Cherno,
I'm glad that you seem to share my concern about "credible newspapers to
descend into Stygian depths of Yellow journalism" (your words). But my
concern is themed on private lives of individuals being laundered in the
public arena under the specious argument of political/public. figures cannot
have private lives so long as they are in the public domain or remain
representatives of The People. My Liberal instincts tell there is everything
wrong with this reasoning and at best this is covered in the cobwebs of the
ringing fallacies that political/public figures cannot have private lives
that they own solely and which should they choose to would no share with the
public. Experience teaches us that for a hundred mile journey you begin with
but a step. I hold the view that once we muddy the private and public in
national discourse, Yellow journalism would step in insidiously just as if it
is natural. that was how the Tabloids developed in to the psyche and culture
of the West. Thus I hold the contention that: so long as whatever has no
bearing on the public interest, if it happens to be a public figures private
life, it shall remain thus: PRIVATE. Nothing more, nothing less.
Having said that, i ask you and the rest what interest is it to the
public that an exclusive story of Jammeh's "third wife" is revealed? is
Jammeh beholden by any laws that compel him to marry? or even compel him to
have a benchmark/ceiling quantifying how many wives he can have at any time?
nowhere would you find any classification/designation of an official position
called "First Lady" in our constitution or other laws of our land that our
leaders are beholden to or swear allegiance to defend. Suffice to say that
our body polity is secular liberalism. it does not have as a prerequisite
that candidates to public life must be married or if not should do so post
haste. it does not precondition any public official to share or make his/her
private life a subject trivial chit chats. public officials are under no
duress to divulge what they do in private so long as it doesn't affect their
public roles and ONLY if it is in the public interest. What has it increased
any way to the daily struggles of Gambian masses now that The Independent has
exclusively revealed Jammeh's "third wife"? Zilch. it has not ameliorated the
poor farmer's travails; nor the underprivileged who have to trudge under the
most miserable conditions to make a living; or give medicine to the sick who
throng our hospitals. Again I hold thus that: the revelation that Jammeh has
married a "third wife" is a trivial and frivolous blabbing fit for "Attaya
Vous," cocktail rumour circuits and hostile snipes. It has no bearing direct
on the ordinary people of The Gambia.
Interestingly enough you took this occasion to qualify what would be
"newsy" and what would not be. Bizarrely you chose to juxtapose my comparison
of the Senegalese gov't and MFDC peace talks and Jammeh's "third wife" with
that of the Observer's decision to make prominent in their headlines Dibba's
allegation of the PPP's gov't overspending of taxpayers money and that of an
international business conference that took place at the same time. my
comparisons even reminded you of Omar Sey angst at your taking precedence of
the Dibba story instead of the then gov't's attempts to sell the Gambia as
business haven for investors. You went on that: "this reminds me of former
foreign affairs minister Omar Sey, when he went bonkers over Daily Observer's
front page in which Sheriff Dibba alleged that the PPP government had
overspent tax payers' money within a short period, by over 1 billion dalasis.
It happened that the story took place on the eve of a major international
business conference. By Omar Sey's reckoning, the conference ought to have
been given front page prominence not Dibba's revelations. Well, Omar Sey is
journalist; he probably didn't know what was news or what wasn't." Cherno,
you are a journalist and I presume not only that you do know what is news but
also you have a decent sense of fairness. You know very well that you have
chosen the wrong analogy here. The Dibba "revelations" mentioned cannot be
compared to Jammeh's "third wife" in any case; be it newsworthiness or of
national importance. The PPP's overspending of taxpayers' money to the tune
of a billion dalasi (don't know where you got your stats from but they don't
just add up, old boy), is a legitimate public concern and very news worthy in
that it affects in no small way every fabric of our country. it is very
risible you even make this comparison. Can you even imagine that the
revelation of Jammeh's "third wife" having the same effect as the billion
dalasi that came from Dibba's revelations?
Again you went on to moralise grandiloquently why Jammeh's "third wife"
qualifies to be more newsworthy to than the MFDC and the Senegalese gov't's
peace gathering in Banjul. You said: "I wasn't in the Gambia at the time of
the Independent's publication of their article under scrutiny. But my reading
of the situation is that Jammeh's 'third' wife was more newsy, contiguous to
the national identity than a peace conference that held no optimism. In fact,
soon after the signing of the peace conference, heavy fighting resumed in
Casamance. To be sure, the peace talks were important, but how many times
have the combatants been to the Gambia, working on peace formulas only to
renege on them later. Can you imagine the boredom afflicting the minds of
Gambians and Senegalese on the Casamance situation? Moreover, the story is
about a next door neighbour, but it is foreign consumption to Gambian
readers. It's always good for newspapers to give more coverage to local than
foreign news. Too much foreign news in a local paper will consign that paper
to obscurity, because the local population will look elsewhere for news that
hits close to home, directly affecting their lives."
Cherno, Cherno, how can you be so insensitive? Has the millennium
partying and bug already rendered your humane faculties of sympathising with
those under less favourable and traumatic conditions? How can you consign
Casamance as "foreign" when the Gambia and Casamance are what I will call
overlapping communities of fate? On what grounds do you hold the assertion
that the "peace conference holds no optimism" and will be just like the
others that were forerunners? Where is the evidence that The Independence or
newspapers in the Gambia for that matter devote more space to foreign news as
you seem to insinuate from the MFDC/Senegal gov't meeting? Where is the
evidence that the peace talks would be another bout of "boredom afflicting
Gambian Senegalese minds?"
Cherno it goes without saying that almost every Gambian has a blood
relation and almost all of us regard Senegal as a second home where distant
uncles, aunts, cousins and the rest of it live. How can any sane person
regard the traumatic experience of that area as "foreign news"? How can you
be so callous? In any case what of the ordinary folks who had to live
traumatic and displaced existence since this tragedy started in 1982? Even if
you regard these peoples as "foreigners" where is your sense of humanity and
African-Ness? Have you paused to think that as you rush to party in North
Carolina, that displaced peoples are living wretched lives even on the eve of
the millennium? Has it occurred to you that not everyone is fortunate enough
to celebrate or even a cause to celebrate? Are you not afflicted by the neo
colonial dementia of identity crisis by consigning news of Casamance to the
dust bin of "foreign news" and Casamance as mere "neighbour" or "foreign"? As
you chew at these in front of your PC with your fingers dipped in some
pepperoni jepperoni pizza just remember not everyone has a cosy apartment to
return to at night and the least you could do for these peoples is encourage
any decent effort no matter how tedious, that they attempt to bring normalcy
in their lives. It is very easy when you are in good Ole Uncle Sam to take
these things for granted. Let this salve your conscience.
Equally I'm concerned your wisdom of what would constitute a priority and
tedium and how in the interest of humanity, the tedium can be catapulted into
priority even though as you claim it might afflict boredom on a papers
readership. I will give you the recent case of the Northern Ireland tragedy.
Even though some many ceasefires were declared and deals signed, the British
press were never found in wanting when it comes to highlighting the tragedy
of the province. They certainly don't consign the Irish problem to "foreign"
columns. Can you imagine the British press going after Cherie Blair's
pregnancy whilst the Good Friday deal was being signed? It would be
rebarbative and appal people. No matter how tedious, frustrating and reneging
of deals by parties involved in the conflict, the British trudged nonetheless
to carry out what was a moral responsibility to encourage the parties even it
sometimes cost them readers. Not every problem of society is solved by
liberal markets. Sometimes moral responsibilities demand you risk the wrath
of readers and pursue humanist goals. This was what persevered the British
press and look at the dividends they are reaping from it now. Today Northern
Ireland on a shaky peace, is enjoying devolved government from Westminster
and the Good Friday deal still holds as they prepare for disarmament.
On a final note, you have perversely misinterpreted my application of
"getting it right" within the context of the Independent story on Jammeh's
"third wife." You interpreted that I mean by "getting it right" that: "the
Independent's story does not have facts, and therefore false." Far from it my
application doesn't in any mean I charge the Independent with publishing
false information. By "getting it right" I mean that they didn't get their
priorities right and were in a rush to publish a story of no legitimate
importance to the public; that it was a frivolous and trivial blab of no
direct importance to the ordinary people. By "getting it right," I mean again
that the MFDC/Senegalese gov't gathering holds more importance to the
ordinary peoples of Senegambia and Africa at large and that the Independent
could have saved itself the trouble of a collusion course with an
authoritarian populist like Jammeh, who as you claim earlier had always drawn
the knives out for the Independent. On the veracity of the story we shall all
in the mean time know the truth after the due process of the law.
Happy New Year and Eid Mubarak in advance to y'all.
I salute you.
Hamjatta Kanteh
hkanteh
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