Iam not sure if you were the same Nyanchor who was at one time in Muslim
High school with my brother Ansumana Darbo. If you are, I must say you were
a great hero of mine. Ansumana talked a lot about you while I was at the
same time in Gambia high school. I followed your contributions on the
Gambia-L and am really impressed. Keep on the Good work.
Kebba Sanneh(nyanchor)
Karlstad university, Sweden.

-----Original Message-----
From: abdoukarim sanneh <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 09:22:12 -0700
Subject: The Great Question of the day (part one)

> The Great Question of the Day (part One)
>
>
> Email This Page
>
> Print This Page
>
> Visit The Publisher's Site
>
> The Independent (Banjul)
>
> EDITORIAL
> May 14, 2004
> Posted to the web May 18, 2004
>
> Banjul
>
> History is today's witness and posterity its judge. No fact luridly
> dressed up by the loaded details of the present crisis of
> constitutionality in The Gambia will ever escape the nimble grasp of
> moral and civil conscience. When accursed apostates of the written and
> spoken word depend on the mindless use of arbitrariness and unbridled
> power to destroy the media landscape, not giving two hoots about the
> ayes and nays of the manifold element or the bruising impact therein,
> the world should be compelled to listen and take note. The unscholarly
> and rabid fear of ideas, particularly those suggesting constructive
> dissent has rocked the inner circles of this warped establishment to
> such an extent that it finds itself moved more by an arbitrary desire
> to tame and tamper with the entire media to do its every bidding than
> by an honest commitment to the democratic sanctity and good values
> naturally handed down to us by the freedom to write or speak as one
> may. Without any demonstrated readiness
>  to temper this brazen lust for peremptory control and influence with
> an ounce of honest reasoning, they have held the Gambian media hostage
> and they have betrayed the democratic agenda.
>
> The media's trial for unfettered independence enters a crucial and
> decisive phase as the ridiculous deadline for journalists and media
> organisations to register with the media commission ticks unconcernedly
> away. It is a time bomb for not only the media, but for also those
> whose existence sanctioned it in the first place, the public who may be
> seeing the very last copies of newspapers they have been used to
> reading on their breakfast and work tables.
> var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 *
> Math.random())+1);document.write(""); document.write("");
> document.write("");
> For three years we have reasoned and wrestled with our conscience, for
> that number of years we have brainstormed among ourselves over the
> wisdom and moral justification for recognising and working with the
> media commission as an arbitrary controlling mechanism over journalists
> in the country. We can appropriately say we have seen no justification
> because there weren't any.
> Relevant LinksWest Africa
> Press and Media
> Gambia
>
> Since the state is in the mood for nothing else but a blind and
> indecent haste to proceed with the commission, the great question of
> the day cannot be settled by mopping and mowing but by standing firmly
> behind our moral conviction, which is that the media commission reeks
> of unconstitutional illegality for all the ludicrous reasons, which go
> outrageously against the grain of constitutional provisions positive
> and explicit about the inalienability of freedom of expression and the
> irrepressible culture of a free press, hence our moral challenge of it
> in the corridors of justice. The state itself knows that the moral
> balance of scale in the protracted argumentative twists and turns
> either for or against the media commission is tipping in our favour
> thanks to the fact that this Frankenstein nemesis threatening to torn
> the media landscape apart represents a duplication of functions,
> simulating roles already played by institutions already in place to
> regulate the working of the media. It
>  strikes no agreeable chord with our article of democratic faith.
>
> Our pending challenge of the constitutionality of the commission
> automatically kills whatever arbitrary mandate is vested in the
> commission, rendering its authority null and non-binding. Until the
> courts decide we will hand ourselves the benefit of the doubt. It would
> not suit our purpose nor serve our common cause as journalists to
> register, because that very deplorable and unthinkable move can only
> always be translated as automatic recognition. There is always a
> lurking danger of compromising our case in the courts by dint of
> registering, suffice it to add that the mechanism against which we have
> gone too far in our opposition to ignore would have been easily handed
> the initiative to begin work in earnest. Technically recognising it
> would mean accepting its powers over us and all Gambian journalists
> should know what this means. The simple disarming fact is that we are
> not prepared to even faintly acknowledge the presence of something we
> don't recognise.
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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