Sister Jabou,
Eventhough this is just a tiny opening into Dumo's life, I am immensely
pleased that you found it informative.
Many many thanks,
Sidibeh
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jabou Joh" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:29 AM
Subject: Re: THE "DUMO TRIALl"/Sidibeh
Sidibeh,
Thank you so very much for thsi information about brother Dumo that some of
us did not know about.
Jabou Joh
In a message dated 2/10/04 5:55:53 PM Central Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
>
> DEAR Annika and All,
>
> Having to hang on to timetables set by capricious and obviously
unconcerned
> judges is a nightmare of its own. To then hang hope on those timetables -
> for one has no other recouse - just for the day to pass without as much as
> the courtesy of a proper adjournment by the judge, is total tragedy, worst
> than the Greek kind. One would have thought that throwing people in jail
and
> then abandonning them to the caprices of absent-minded judges, as if such
a
> hell-hole should be their natural habitat must be just as outrageous to
> everyone. But obviously not.
>
> Even without checking my statistics, I know that there is no other Gambian
> who has been driven through the gates of the Mile 2 prisons as numerously
as
> Momodou Dumo Sarho on account of his politcal activism. No other Gambian
has
> ever endured such intense and wicked assault on his psyche for the sheer
> purpose of breaking his spirits; no one in our country has ever
experienced
> such persistent waves of physical abuse from the powers that be; and no
> other Gambian family has had to live with the anguish of continuous terror
> of uncertainty about the fate of a rebellious but quintessentially
> progressive spirit; the fate of a son, a brother, and husband whose
> banihsment from Saint Augustine's High since 1973, has been followed by an
> endless crusade to teach, to organise, to support the youth and the poor,
> and to organise, to militate against social decadence, reactionary
politics
> and cultural atavism. Dumo's entire life, up to now, has been completely
> usurped by STRUGGLE, in all its concreteness and ambiguity, to such a
depth
> and purpose that he has ceased possession of the word itself. You cannot
> imagine Dumo outside the meaning of the word "struggle".
>
> I canntot think of a single village in Gambia that Dumo does not know; no
> Gambian politician whose biography he does not master; no department in
the
> Gambian state apparat whose head he does not know. Up to 1982, you could
not
> tell Dumo the registration number of a private car in Banjul and
Sere-Kunda
> whose owner he is ignorant of. Dumo knows Gambia and Gambians inside out.
He
> knows hustlers, bums, businessmen, poiticians, fake revolutionaries, the
> intelligentsia, prison warders and jail birds, peasants and dope runners,
> and all shades of red-eyed call-me-comrade radicals. He knows the police
> informers, CID and Special Branch undercover(!) agents, policemen and
their
> most fearfully-guarded secrets. Gadding the streets of Sere-Kunda in
Dumo's
> company is tiresome business: he stands up for almost everyone and almost
> everyone stands up for him; so you just wait and wait while he exchages
> words with people; in Dumo's company you may reach your destination. But
if
> you do you always will be behind schedule. He is the type of person people
> pretend to know well after hearing of him once. His verbal skills are
> unmatched, eclipsing even those of Suslov - Leonid Bhreznev's propaganda
> secretary. Dumo's sophistication in Gambia's cultural milieu is simply
> amazing....
> (In 1995 we met in Gambia. After visiting my wife at Bakau NewTown, he
> talked me into passing by an auntie of his. The old woman lives just
behind
> the Police Depot. As soon as the initual ritual of salutations were over,
> the old woman and Dumo plunged into what was for me uncahrted seas. They
> talked about the uncles in London and Leeds, the sisters still at Leman
and
> Perseverance streets, the nieces and nephews in different states in the
U.S
> and all the major and minor relations weaved together into this complex
> lineage. It went on for hours. I was stupefied and I got hungry. The old
> woman spoke like she never spoke before, enlivened by Dumo's soothing
> evocation of old memories. She spoke of her children, her children's
> children, her siblings and their spouses and offspring. She spoke of
distant
> cousins and aunts and how these were related to other families. She
narrated
> the matrilineal links with other families and their geographic origins.
When
> we finally had to leave, Dumo's aunt could only suppress tears with great
> dificulty. She immensely enjoyed teaching us some oral history and
practical
> sociology, betraying a deep-seated emotional urge to narrate. In
> restrospect, it was an extraordinary experience for me, one that
illustrated
> how Africa's "history of ordinary people" simply fades into memory, into
> dissolved biographies, dismembering our modern notions of "knowing where
one
> comes from"; whole lives, and legends, and narratives imploding into
> colourless "by-the-ways".
>
> While the rest of us have gone on building families and getting on with
> mundane carreers, blunting, corrupting and compromising our instinct to
> struggle, Dumo has remained staunch and unmalleable, breathing energy into
> the very notion of long-term continous struggle; the struggle against
> everything that is backward in our political culture and for everything
that
> means progress in our society.
>
> Three years ago there was much activity waged in his behalf and that of
his
> co-detainees. With time and repeated frustration over his fake trials
> energies sapped in the process, as all of us grew helpless as we agonised
> over his fate. But Dumo is unbreakable; partly because he is not just an
> individual. Dumo has developed into an instituion, commanding the spirited
> energy for a free Gambia. It is precisely his enormous zeal for a life
> charged with meaning, for a better Gambia that must keep the rest of us
> going on to struggle for our own sake and for his immediate release and
the
> release of his co-detainees from unjust imprisonment.
>
> FREE DUMO SARHO NOW!!!
>
> Sidibeh
>
>
> From: "Annika Renberg" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:15 PM
> Subject: The "Dumo trial"
>
>
> For your information:
> Today was the day scheduled for the long awaited ruling in the 3½ year old
> treason case against the remaining detainees Ebrima Barrow, Dumo Sarho and
> Ebrima Yarboe.
> Nothing happened though - Justice Belghore seems to have travelled abroad
on
> un urgent mission for some (five?) weeks. He did not even have time to set
a
> new date before he left.
> Annika Renberg
> (Dumo's wife)
>
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