Principles Out, Hypocrisy in (part One)

The Independent (Banjul)
EDITORIAL
May 3, 2004
Posted to the web May 12, 2004
Banjul

People shape their countries and the world by the keen edge of their
perception. That is why it really cannot afford to be blunted. However, if
in a country like Gambia where there is an almost pathological obsession
with the keen appetite for the self more than a patriotic fervour with the
nation one serve, perception especially where it has to deal with ethics
does not matter to many people. Thus the bottom line is always underlined
by some personal designs for self-aggrandisement.

Once upon a time, a Gambian who had studied in the United States earned
himself the robust reputation for being one of Jammeh's most formidable and
stoic critics. He seemed a sweetly educated and morally upgraded gentleman
who paraded himself all stuffed up to the throat with rigid principles and
the moral scruples that promised to stand the test of time and which
patriots could only crave for in a crisis-ridden administrative system such
as the one we have in the Quadrangle. A seeming stickler for ethical
principles it was inconceivable at the time to imagine that Dr. Amadou
Janneh the new Information minister would ever toe the government line
taking an inspiring cue from the hectoring criticisms he had written about
its chequered leadership. It was excusable, even forgivable to believe that
it was more possible for the mountain to go to Mohammed than for any such
self-contradictory thing to happen.

However today, we are being constrained to ask what had happened to all
those ethical principles, all those stoically critical words deployed from
Scattred Janneh's inexhaustible lexical arsenal dispatched to Gambian
websites, accessible to millions of people around the world sending the
regime to the pillory many a times for its supposed lack of ideas to run
the country efficiently and progressively. What had happened to Scattred
Janneh's feelings of profound remorse over the raw deal felt by the average
Gambian in the street thanks to the pernicious cruelties of a situation
blamed on an unfeeling regime? What had happened to his clear-eyed
perception about the attitude of this government towards journalists, a
perception fed in its erstwhile maturity by the fact that as a scholar of
mass communication he had been an enlightened witness to the informed and
symbiotic relationship between the American administration and journalists?

Scattrel Janneh has raised eyebrows for all the wrong reasons, particularly
considering the fact that all he has been saying about the regime had been
generally true and that nothing in it had changed to warrant his sudden
change of heart. We harbour no personal grudges against the personality
involved. What provokes our miffed sense of demur is the principle behind
it. There lies the problem. To shut out or shun the regime as if it were
the proverbial leper only to reverse course and toe its line when nothing
in it had changed for the positive defies the principles of moral
adroitness and mocks our deep-seated belief in the reward for honesty and
trustworthiness.

At least accepting the post with some conditions geared towards righting
some of the wrongs in the system would have helped preserve Minister
Janneh's principles and protect his now glass-house image in the eyes of
people au fait with his every word - past and present. Taking a cue from
the fact that he had argued passionately for the media commission to be
comprehensively reviewed and the climate of press freedom reinvented to
suit journalists, one condition he could have put forth was for it to be
scrapped, to make way for a freshly created controlling mechanism that
strikes a chord with the constitution and guarantees the protection of
journalists. He could have placed at the regime's feet a condition for the
promulgation of a Freedom of Information Act, as a reliable safeguard for
the climate of journalism to flourish in the country and allow the
profitable use of divergent views to enrich our democracy and put members
of the Fourth Estate in an unassailable position. Moreover, Decree 70/71,
which since 1996 has been a silent but potentially dangerous nemesis for
Gambian journalism needs to be quashed and we required his support to
realise this.

It is a screaming irony that Gambians no longer think it is fashionable to
hold fast to ethical principles at a time when the country requires a
culture of moral steadfastness to produce people with the right attitudes
and the practical bent of mind to judiciously run its affairs.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2004 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by
AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~