Dear Mr. Darbo,

I'm sorry my last piece was not up to what you normally expect of me to the
point where it had simply "disgusted" you [perhaps "disgust" was too strong
and inept a word for you to use given the constructive nature of your
complaints???]. Anyway, i make no apologies for the approach i have decided
to adopt in this engagement with Halifa. In fact, given the nature of the
task at hand, it is perfectly understandable. Allow me to explain.

You were right about the esoteric nature of the piece and perhaps it is true
also the piece was more of a "policy" document than a piece for an informal
e-mail discussion group. That in itself is understandable. Had you followed
this thread right from the very beginning, you would not have failed to
notice that Halifa's request was more a "policy" outline than simply engaging
him in polemical exchanges on political economy. Let us revisit Halifa's
initial requests; perhaps, that can to some extent, help explain my approach.
Here is what Halifa requested:

"We would like you to give us your alternative liberal economic plan. ..... I
hope you will abandon demagogy. The 21st century is no longer in need of
rhetoric. This is why I give you facts and not rhetoric. I have given you
Gambian realities not soviet realities. I hope you will not go back to your
intellectual escape routes by talking about other countries rather than
concentrate on your highly indebted poor country. Words! ! Words! are what
Africa is tired of. Facts! Fact! Facts! are what Africa needs. ....This is
your country after 36 years of independent. What is the economic system of
management which can become successful here? I pause for your reply.

Halifa Sallah"

If you examine very closely what Halifa is insisting on here, then you should
have no problems at all in understanding why i looked rather out of place
with the more formal and pedantic thrust of my arguments presented in my last
two slots. The gentleman was asking for a comprehensive political and
economic programme and there is no doubting that the task required of me was
not a simplistic, populist and polemical diagnosis, prognosis and
prescription of the African plight but rather a more rigourous, dull and
systemic one. Of course this has the negative impact of turning some or most
people off. That is regrettable. Yet, the serious-ness of the issue at hand
allows for a degree of alienation of readership - not everyone is likely to
be interested in serious "policy" debates on political economy and sad to say
not all subscribers to this List would feel comfortable with that arcane
world.

I'm a great believer in and all for the idea of mass consumption of lateral,
rigourous and serious thinking. This is of essence if we are serious about
changing peoples lives for the better. After all, what is the purpose of all
these ideas if only a small coterie of specialists can decipher what you are
trying to say. What i don't buy - especially in this so-called modern
"information age" - is the idea of diluting or dumbing-down serious and
rigourous debate in the name of mass consumption or such weasel words like
"clarity and brevity". There is a sense in which if you scratch the surface
of this call for "clarity and brevity", you would stumble across a vast array
of intellectual laziness that bespoke of a modern laid-back attitude towards
everything in life. I pray this is not the case with you.

As for my faceless critics operating under noms de guerre, they can cowardly
rave and rant all they want but it can't neither disarm my consistent and
critical pen nor silence my strident voice. Their hopeless, petulant,
pitiable and self-righteous indignations simply can't crack a tough nut like
me. I'm afraid to even make a slight dent, they are gonna have to be nastier
than they are currently doing. Even then they simply can't break me. This boy
ain't for turning. The day they have the guts to write under their real
names, i'll gladly take them on any issue of importance to my agenda. Till
then, let them continue their cowardly gripes and foolish attacks.

Be all that as it is, i hope i can still count on your patience and support
as i prepare my final slot, which, sad it is to say, will be a continuity in
approach of the earlier two pieces and not a discontinuity. Anyway, i hope we
can look forward to your own plans for the country's social, political and
economic renewal after Jammeh. Let us face it: none has any monopoly over
anything on this List; we all ought to contribute to the debates in whatever
way we possibly can. What i have always been doing is to contribute modestly
whatever little i feel is appropriate to the debates. All of us, in varying
degrees of our innate peculiarities, are limited by our mortalities and can
only contribute as we are endowed. Let us keep that at the back of our minds
and constructively engage each other and stop the spiteful, unproductive and
snide caricatures that this List has, of late, become infested with. I hope
you will always make it a moral duty to constructively criticise me - as you
earlier did - and else that you disagree with. That way, we all stand to gain
enormously from the vast assemblage of talents on display here.

For me, all questions in life are ultimately moral questions and as such,
their answers are ultimately moral answers. Criticism for me, therefore, is a
moral endeavour and i take it with all the serious-ness i can possibly
muster. In fact, i never tire in telling people that i'm a Critical
Rationalist: criticisms through such critical modes like introspection and
retrospection are the chief tools for self-improvement and betterment. You
only have to stay with me for a mere 24 hours to realise this distinct trait
in me.

In conclusion, i hope we can rely on you later to tell us how Gambian society
can become wholesome again after Jammeh. I am of the opinion that we ought
not to wait until after Jammeh before formulating our political economy;
rather, we ought to be on it as we speak. This forum ought not to be an
outlet for merely venting out our frustrations, angers and anxieties with
Jammeh, and how under him our dear country is heading towards the abyss. We
ought to have serious "policy" debates on all those things that affect our
peoples. I believe that was what i was modestly engaging Halifa in.

All the best,

Hamjatta Kanteh

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