Dear Folks,

I wrote the piece below couple of weeks and sort of forgot it languishing in
the hard desk. Just bumped into and thought to share it with you all. Hope
you enjoy it. One of those occassions when I relax into the comfort of my
sofa and think deep about the troubles of Africa and The Gambia. This time,
I could not resist the temptation of writing about it.
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                                        ‘WHAT YOU SOW IS WHAT YOU REAP’

This is a very simple and straightforward aphorism which, I have grown up to
believe, and so is, I imagine, most other people that right brings right and
wrong brings wrong. It is as unfussy as that. No matter how long it takes,
time always catches up with us. And when it does, it can only be for two
things: fulfilment and being held in high esteem or disillusionment and
being abysmally cast to the hollow of the waste bin of history. It is about
how we evaluate ourselves and how we are judged. In either way, our actions
leave behind ineffaceable corollaries into posterity.

The troubling question is: How many of us take note of this in our
day-to-day activities? How many of us learn from the successes and failures
of others, decipher them and relate to ourselves? Again, it is said that
history is there to teach us and indeed, that history repeats itself. A lot
of us deliberately ignore this reality, more so, by people entrusted with
the responsibility of looking after the affairs of other people. They are
the leaders and their style together with the environment in which they
operate, carries a heavy weight in determining the general well being of the
people of that environment.

A close look at the African environment reveals the deplorable truth of it
being bedevilled, for many years, with retrogressive leaders who have
submerged it into stupor because of their superciliousness of disdain to the
views and opinions of people over whom they rule. A leader, in their sense,
is superior, unquestionable, infallible and a divine reservoir of wisdom
with answers to all the needs of the people. To them, the people are mere
followers who merit no kind of positive engagement in the process of
determining their own faith.

The culpability of the Amins, the Does, the Siad Barres, to name but a few,
of such mentality of leadership, speaks volumes about the reasons for the
collapse of their various countries. In the end, everybody suffered - them
and the people over whom they have ruled. The Amins and the Barres died on
the run, the Does butchered to death, whilst their countries wallow in
despair and irreparable fracture to social cohesion. The point is a simple
one. Can a system exist very long and thus achieve its objectives unless its
citizens identify with it? How can a government solve problems unless the
people view themselves as part of the unit? These are simple questions to
pose but without simple solutions. The reason being that a lot of the
systems that our leaders preside over only stay to antagonise and alienate
the people that they are suppose to serve.

A brief political history of Liberia will illustrate this point well. As I
sympathise with the Liberian people, I believe that their experience as a
whole should be a lesson to all open-minded people in order that, it could
be avoided in other countries and most importantly in Liberia itself in the
future.

Freed black American slaves found Liberia, after a Latin word ‘Liber’
meaning free, as a sovereign and independent republic in 1847. Their
descendents became known as Americo-Liberians and live alongside about
sixteen different native ethnic groups. From 1847 to 1980, for over 130
years, their party, ‘True Whig Party’ exclusively ruled the country with
total domination of its basic political and economic structures, so much so
that some scholars would refer to this period as ‘black imperialism’ or
‘black colonialism’. The people who should have mattered, the native people,
were never given the opportunity to play an active role in the running of
the affairs of the country. When the system constantly failed to accommodate
their desires, their indignation precipitated the coup of 1980 and
dramatically ended the True Whig Party dynasty.

One would have thought that a system that has existed and ruled over a
people for over 100 years would have made itself relevant and tolerable to
the people by equitably giving and taking from them. That was not to be. The
True Whig Party was exclusionist and oligarchic. The message is simple: how
ever long a system lasts, so long as it does not epitomize and embody the
wishes and desires of the people that it is suppose to serve, that system
and its pioneers are doomed. This was the plain fact with slavery,
colonialism, and apartheid in South Africa. These systems were cruel and
abhorrent and the people fought hard and well against them until they were
eventually gotten rid off. Doe’s reign, although for only 9 years, suffered
a similar faith. Recently, Taylor had to go too. Again, for the bare truth
that he only brought misery to the people of Liberia and their neighbours.

He will most probably live the rest of his life with guilt and being hunted
by the images of all those people whose lives he has either directly or
indirectly made miserable. His wealth, perhaps ill gotten, will be of no
comfort to him. The world has already proven hell to him to live in, I
assume. The end of tyranny, theft, arrogance and disrespect is ignominy,
loneliness and regret. Who wants to live through such a life?

The Gambia is at a critical juncture in its political life. We all love our
country so much and all peace loving people like to appeal to wisdom that
could save this beautiful country from cataclysm. However, it most be said
that recent developments in the country have the hallmark of factors that
have savaged other countries. It basically comes down to the crunch of
balancing between the needs of people and what they are able to get. It is
undoubtedly hard times in the Gambia, of magnitude, perhaps, never
experienced in her history. The economy is not doing well and the people
feel beleaguered with fear. There is a growing sense of misunderstanding
between communities. This is the time when the people need a leadership that
accepts responsibility, honestly identify the problem of the people and try
to solve it. Remember, a leader is there to serve the people. When this is
not possible, the leader most be prepared to gracefully find the exit.

Pitifully, the brand of leadership Africa has known for sometime has been
the one that has failed the people numerous times but stayed to take them
hostage. I pray for the day when we will all rise up and stand firm on our
two feet to free ourselves from the manacles of backwardness and instead
bring happiness and joy to all the faces of the people of Africa. Gambia
should not allow itself to turn away from this noble crusade.


Alieu K. Jammeh

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