M'Lud Halifa,
    Allow me to first of all dwell on a very trifling issue; your plangent
lamentation that I shouldn't return the compliments of your invective orgy.
The degeneration of choice of words from your end and your calling of
restraint from my end is a tall order that is increasingly unmasking you as
the intellectual tyrant who when he doesn't get his way unleashes venom to
instil fear in others. So it is very rich of you to serve a stern lecture on
invectives when you were in that very piece it self calling me a thick head
and a charlatan. Most certainly, I have no wish whatsoever, to follow you
down that drain of vitriolic purgation. I hope you understand that you are a
public figure which dictates to you that you should operate under certain
decorum. Your latest tide of invective inventiveness is very unbecoming of a
man who is constantly in the public domain and seeks election to public
office. Halifa, you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm just a mere poor
student struggling with his grades; a nobody. A nonentity who is not the
public domain. In short it is you whose reputation is on the line. Need I
impute to you here that the things you say online here are being read by even
Gambians who are not online. Your outburst doesn't bother me in the least.
I'm not your average pigeon hearted person you like to intimidate with your
intellectual thuggery and endless puffery. You will find me a tough nut to
crack when it comes to that. All of the things I say to you online here I
will repeat to you on a face to face meeting. If you think I can bullied,
then you've knocked on the wrong door. Now I shall get to the point.
    Your last posting was for me the last nail in the coffin. The game is
over. When we started this, our questions/concerns were centred primarily on
your modesty when it comes to the Jammeh experience, your dubious position on
the so-called transition, the 1997 constitution and your pseudo scientific
investigation you claimed you carried out when Koro was slain. After endless
denials and haggling, you admitted that you had in fact changed strategy.
When again asked why the change in the face of such authoritarian tyranny?
You brought to the fore endless and convoluted dubious alibis, subterfuges
and self serving nonsenses. But eventually when push became pull, as Saul put
it to you, the Freudian Slip came. Naturally, as it sure will. In a posting
dated Mon. 14 Feb., entitled To Saul, you stated unequivocally although a bit
comically that:
<< those of us who neither had the
military might nor the support of a mass movement but were trying within our
capacity to utilise every tactic in the book to move the country towards a
state where political expression and association could be exercised without
risking immediate BANISHMENT...>> [My emphasis] BANISHMENT....... tut, tut,
tut! So all along it was about not risking the wrath powers that be, huh?
Your fear of jailhouse? But I thought you guys had already tasted that. What,
you suddenly chickened out just because the powers that be are philistines
without a shred of decency in them. But then are you not supposed to be that
'Jambarri Nin-nyi' who never sheds his 'Ngemba' for anything?  Hold it a sec,
guv are you not the same Halifa Sallah for whom death is a non-event in life;
who had tasted it all save death? What is a jail sentence when you speak up
against tyranny? My friend it you who has put himself on that pedestal and by
that you shall be judged.
    When Decree 4 first came out, you did what you always did in the past;
speak up against tyranny. And for that chivalrous deed, the powers that be,
hounded you up on trumped charges. You appeared in court and somehow got off
the hook. But what was meant for you to take the cue and harden your stance,
you did the contrary and turn about of the century. From against the current,
you became part of the current; resident intellectuals and insidiously
apologists for an order that is totally against the interest of the Gambian
people. So the military roughened you up a bit; gave you a taste of what is
in store for you should you tread on their feet. And you chickened out. From
a vociferous critics, you toned down your voices to low risk critics to avoid
BANISHMMENT. Tut, tut, tut, for the life in me I never thought pigeon hearted
would one day be applicable to you. But here we are, Halifa, so called
'Jambarri Nin-nyi' developing cold feet when he had to put up with real
adversity. A part of me really feels for you. Somehow, unlike Jawara, these
military people are known philistines. They don't play by the rules of
decency. Not only would they give you daily malnourished pap, they would
roughen you up when it comes to that. Ah! How can I forget the bedbugs,
cockroaches and the other undesirables of jailhouse? Hey are you not the same
Halifa Sallah who sleeps in huts with real people living wretched lives in
the provinces? Feeding on 'Findi' and trudging on muddy terrain daily to
reach the real people? Surviving on the paltry sum of D250 a month? So when
it came to testing your resolves and this larger than life Romantic picture
you paint of yourselves; saints and holier-than-thou missionaries not
interested in the comforts of the modern world [believe me there is no better
manifestation of this Romantic idyllic picture than Mile Two Prisons], you
chickened out? Just like that. So this Romanticised image of yours that you
had so subtly injected into the minds of the likes of me is a lifelong
charade, huh? Part of the ringing fallacies and bodies of contradiction that
is part of you? When it came to living it real life, you decided to chicken
out. You chickened out and decided that instead of languishing behind bars,
you would rather bootlick these new powers that be. A thing you are comically
calling "adopting new strategies." Put bluntly, BOOTLICKING TO AVOID
BANISHMENT [prison]. Sorry I have to deliver this in succinct bluntness. It
is the nature of things, Halifa.
    I shall give you a bright example of what a 'Jambarri Nin-nyi' looks
like. I'm sure you must have heard of a remarkable lady by the name of Aung
Suu Kyi. She is the thorn in the flesh of Burmese military dictatorship. This
woman has faced literally everything there is in the book of intimidation,
sacrifice, silent trauma and loneliness in pursuance of her lifelong
principles of freedom and equality for her trampled upon people. By
comparison what she had to face would make Jammeh and his men look pale
anytime. Be it barbarity or philstinism. Her husband even had to die in
London of cancer whilst she was busy with her struggles for decency for her
people. What in the modern day business of exaggerating metaphors, we would
call a living saint. Without going too far with her life portraiture, this
woman would not sacrifice her life principles because of the bleak prospects
of BANISHMENT!!!!!! And she is only a woman. Halifa, this type are the real
'Jambarri Nin-nyi,' who would never catch cold feet when confronted with the
real thing. And another thing, jailhouse, hunger strikes and house arrests
are part of her normal routines. If you really want this fraudulent pose of
yours to add up, look up her biography in the local library and learn a few
things from her. Or just take a few tips from. It would help resell the story
again after your exposure as a fraud. Better still, look closer home. Mandela
should serve as a brighter example for. Pitted against the most philistine
and barbaric regime in modern history, this man after 27 years has come out
it with more moral capital than he would ever need and most importantly,
achieving his lifelong goal of achieving freedom and equality for his down
trodden people. And this he did without squirming at the bleak prospects of
BANISHMENT!!! In short he never sacrificed his lifelong principles to achieve
what he had achieved.
    And now this shameful charade of yours that you are engaged in the
science of practical politics? When one looks/pores over your
records/postings over the past few months as I had done, it would not be
remiss of me to recommend you for the Chair of the Chichele Professor of
Social and Political Theory. If there are any real good pen pushers of the
highest pedigree around this end, Halifa, you come out first. Armed chair
theorists of the finest stocks. As someone once put it to you online here,
you are square pegs in a round hole. The difference is that you certainly
have a knack for acting like Cervantes' Don Quixote; living in an outworldly
world of your own drooling creation. The tragedy with pen pushers of your
kind is that, when they come out in the real world, after looking on from the
outside, rubbing their noses against the glasses of the world of reality,
they make Peter Pan look serious. Now this talk of yours that you were
uniting your political theory with practice. When it was first put to you
that had we rejected this flaw ridden constitution in a referendum, we would
easily go back to the drawing and do what we did with the timetable issue, a
very smart empirical and practical move embedded in the science of politics,
one would say, but you did what you know how to do best; throwing sand in the
eyes of people when they have something credible to say. You called this
alternative a charlatan's nostrum.  Indeed you wrote of it that:
<<In short, Hamjatta, taking your position that Gambians did not take the
overthrow of the Jammeh regime as an option, rejecting the draft
constitution would have meant waiting indefinitely for the AFPRC to deliver
a constitution which will water down the indemnity provisions and ensure its
negation and further make it easier for the them to be excluded from the
electoral process or be removed from power with greater ease. The fact that
you can rattle off such absurd expectations does not give the impression
that you have an ingenious way of looking at reality.>>
This shows your self serving intellectual dishonesty. On the timetable issue,
we didn't have to wait "indefinitely" for the right timetable to be drawn by
the NCC whose recommendations did smoothen up the political process then. Why
then are you peddling this self serving nonsense that we will have to wait
"indefinitely" to come up with the ideal constitution if we had voted
overwhelmingly 'no' during the referendum. Clearly this posture of yours is
not rooted in the science of practical politics that you claim has been your
guiding torch. Are you really sure "that you have an ingenious way of looking
at reality?" Another of your endless puffery?
    What I did find comical about you though was your buttoned up posture of
saying on one hand that a 'no' vote would mean elections without a
constitution and institutional frameworks that would be of necessity in the
second republic, whilst on the other hand maintaining that there is no way
you would vote for a constitution worse off than the 1970 one. Most comically
you said:
 << Let me repeat again: Gambia was scheduled to hold elections. To postpone a
decision on a constitution would have meant two things: either to elect a
president and members of the National Assembly without indicating what the
role of the institutions were going to be, as well as the relation between
the judiciary and these various institutions. Decrees would have been the
order of the day.On the other hand, one could have recommended for a
postponement of the
elections and therefore give the AFPRC another mandate to rule by decrees
for a year.>>
    Meaning here you do not contemplate life with a 'no' vote that would mean
the indefinite ruling of Draconian Decrees. Implicitly declaring with this,
your subtle desire for a liberalised authoritarian political and social order
even if it means under the wrong conditions. Any constitution but a delay in
haggling over the niceties of the ideal constitution and by extension, the
existence of absolute Decrees. If only you had said just that. For consider
this aberration of your declared principle of your "science of practical
politics."
<<In our view, if it contained
provisions that made it to be worse than the 1970 Constitution, it would
have been proper to call for its rejection. This is how matters stood on the
issue of context. It was on this basis that we supported a 'yes' vote.>>
    If this is the case what would you have done if you rejected such a
document? Wouldn't you have done what was done with issue of the timetable
and go back to drawing board and renegotiate. Because that is what the
science of practical politics is all about; juggling and negotiation
different extreme ends. Different moral entanglements contending to reach a
consensus. Since the science of practical politics is all about the
coexistence of technical disagreement about means, whilst moral opposing ends
take back stage, it is safe to contend here that the scenario of having to
replay the timetable case is rooted in the realism of everyday realities of
Gambian politics then. But you chose to peddle this reasoning of yours that
frankly reeks of the absurdity of one trying to befog his audience; that it
would be foolhardy to attempt to renegotiate the draft constitution because
it would lead to political hiatus and imbroglio we could all do without.
    Ironically, you claimed online here that you were part of the behind the
scenes actors who influenced the establishment of the NCC. If indeed you were
part of these 'insider' arm twisters which influenced the emergence of the
NCC, would it not have made more sense to use the same tactics to influence a
renegotiation of the draft constitution rather that put up with something you
have clearly stated you have reservations about and very critical of. The
science of technocratic and managerial politics dictates that you pursue the
course which you are must familiar with than take a road you can only
speculate where it would end or lead to. And that is a replay of the
timetable scenario. But then when we look at it were you really interested in
the most viable option? Or were you then afflicted with historical amnesia?
Or just the bootlicking manifesting itself again and again?
    One of the ringing fallacies that embody your spirit of dialogue is
blacking out those who have wiser sounding than you but which you are loath
to acknowledge. By this I refer to your democratic credentials. In August
1996, Saul wrote to you warn of the dangers of the Jammeh presidency. But
playing Jammeh's intellectual God Father, you said it would be "undemocratic"
to publish such a letter on the specious grounds of the effects it would have
on the prevailing atmosphere and how it would impinge upon your editorial
independence. Saul prophetically wrote then that: <<Should Yaya rig the
elections, and history is anything to go by, things
would only go down hill from there. The Gambian people do not deserve that
fate.>>
 You insisted to him in phone conversation that he doesn't really understand
what it was that was happening then. I put it to you that for someone in the
know, how on earth can you tell Saul anything about Gambian politics if he
can predict such an outcome of the then situation?  Didn't he get it right by
stating bluntly that: "Should Yaya rig the elections, and history is anything
to go by, things
would only go down hill from there?" Or are you still continuing this
shameful charade of yours by pretending you are still building your
delusionary democratic space [a theme I will tear to shreds later]? Most
interestingly enough, realising that things were degenerating to levels which
Saul predicted, you went into a squeamish lamentation of the situation. In a
Foroyaa supplement wrote after the so-called coup attempt of Manneh and
Sanneh which you were generous to pass onto the L, you stated categorically
that: << in our view, if a person's term in office can only be sustained by
uncovering coup plots after coup plot leading to killings after killings,
then it is best for a person to call it a day than to leave such a historical
record.>>
    Indeed! So it is not "undemocratic" for you to make these utterances but
"undemocratic" for the likes of Saul to say so, huh? Or were just defending
the candidature of your 'Talibeh' and not interested in the truth? Or is
truth also contextual for you? Times when you should say it and times when it
is safe to play it mute to avoid BANISHMENT, huh? Can you really handle the
truth? Truth is what you just said above was said very late and designed only
for political gesture and posture at a time when tongues were wagging about
your complicity in the status quo. As you yourself put it rather emotionally:
" I do not think that we should live in the past, but everywhere I turn to it
seems to come back to hit me in the face." You mean by "everywhere" it is not
just me and Saul hounding you about your not so noble role in the so-called
transition? Where there is smoke there is fire, so they say. Time you come
out in the open, Halifa. Time you admit your gross negligence and follies.
Time you did, M'Lud.
    Perhaps the most shameful of all your charades is this pretension of
creating a 'democratic space' that has seen the inaugural of a decent
political process embedded in the due process of the law. Perhaps this week
you didn't take time to read the 15 page Sate Department report on the
Gambia. I'm sure once you familiarize yourself with this document you
wouldn't dare come online here and start puffing smoke on how you helped
create a democratic space that has seen the end of absolute decrees,
arbitrary arrests, political thuggery, intimidation and the rest of the bad
old days that you said elections had put an end to. What 'democratic space'
then do you speak of? Or is there another country you refer to that by chance
is also called the Gambia other than our 'Gambia'? To refer to what is
happening in the Gambia as a political process would the most farcical
stretching of hallucination. Or to even speak of there being some 'democratic
space' within which the ordinary citizenry of the Gambia can influence the
political process would be the most self serving nonsense ever. It is
claptrap to hint the situation is ever as such.
    Since you have said you are on a nation-wide tour, and has finished the
provinces and the Kombos, chances are that now you are ready to take to
Banjul. And should you come to Banjul North, the Tobacco Area, there is a
family there that sure would love to hear you lecture on this vacuous
aggrandized theme of yours, the creation of a democratic space. I advice that
instead of taking your podium to your usual venue of Box Bar Road, this time
go around the AMRC confiscated compound of Saihou Ceesay's just opposite
Saint Augustine's High's fences. Once your PA system starts blaring, this
family would hear you loud and clear. Former Lance Corporal Kebbeh then of
Army Ordnance and now virtually a cripple with an extended family to feed out
of his silent trauma. This gentleman, before his incarceration in the
aftermath of the November, 11 bloodshed, was a bedrock of his family and
community. Then he became a victim of the endless and unjustified paranoia of
Jammeh and internal military politics. With a bullet lodged in his pelvic
bone, he is reduced to a virtual cripple discharged from the army with an
extended family to feed. According to his doctor, if the bullet lodged in his
pelvic bone is tampered with, he would have no choice but be reduced to being
a complete disabled person. He has no access to social justice even though
people like you are going about with this shameful charade that you have
created a 'democratic space' that have created a breathing space for those
who were caught in between the cross fire of military politics and Jammeh's
tyrannical misuse of power. There is the Koro Ceesay family. The post mortem
report of their son lies somewhere gathering dust whilst they are still
crying out for social justice. And you dare flaunt around here this shameful
charade of yours that you have created a 'democratic space' that has seen the
end of the absolutism of the executive? Try telling that to Lance Corporal
Kebbeh's eldest son, Mamadi Kebbeh, a precocious, well brought up and
ambitious teenager. He dreams of being a pilot one day and works damn hard on
it. But the last time I saw him, he is beginning to show the toll that their
silent trauma is having on him. He has given up on being a pilot. And
thinking and saying stuff that I pretty well know will lead to degeneration
in character and moral tact. The long and short of it is that, this is a
family breaking apart because there is no breathing space in social justice
long since we were supposed to be under your 'democratic space.' There are
hundreds of families like the Kebbeh family who are suffering in silent
trauma. Before you keep on with this shameful charade of yours and filling
your paper with sympathetic reports of the Pateh Buwaro diamond saga, think
of these families and include them in your priorities as innocent victims of
a silent trauma in no way their own making. So long as there is no justice
for these families your democratic space and anything of similitude would be
self serving farcical nonsense. As Albert Einstein once said of the 'human
soul engineering' of the Communist 50's, if the shoe does not fit, it is no
use saying that time and wear will make it less uncomfortable, or that the
shape of the foot should be altered, or that the pain is an illusion. I hope
you take that into stock in your unit of analysis, Comrade Halifa.
    The most comical of your last posting was your poor attempts to rubbish
my lucid and original criticisms of the 1997 constitution into the dustbin of
'common place notions.' Are you really serious about that? At any rate, if my
ideas are common place notions, they are revolutionary when it is juxtaposed
with your low risk criticism. As I said to you before, archives simply don't
lie. Let us revisit what your criticality of the draft constitution looked
liked. In your low risk minimalist criticism of the not so Independent
Electoral Commission, you wrote:
<<Is it sufficient for the President to consult the Judicial Service
Commission
and Public Service Commission to appoint a member of the Commission?  Should
the National Assembly not have to approve the appointment after an enquiry?

Furthermore, should members of the Commission be given two terms of seven
years
when there is no limit to the term of office of President and when the
President is to do the reappointment?>>
    If this is not low risk, then what is it? If it is not modest, then what
is it? If the above is not relaxed and complacent, then what is it? If it is
not a minimalist approach to the flaw ridden constitution, then what is it?
Who is being dishonest here? Was this the bland manner you subjected the 1970
constitution to? Wasn't it the case that you subjected the 1970 constitution
and the Jawara experience to the most vociferous forensic scrutiny ever that
have won you so much support amongst Gambians? Could you please compare your
criticism then and now and tell me you have remained consistent and
objective? If you can say you are objective and consistent through out and
keep a straight face, then I will know indeed that you are the most two faced
person ever!!! Your insinuation that I was "simply spitting in a
well from which you may have guzzled" is one of the many self serving
sanctimonious irresponsible slanders you have choked the L with. Not only was
i more lucid than you but equally i was more original, thorough and
penetrating in my criticism. All you did was to copy the draft constitution
and posed low risk rhetorical questions as your criticisms. You would do well
comrade to retrieve relevant Gambia-L archives. Archives you know just don't
lie.
    Halifa, when History is on trial, it is never a tidy affair. To say that
I love History would be the biggest understatement I have ever made. As a
student of History nothing brings more joy and solace in this cold and lonely
country, than to do psychological portraiture and intellectual analysis of
giants of History. I call it in my own modest way: getting into engines of
their brains. And one of the things that made constant ripples in my analysis
of your role was your premeditated role in History and your obsession with
designing History in your mould. Tragically, the forces you sought to master
were not, at any rate, with in your full grasp since you were hitherto pen
pushers who suddenly found yourselves in the midst of the real arena. And as
Isaiah Berlin once noted: great political figures rarely understood the
History they were trying to shape to their own design, and politics had a
great potential for tragedy that stems from such. Could I add also that gross
paternalist naivety and hitherto inexperience of your sort are perhaps the
most symbiotic ingredients of such tragedy? Perhaps the greatest tragedy of
all would be to deceive yourself into the belief that you do not share a
measure of responsibility for the tragic inversion of priorities as the
Gambia slid towards the abyss. My indictment still stands. And it is
irrefutable. It's historicity is sui generis. If you have a problem with that
still, my advise is to write your memoirs and let capable [of which I'm not]
Historians attack the slab of stone edifying your role with their chisels.
That way, you will save yourself a lot of embarrassment online here. For you
cannot convince the likes of me that you are above wrong doing and as such
reproach. Save that tinkering for the hearts of your feeble minded supporters.
    On the other hand, you could continue this shameful charade of yours
pretending your innocence and continue to engage me in a slugfest. As I said
before I'm not your average pigeon hearted pygmy that you meet every day. The
past three months should tell you that by now.
    The bluff has been called and the game is over. Time we spent our
resources, time and energies on other things that require the attention of
all of us. I don't regard you as the enemy. The enemy is reading this in
Kanilai smiling wryly and sated in his indifference and insensitivity of our
country's enormous problems. The fact that you spoke whilst other first
republic politicians were silent bespoke of your dedication, albeit misplaced
dedication that left you lending credence to a process that has led us back
to the old days and worst. To keep denying this would only make you look like
Irving, the Hitlerite revisionist Historian, who still denies the existence
of a Jewish Holocaust. To keep feigning innocence, would only continue to
demystify the mythic aura that still surrounds you, and batter your already
battered image and hyperinflated ego. I just thought you would be interested
in knowing this. I have no wish of being remembered on this forum as a single
issue person, but you wouldn't have the last say here or perverse History
online.
    In conclusion, I leave you with these thoughts pinched from Bishop Butler
that: Things and actions are what they are, and their consequences will be
what they will be: why then should we seek to be deceived.
Till we meet again, my good friend, take great care.

Hamjatta Kanteh








hkanteh

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