambia.
It
> is ridiculous and perverse to argue that we should allow Yaya to lord over
> us because people cannot be trusted to apply Democracy properly. We can
have
> a Democratic  process  that is better than the American one. Let us set
the
> standards high. This must be made clear to Yaya and his cohorts. What is
> going on in the U.S. should not be used as an excuse to disallow election
> monitors in the coming elections. With all the noise going on in Florida,
no
> one is alleging fraud (yet). Did we hear George W or Al Gore putting guns
at
> the heads of elections officials and asking them to declare bogus results?
> Granted, there are other pressures being applied at these elections
> officials. But the significant thing here, is that there are checks and
> balances that will make it very hard for some of these partisans to
succumb
> to the illegitimate wishes of their parties.  Again, the challenges the
two
> societies face vis-a-vis Democracy are very different. Apples and oranges.
> Like you pointed out, we should still insist on elections monitors (if and
> when we have elections) and demand that the process be better than what
> operated in Florida. Whether Democracy is a far more superior system to a
> dictatorship headed by a moron like Yaya, should be a non-issue. Our focus
> should be on how we are going to improve and perfect our Democratic
system.
> I will also conclude by reminding everyone about trying to flush a
> cockroach. No matter how trivial we might think the 'bad idea' is, we have
> to attack it. People can regard this as dictatorial. But it is not. Evil
> ('bad idea') has to be met head on and debunked. To paraphrase an adage:
> evil thrive where good people stay silent. The least we can do when faced
> with injustice, is to speak out against it. We should not let Yaya or
anyone
> tell us that our people do not deserve to choose their leaders, unless
they
> can come up with a better alternative. And vagaries such as 'traditional
> democracy' do not suffice. As you shrewdly pointed out, this argument
> against Democracy is a very dangerous and sinister one. It is also very
> insulting for people to tell me that I should not participate in electing
my
> leader because I do not know how to choose a good leader. That is what it
> boils down to. This condescension must be wiped out. Morons like Yaya and
> mental midgets like Saja Taal and Sedat Jobe cannot decide for us who is
> supposed to lead us. One of these days, you will hear one of these
shameless
> spinmiesters trying to use the Florida problem to convince us to crown
Yaya
> as our leader for life. I can gladly live with the decision of the
majority
> of the illiterate farmers in Gambia if they freely decide to vote for
Yaya.
> What I cannot stand, is for Yaya to steal power from the people and then
> have these knuckle-heads going around and trying to justify the illegal
> takeover.
> KB
>
>
>
> >From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
> ><[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: The Wages Of Indifference
> >Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:33:34 GMT
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
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