The Fisherman's Tale

 

 

 

"We would talk and talk until the Jawara regime comes tumbling down, even though we would not have moved an inch from Stockholm"
      
                            Dumo Sarho, On verbal revolutionary struggle against the PPP government.


Trying to provide answers as to why the Gambian electorate chose to cast its vote for President Yahya Jammeh last October seemed too schoolmasterish an undertaking for me. I would rather submit it as a suggestion on the causes of the Jammeh victory and how those causes could be used as instruments to effect the widespread desire to transcend the level of ineffectual mutual swiping that cluttered the menu on Gambia-l both well before the elections and many months after it. Hopefully that sort of movement would also help establish Gambia-l as neither  a pro-APRC nor anti-APRC forum (despite the opinions of supporters and opponents of this party) but rather as a site where differences of opinion  enhance appreciation of our diverse backgrounds, aiding us to better understand who we are in our quest to contribute to the common weal. Though that is easier said than done, it remains true that whatever Gambia-l becomes is our collective responsibility.

Dumo's limitless sense of humour, even at his bleakest moments, could not conceal his unfailing pragmatism. It is an old and perhaps natural Popperian maxim, which rendering everything from a rigorous theoretical outlook, eventually seeks to arrest and correct selected batteries of demobilising predicaments such as are the bane of Gambian society. Mobilising a mass of people for social redress is as noble a cause as it is monumental. In our part of the world it is to wage a struggle against cemented traditions, entrenched belief systems. It invariably entails challenging a repressive and authoritarian authority, risking  lives and the social and economic security of families and relatives in the process. It means a struggle against widespread ignorance in largely non-literate societies where men and women are overburdened with daily preoccupations with the next meal, the next jar of water, the nearest medical station; where the struggle for rights remains eternally unequal to the struggle for rice.


The Struggle For Rights

February 8th, 1969. The National Youth Council had been denied permission to demonstrate against the state visit of Senegalese president, the late Léopold Sedar Senghore. The Tonya movement of Gambian students was by this time weakened by internal strife between its radical and conservative elements. Despite warnings over the radio by then Prime Minister Dawda Jawara, the students demonstrated violently causing considerable destruction of property in some areas in Banjul. Police tear-gassed and wounded many students honouring Jawara's threat that demonstrators would be "shot below the knee". Another violent student demonstration in 1974 (or 1975?) for lack of transport from Serre-Kunda to Banjul was fiercely dispersed by the Field Force.  A handful of students were injured, but none of them seriously. Even though students continued to use street demonstrations as a forum to make known their legitimate grievances (educational materials, grants, transport) their radicalism and militancy never eclipsed  that of the late sixties.  Besides arresting and parading radical students into detention centres for dubious political activity and torturing some of them severely, Jawara's record of tolerance for democratic rights of students throughout his thirty-year rule, (except during the extraordinary circumstances following the July 1981 Kukoi uprising) immediately pales in comparison to what we have so far witnessed from successive APRC governments. 

Central in the fight for democratic rights and freedoms is the struggle of journalists for free speech and expression. Gambian journalists, like others elsewhere in Africa have always been the frontline victims of governmental displeasure and vengeance since the first print medium appeared in Gambia in the 1870s. From the activism of William Francis Small at the end of the nineteenth century to the recent abduction and torture of Ebrima Sillah, a constant voice of protest runs through more than 100 years of Gambian journalistic history. In between the two extremes lies a long line of heroic sacrifice, perseverance and dedication to the work of telling the truth about oppressive governments.  Unfortunately, as elsewhere, Gambian newspapers had a very small circulation, depending largely on a tiny readership in the cities and towns. Their life expectancy was therefore, often short. The medium of radio on the other hand had the advantage of reaching and engaging a wider audience. My very little experience tells me however that politically critical reporting and programming over the radio is a relatively recent phenomenon. (I stand to be corrected here). My object however is to pinpoint the fact that, progressive work of newspaper and radio journalists notwithstanding, Gambians have never, as far as I know, taken to the streets to display righteous indignation over wanton assault on journalists. Their was obvious widespread sympathy for Baboucarr Gaye and George Christensen when thugs and arsonists tried with obvious government complicity, to muzzle up their stations. 


The Workers movement equally has a relatively long history of struggle. Yet worker militancy also seems to have disappeared with the banning of the powerful Gambia Workers Union in 1976. Even more important than the struggles of student groups, the fights of workers for better working conditions and higher wages directly links economic questions with the politics of the day, connects the welfare of families with government economic policies. This is of great significance in Gambia where the state remains the largest employer. The plight of Gambian workers has however, never been sufficiently represented in the manifestoes of mainstream political parties.. As far as I know Gambian workers as a distinct class of producers were treated significantly only inside the pages of underground papers of the 70s and MOJA's New Year Messages - pamphlets which succeeded more in scaring the regime than organising workers. Not even PDOIS has taken up the protracted struggle of workers as a distinct concern worthy of separation from its general thrust in raising political awareness. 

 

It is true that worker militancy in Gambia is severely undercut by the fact that this class of producers and consumers is still embryonic; and reasons are that it is of relatively small size, possesses a widespread semi-feudal world outlook, and perhaps more importantly, is the absence of a strong industrial tradition. Yet the very fact that Gambian workers, in both private and public sector employment, have organised themselves autonomously into unions of teachers, dock-workers, motor drivers, bespeaks a consciousness of their pivotal role in the economic life of society as a whole. Unfortunately, this potential for democratic change has scarcely been used by the established political opposition to press for reforms. Gambian workers have used industrial action such as strikes to fight for better wages since the 1920s. In our family-centred, clan based culture where workers usually cater for an extended family and where they have a foothold in the rural areas, the organisation of workers' demands, if buttressed by a political force could gradually lead to a shift in the average mentality. This applies as well to even white collar workers in various government departments: hotel employees, health sector workers, agricultural workers, teachers, etc.
Unlike in Senegal, numerous political parties have incorporated the concerns, grievances, and interests of workers as central planks into both their organisational thrust and political platforms. No less than five opposition parties formed the Senegalese Democratic Alliance (ADS) in October 1986 to press for the release of all political prisoners (including El Hadj Momodou Sow Sarr) and denounce the human rights abuses of the Joof regime. At least three of these parties, And-Jeff (A.J./ M.R.D.N), the Democratic League (L.D. / M.P.T) and the O.S.T (Senegalese Organisation of Workers ?) have as part of their mass base, the Senegalese working class.


 This far, it is possible to compare the dynamics of the struggle for rights under both the first and second republics with a strong reservation on electoral contests between the old PPP and the U.P on the one hand, and the APRC and U.D.P on the other. 
Jawara's record though, should not be glossed over with a fresh coat of varnish. His attitude to constitutional and civic rights of citizens took a drastic and backward slide after July ' 81. He seemed to have believed that to strengthen his rule and ward off any recurrence of coup plots he needed to militarise the state. Torture and political repression became commonplace and the intimidation of political opponents also became commoner than they formerly were. All six elections that took place under his tutelage were marred by  more or less severe incidents of vote rigging, and open purchase of voter cards. In the run up to the 1987 general elections, members of the opposition in Sabah Sanjal were severely beaten and tortured in the presence of one or two government ministers and the then Vice President. Besides, Jawara created the security and military institutions that would be reinforced and refined as instruments of coercion by his successor.

The treatment journalists have endured under President Jammeh's rule is unprecedented in Gambian history. Decrees No. 70 and No. 71, 1996 on libel and sedition are chilling reminders of Governor Hillary Blood's Ordinance 4 of 1944, which because of uncertainties about Gambia's colonial future, sought to silence those voices struggling for freedom from domination. The nocturnal Kafkaesque abductions of media professionals who are then subjected  to  gringo-style interrogations is equivalent to taking a giant leap back into the Middle Ages.

But what stands out as a monumental contrast to the first republic is governmental reaction to  protest by students. The April 2000 massacre of teenage students and an employee of the Red Cross plunged the entire nation into unbelievable shock. The outpouring of grief and outrage was unprecedented. Gambians everywhere demanded that the perpetrators of this most heinous of crimes be brought to justice without delay. Yet when the coroner's report was submitted, the government threw it out, refusing to take responsibility for what happened; and our frustrations and anger, as they had clearly hoped fizzled out with time. In the absence of any captivating graphic motif, I still search for a clue to understand the despair of the mothers of victims by gazing at a print out of Edvard Munch's The Scream. But those dark eyes in "The Scream's" skull are just too surreal for this gory act. So I instead gaze at Sam Nzima's immortalisation of a screaming Mbuyiswa Makhubo who carried the dead body of Hector Petersson - the first victim of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. This way I hope to get a glimpse into the souls of both the victims and their murderers.  

My belief is that the government itself was shocked by its own actions, but designed a strategy to ride out the storm since it could not contemplate the alternative of mass resignation. They would have to stick together, use the national TV to mollify feelings by expressing regret at what happened, beg the population for patience and time and promise that a full investigation would be carried out. It then deliberately went on to prejudge the outcome of that investigation by blaming the students for destroying property and  even shooting first at the soldiers. This line of propaganda, (begging an aggrieved religious population for calm and patience) aired over and over on Gambian TV was a perfect tactic in a DCO (damage control operation); and it worked. But the price the government had to pay was the complete loss of its moral integrity. Dr. Sedat Jobe, himself a former university lecturer, simply bided his time to "gracefully" resign at the right moment. Why Ousainou Darboe chose to heap glittery accolades on him instead of denouncing him for sitting in a government guilty of a massacre, he alone can explain!

Before venturing an analysis of the above connected but separate narratives, allow me to share with you a personal experience of Gambian solidarity:
Its exactly twenty years ago, precisely January 1982 in cell number 6 at the Remand Wing of the Mile Two prisons. We were twelve inmates, including Dumo and myself, sharing a cell not larger than three by four metres. The cell, like all the other five, is divided into compartments. An embankment, two bricks high, runs across the length of the cell just a meter inside from the door, dividing it in two. The larger compartment, (four by two metres) was our sleeping quarters where we stretched out like helpless sardines in a grave. To make the drab monotony of life less frustrating, we cut and drew a draught board into the concrete floor of the smaller compartment using brown and grey pebbles as game pieces. This way our cell became the natural meeting place for an assortment of "bawdolu" and "choonaylu" (expert and novice players) in the entire remand. We would invite some members of cell number 5 ( Jibou Jagne, the late Abou Gassama, Sosseh Colley, Kebba Bayo, the late Pa Ali Jammeh, and Foday Baldeh of Gambia College) and thrash them to pieces. (You may have noticed that this was part of the NCP leadership locked at Mile 2). This was the fun part of life there; everything else was customized horror. 

Fisticuffs were commonplace between our cell and the warders largely because we protested against their cheating us of our forty minutes break into the open air before noon everyday. So tensions were almost always high. We had three meals a day, all of them just about fit for dogs. We ate the same damn thing everyday. Breakfast consisted of pap, most of it just the chaff of millet boiled in gallons of water. You drink it like tea, if you were lucky. Otherwise you just pick the pieces of glass and nails and pebbles from it, which, in our case we placed in a small transparent plastic bag to be shown to Red Cross personnel as the Mile Two versions of Jawara's Tobaski dish!  Most of the 65 or so inmates of the wing suffered from dysentery. The air in the cells was dense with vapour from an amalgam of male sweat and the colonial smell of Lifebuoy soap!  Death was common in the main prison yard. To discipline detainees, the warders would effect a transfer from the remand to the main prisons, or vice versa. So one day, they brought in my friend Rilwan Lowe who had by now become famous for kidnapping (or saving) Momodou Musa Njai the Great. Within days Dumo, Ral (short for Rilwan) and I started an underground campaign to organise a prison-wide hunger strike. Our grievances: better food, more and longer breaks, more frequent visits by the doctor, permission for visits by family members, and less congestion in the cells. Most agreed that "koo nyanta kela le deh / warr na nyo def dara deh" (something ought to be done) and many assured us that the idea was brave and brilliant and they would strike. Only a handful said an outright no to a hunger strike.  We were convinced that Jawara was soon going to have a hot potato in his hands. 

And then the "benachin"  arrived. To our shock only four of us (our trio and Mustapha Barrow, alias S.I King, the bravest Gambian I know) stayed put in our cell. With incredible glee our fellow cellmates were begging us to collect our plates and give them the bonga ("chaalo/kobo") instead. As  we sat motionless, some of them went out ostensibly to collect mine and Dumo's dishes on our behalf. Since we would not eat anyway, they figured, it would be an unforgivable waste to allow the food to be returned to the kitchen. Dumo was furious. We charged the NCPians for betrayal. When I confronted Kebba Bayo for not exercising solidarity with the cause, he blamed the whole thing jovially, on my youth and obstinate strong-headedness; but as for Dumo his very name meant trouble and that it was best that they have as little as ever to do with him, and besides he was a political rival who worked with CheYassin in his defunct NLP instead of joining their party; Rilwan on the other hand was an unknown and mysterious quantity, an untypical "ndongo Banjul" whom they do not know and who cannot be trusted! Most of the rest of the population was almost hostile, bluntly telling us that what Kukoi did to them was enough and that all they wanted was to quietly do their time and go home, which in fact will be very soon. (Under indefinite detention, people survive by spreading rumours that The Man has confirmed their immediate release. When they have to go to bed as the fateful day passes without incident, a more incredible credible-sounding fib hits the grapevine. By keeping hope alive in this manner you survive years in the hole unnoticed). So our hunger strike ended even before it began, and well, we too fetched our rations the following day.


By way of conclusion, the press, students and workers' organisations are all products of an urban environment. Worker demands for shop floor democracy combined with education help urban dwellers become aware of political processes. This is the reason why the pressure for democratic reforms in Africa, to a considerable degree, had their roots in the cities. But where there is no organisation of these forces, the obvious links with the plight of rural dwellers become blurred; there is no commonality either of interests or troubles, and a common enemy is difficult to define on a national bases. There is a huge gap in levels of perception of everyday issues and politics between the cities and villages. During the First Republic, student activists of The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Foundation attempted to bridge this gap by opening night schools both in urban and rural areas to teach workers and peasants to read and write. This way, workers and peasant do not only become acutely aware of their own illiteracy; more importantly, they are then able to identify with, and feel involved in the plight of these students whenever they fall victim to government repression; say when a night school is closed because students are imprisoned.
In such a climate social contradictions cannot be globally and uniformly addressed. So there is a tendency for people to blame their troubles on factors other than government policies. A tortured journalist from the Independent is hardly mourned by the 70% who cannot read or write. Rather, it is other journalists, readers, students, workers, and of course Gambia-l activists who would make their feelings publicly known. 

In Gambia, political parties are hopelessly equipped to carry the mantle for the struggle for rights largely because the organisation of political passions are based on matters other than constitutional rights and freedoms. The key to mobilising support lies strongly on tradition, ethnic and provincial considerations, and patron-client relations. PDOIS, more than any other party has toiled for years to address issues related to democratic rights, yet if voter statistics is anything to go by, we can safely say that its success in a national context, is quite little. The struggle for rights, Gambian voters seem to say, must be linked with the struggle for rice. I will write about that in the next and final episode of this tale.

Wishing everyone A VERY HAPPY Eid....but especially Awa Sey, who is celebrating the most memorable Eid of her life!

Cheers,
Sidibeh

Stockholm, February 2002

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

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

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