POWERFUL STUFF. Hamjatta, if the Opposition carries this message to the
country, victory is ours come October, 2001. Keep up the great job you are
doing.
KB


>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: The Alliance Campaign & How To Go About It
>Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:32:03 EDT
>
>A historical disquisition of the success of the 1992 Clinton presidential
>campaign, reveals the extent to which how a political narrative was
>identified by a political scientist-cum-pollster and how the narrative was
>cannily crafted into a political slogan that has all the characteristics of
>historical legend. In choreographing the genesis of what later amounted to
>the focus of Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and its populist but
>sophisticated slogans like "It's the economy, stupid" and "Putting people
>first", Washington Post legend, Bob Woodward, acknowledged the stupendously
>wise-cracking pollster-cum-political scientist, Stan Goldberg, with
>encapsulating the political narrative of the time into a political message
>that had the tantalising propensity of catching and sticking with the
>popular
>imagination. This accreditation of Goldberg with Clinton's powerful but
>simple political message that struck a chord with ordinary and
>sophisticated
>peoples alike came from Goldberg's long-held view that America's next major
>socio-political crisis was what has been effectively dubbed the gradual
>decimation of America's middle classes or America's "declining middle";
>i.e,
>the current inability of or difficulties associated with the average
>American
>to live the American Dream of "a good job, a college education for their
>kids, owning a home, affordable health care, and retirement with economic
>security." To the extent that this was true of America in the post- Reagan
>years, Goldberg felt it was the ONLY message that was a seller and a
>winner.
>Bob Woodward writes:
>
>" Greenberg had been advising Clinton since his 1990 gubernatorial
>campaign.
>In 1991, he gave the governor a draft of a long article he was writing for
>the American Prospect, a liberal political journal. In part a review of
>three
>books that examined what Greenberg called "the Democrat's perceived
>indifference to the value of work and the interests of working people," the
>article was the culmination of a lot of analysis and polling. It was also a
>personal manifesto of sorts. Greenberg was devoted to studying the crisis
>in
>the Democratic Party and the defection of middle-class and working whites -
>the so-called Reagan Democrats - to the Republican presendential candidates
>in the 1980s. These voters held the balance in national elections, and
>Greenberg argued that they wanted to return to their party, to come home.
>Party leaders had to reach out to this disaffected and forgotten middle
>class, which saw itself squeezed - paying for programs for the poor and tax
>breaks for the wealthy, while getting little in return from government. The
>middle class crisis presented an opportunity for the Democrats." [Bob
>Woodward, The Agenda - Inside the Clinton White House, pp. 24-25, Simon &
>Schuster, New York, 1994]
>
>It is worth a moment's pause to free myself of what could later amount to a
>contextual obfuscation of my lifting of the above passage from Woodward's
>book. Let me categorically state that i do not and never will view the
>current Gambian as a class problem; i.e., that is to say that i do not see
>the Gambian crisis as one precipitated by a crisis within one class or a
>pitting of the classes against each other. Whilst i remain loyal to my
>trenchant bourgeois convictions, obsession with social status has never and
>never will factor in my outlook. I lifted the Woodward passage for
>comparative contextual purposes; and not necesaarily believing in every jot
>and tittle of Goldberg's convictions. Rather, as would be crystal clear
>later, the above passage typifies how political narratives for a political
>struggle are encapsulated into a simple but sophisticated theme that easily
>strikes a chord with all constituents alike.
>
>To the extent that this is the case, the Alliance - as a first measure -
>ought to engage in a dialectical exercise of the current Gambian crisis and
>broadly define the forces that are at work; how it ought to be tackled; and
>most importantly, the manner and ways in which it ought to be tackled. In
>this, there is both a good and bad news for the Alliance. The bad one
>first.
>It seems to me that the fundamental defect of Gambian Opposition since July
>22nd 1994 has been one of selling a coherent, simple and sophisticated
>message to those constituents that had been lulled into a trance by the
>AFPRC/APRC's populist and simplistic narrative; especially, the bits
>embodying its grotesque infrastructural developments as signs of changed
>times for better. Indeed, the Opposition has identified the lies behind the
>fabrications that Gambian lives have improved since 1994 and effectively
>debunked them. But beyond the sophisticated urbanites, their message has
>left
>much to be desired. Because the message has, to this day, not changed, it
>means that what in other ways, contexts and eras resembles an ingredient
>for
>mass agitation and disaffection remains a body of complacency and
>indifference. This is the deficit we ought to correct if we are going to
>impact upon those still lulled in the trance of Jammeh and the APRC.
>
>Now the good news. The dialectics of the current Gambian crisis has been
>pretty much fleshed out by rigorous debates. Suffice to say that when it
>comes to the intellectual and moral case against Jammeh, it is a foregone
>conclusion that on these grounds by themselves alone, the Alliance wins
>hands
>down. In essence no serious or credible intellectual and moral arguments
>persist today that in effect primes another day of Jammeh as Gambian
>president. That has always been the easy bit. The earnest emptiness and
>evilry of the Jammeh era is self-evident: all the stuff that makes up a
>crackpot African dictatorship are all evident in Jammeh. The extra judicial
>killings of innocent Gambians; the plundering of scarce Gambian resources
>by
>Jammeh; the abrupt withdrawal of basic civil liberties; the absence of a
>judicial regime that rigorously upheld the Rule of Law; the continued
>fettering and harrassment of journalists; distate for democratic and
>governance values; and the refusal to acknowledge the essence of dissent in
>a
>polity purportedly buoyed by liberal democratic politics. This list, is by
>no
>means exhaustive. We can spend the rest of the day here stating the
>intellectual and moral case against Jammeh. The case against Jammeh is
>simply
>overwhelming.
>
>The problem that faces us now vis-a-vis the manner and ways in which the
>Alliance conducts its campaign, is to glibly translate these intellectual
>and
>moral arguments against Jammeh into a common populist language without so
>much losing the essence of its moral and intellectual roots. When Goldberg
>identified the enemy as the decimation of the middle-classes, the trick was
>to communicate this newfound moral and intellectual truth in a way which
>will
>strike chords with not only the mentioned middle-classes but those also
>aspiring to be one. The message has got escape the quirky bounds of
>intellectual and moral rigour and populism be breezed into it without
>compromising the coherency, effectiveness and seriousness of the message.
>This is the first point.
>
>The second point is one of looking beyond the crisis and enacting a
>proactive
>mechanism that will sufficiently address the problems that gave imptus to
>the
>crisis. It is simply not enough to tell Americans that the middle-classes
>are
>fast disappearing; and it was caused by reckless Republican tax cuts for
>the
>upper classes. That way you are embroiling yourself in un-necessary class
>warfare and unproductive arguments. Rather, you have got to imagine ways in
>which the highlighted crisis can be seriously and effectively addressed. So
>instead of empty anti- upper class rhetorics, you come up with effective
>slogans like "its the economy, stupid" or inclusive ones like "putting
>people
>first". That you are not smeared as a bunch of firebrand leftist class
>warriors.
>
>Similarly, and with regard to the Gambian context, when the Alliance
>incessantly highlight the human rights abuses and other anomalies
>associated
>with the APRC, and engage in fiery rhetorics of justice, they always risked
>being described as a violent and angry bunch of vindictive politicians who,
>by virtue of their angry and vindictive rhetoric, have the propensity of
>creating social upheaval in the event of their ascension to power. Indeed,
>intellectual detractors of the Alliance enjoy nothing more than doing just
>exactly that; especially during the presidential elections of 1996. One
>recalls the columns of papers like Foroyaa, which wasted no time
>immediately
>after those elections to caricature the UDP along those lines. To avoid the
>current presidential elections being dragged into such ignoble intellectual
>distractions and frivolities, the Alliance must temper its rhetoric with
>the
>message of moderation that is inclusive and not divisive. For instance,
>whilst it should uncompromisingly state that there would be enquiries into
>the April Massacres, it ought to state categorically that there would be no
>witch hunts and any or all political actions will primordially follow the
>due
>process of established laws and civil liberties will be respected. That way
>we eradicate any mention of angry vindictiveness from the message. 'Cause
>we
>are moving on without Jammeh.
>
>To sum up my argument, i will humbly suggest that we learn from Goldberg
>and
>the New Democrats when they successfully took on the Republican incumbency
>of
>Bush without attracting their endless spins, control freakery and
>tackiness.
>We have got to translate the intellectual and moral narrative of the
>current
>crisis into a message that connects with Gambians of all walks of life. In
>this scheme of things, the moral and intellectual arguments against Jammeh
>ought to be neatly incorporated with the Alliance's Social, Economic and
>Political Rectification Programmes. Out of this incorporation, we
>mustcannily
>craft a message that strikes a chord with ALL Gambians irrespective of
>social, economic and political status. To this end, what undergirds the
>Alliance's message and overall agenda is - to paraphrase from a slogan from
>my compatriot, Kebba Dampha - that after 7 catastrophic years of Jammeh,
>Gambians are now MOVING FORWARD. And what slogan exists today that best
>encapsulates this fundamental moral truth than saying that after the
>October
>presidential elections, the Gambian Peoples will begin a journey of what
>signally promulgates a national sense of Gambians MOVING FORWARD? To
>localise
>the slogan, the Alliance can easily refer to it as "Nyato" in Mandinka or
>"Siikanam" in Wollof. The slogan can easily be translated into ALL the
>local
>languages of the country. That way, we will effectively succeed in
>informing
>the Gambian Peoples that it is about time we begin MOVING FORWARD from the
>barbarism and decadence of the APRC era to a new era of decency, liberty
>and
>the Rule Of The Law without alienating any constituency.
>
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
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