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Date: | Sat, 16 Aug 2003 19:10:27 -0400 |
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Mr. Gassama,
I do appreciate the effort in preparing such a compendium of questions
that spans a series of comments I made over time. Let me state for a
start that I found most of your questions regressive and quite
nuanced. They only succeed in multiplying the objects of discussion
and the dialogue itself infinitely. The question whether Halifa Sallah
is a sociologist or not is preposterous. Nobody can best answer that
question but Halifa himself. However, there is a tacit omission in his
revelations to the media. Whether this was a calculated evasion on his
side or poor journalism is now any one's guess. Therefore I cannot
judge Halifa’s character from this without error. As it stands now,
Halifa’s integrity is intact as far as this “sociologist” issue is
concerned. As far as I am concerned, a sociologist is by all means a
career academic doing research and publishing his findings in reputable
scholarly journals. I am yet to see Halifa publish anything beyond
his “Forooya” (with all due respect to that paper). An undergraduate
major in sociology does not grant one authority in that discipline. In
any case Buhary let Halifa himself clear the fog: Is he or is he not a
sociologist? The subsequent claims you deduce from this “sociologist”
question about Halifa is therefore a false dichotomy about my
understanding of his character. It is not an either this or that
situation. There are options and I will choose to defer judgment on
Halifa’s character until he himself answers the question.
The next issue you raised is critical of my caricature of Halifa’s
Jackson-Five hairdo which I strongly believe to be another straw man
error. I was trying to make a point about PDOIS “brand” of socialism.
Let us just deconstruct the name PDOIS itself: PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC
ORGANISATION FOR INDEPENDENCE AND SOCIALISM. Granted even the
communist dictatorships in North Korea and Cuba call themselves
democratic and independent, what resonates with clarity in Halifa’s
group is an ORGANISATION FOR SOCIALISM. PDOIS is an organization that
champions a socialist agenda. An organization is NOT a political party
as Lamin Waa Juwara rightly called them a “club”. This is a loose
association of very independent individuals who might not necessarily
even have the same interests nor agenda but they may be rightly
attracted to a common ultimate ideology i.e. communism (well Halifa
likes to call it socialism). So what is socialism? Socialism values a
collectivist system of political economy over free enterprise which
values individual responsibility. In essence socialism values
government control over individual liberty. The point I was
illustrating is the grotesque reality that the PDOIS leadership are
closet dictators engaged in making us believe that their collectivist
dogma as demonstrated with their own altruism of everyday life is of
superior reality and morality.
And you still believe that Halifa and his club of socialist are not
dreamers...? Let us listen to some Halifaspeak as reported on an
online forum: Asked what brand of socialism if not “economic
adventurism”...Halifa says – "Essentially, we are talking about co-
operative governance. In essence we see governance throughout the world
heading towards this process....We have to get people to take ownership
of their countries through institutionalisation of the process..."
Hhile maintaining that his “sort of socialism is not suited for the
Gambia” he is simultaneously advocating for the dictatorship of
the “people”. Finally, Halifa concluded his statements with my
favorite quotation, the mother of all incoherence: "In that sense,
there are no quick fix solutions. Privatisation is not the answer. We
need a realistic appraisal of our economy in particular and the global
economy in general and to start implementing economic regeneration
programmes.”-THERE ARE NO QUICK FIX SOLUTIONS!...Does this ring a bell
to a socialist....? Of course- Utopian Socialism. The word “utopia”
is Greek for “no place”. The connection of Halifa’s “No quick fix
solutions” and “no place” is very interesting indeed and it does echo
the classical socialist utopianism of Saint-Simon and Fourier :
“ Our fathers have not seen it,... our children will arrive there one
day, and it is for us to clear the way for them”
Tell me Mr. Gassama, does this not sound like a dream?
Best Regards,
Ebou Jallow
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