All:

Here's a piece I wrote a while back but didn't have time to share with
you. Here goes:
===========================================================================

Fallacies of Gambia’s Economic Optimists

Just as in so many other matters of public interest, where Gambia’s
current economic status is concerned that deep-seated Gambian attitude
that tends to accept that every problem can be solved by some metaphysical
intervention; that, all things being equal, tomorrow will be better than
today, plays not an inconsiderable role in aggravating the current
economic situation in the country.

Where Gambia’s economy is concerned, the truth can be occluded, but in the
long run denying it in the name of some backyard patriotism and
politically correct wish to be hopeful will do no good for us and those
coming after us. For, there is hardly any reason to be hopeful with the
current situation. Neither the political environment as it actually
exists, nor the prospects for the kinds of transformations that will have
to take place in Gambia, gives any reasonably astute person grounds for
such hope.

It has been 38 years since the independence of our country was formally
achieved. But what began in such a hopeful - independent Gambia ‘the next
Singapore of Africa’ was the way Sir Dawda put it, and he was anything but
alone in his optimism - has given way to justified pessimism about
Gambia's future. This view of a horizon of gloom has become pervasive not
only among most Gambians but also the country's many well wishers and
potential investors abroad. At the time of penning these comments, what I
would call ‘post ’94-pessimism’ has become the dominant factor in debates
about Gambia’s future. Within the rationale of the current economic
status, while Gambia's promise remains undeniable - given the potentials
and energies of its youth and the vast resources that lay untapped – there
is enough symptoms to show that the economy is one in which the future is
likely to be far worse than it has ever been.

Post ’94-pessimism is all too amply grounded in Gambia's every day
realities. The country's living standard is going down the drains by the
hour. While most Gambians find themselves worse off today than they were
pre ’94. Some indicators, like educational enrollments and life
expectancy, have stagnated. Even food security has become an issue in
Gambia, since the ordinary folks’ ability to feed their families has
become more and more of an endemic crisis in many parts of the country. In
terms of real income, even factoring in the improvements in the amount of
money that is sent in by those Gambians residing abroad, the decline is
equally acute in the face of a never seen before rate of inflation. And
whatever gains have been achieved in agricultural production, they have
been more than offset by the vast increase in population, so that less
food is available per capita in 2003 than in 1965.

The agricultural sector is weak and growing weaker every season,
industrial development is all but nonexistent, what hope there in? In
macroeconomic terms, Gambia's only important role in the world economy
remains that of a cheaper destination for the transatlantic tourists. The
advent of 9/11, the decline in the global economy and increased threat of
terrorism around the globe has only further exacerbated the Gambian
situation. In fairness though, there are statistics, albeit unreliable,
that shows that foreign investment is potentially increasing.

There are probably as many explanations for why things are so wrong in
post ‘94 Gambia as there are commentators. Some are able to pinpoint the
root of the problem mainly in the despoliation of the Jawara era and the
tyranny of the Jammeh regime. Others are blaming the exorbitantly high
level of corruption of the state machinery, and the kleptocratic habits of
our leaders. Alongside all these explanations, there is the colder fact
that Gambia is a part of the world economy for which it is not armed with
anything that it could bring to the economic table sufficient to lead it
to sustainable economic development.

What is clear is that all the work of the development experts who have
crisscrossed the country over the past three decades, and all the
initiatives - from donor governments, from the United Nations Development
Program, from the EU, various foundations and intellectuals - that have
been brought forward are yet to produce a model capable of lifting the
people of Gambia out of the terrible poverty. The failure of the Economic
Recovery Program in the late 1980s probably spelled the end of the old
development model. Development had been a false hope for the people of
Gambia; so is humanitarianism. But the question of what to put up in place
of what has already been tried remains. Meanwhile, the needs of the masses
have not gone away. They are more pressing today than they were when the
basic structures of Gambia’s economic development were erected in 1965.

A reconfiguration of the relations between the state and society, one in
which the former would no longer simply prey on the latter, needs to be
underway, not just for a certain strata of society along the Kanilai
strip, but in every nook and cranny across the country. The undeniable
fact that such social transformations will eventually be accompanied by
demonstrable improvements in at least some economic indicators, will make
it possible to entertain the entrancing vision of a Gambia that will be
remade in the sense of business opportunities for foreign investors. The
hard fact being that without that prospect the rich world rarely pays
attention to the poor world for long. Such social transformation will also
enhance the sense of a rosier destiny for the people of Gambia. Most of
Gambia might still be poor, and most of the country’s inhabitants might
still be in deep economic crisis, but with the end of the current fascist,
brutally tyrannical regime, the last years of the twenty first century
will be a time of tremendous promise for the Gambia.

Unfortunately, for all those promising signs that could lead a Gambian or
any other observer to believe in the reality of  ‘the next Singapore of
Africa,’ it is very obvious that the new post ’94 optimism is based on
little more than some promising but unrepresentative
superficial ‘developments’ carried under a regime that has some seriously
misplaced priorities. A move toward formal democracy that has neither
shown any real promise of being translated into grass roots democracy, nor
any transient spike in Gambia's economic fortunes. The grand style
overestimation of the qualities, if any, and the superficial commitment to
democracy of the A(F)PRC gang has become the hit tune of the Jammeh
trumpeters while the suffering goes on.

Get this; Gambian continuities are at least as striking as Gambian
discontinuities. It should be remembered, at a time when sycophants and
opportunists are trumpeting Gambia's new breed of leaders, the fact that
their predecessors received many of the same plaudits from similar,
sometimes the same, groups of sycophants and opportunists should engender
a certain degree of caution. That those being regularly praised by these
optimists came to power in a military exercise should be a further cause
for rational skepticism. Jammeh’s talk of improved agriculture, health,
education and democratic opportunities should certainly not be taken at
face value. Some of that may be sincerity on his part, but it cannot be
overstressed that in this age of global capitalism's high-water mark, this
is the talk donors now expect and sometimes demand from the leadership of
recipient nations. Jammeh and his cronies, however different stylistically
they are from their predecessors, are cut from very much the same basic
mold - the Gambian "Big Man."

In any case, the outlook for Gambia’s revival depends not on whether or
not people like Jammeh or Famara Jatta are sincere in their clatters to
the nation. Without sustained economic growth, total eradication of the
tyranny levied upon the people, some insulation from the flow of refugees
from neighboring countries, and humanitarian emergencies, it is open to
question how long-lived these transformations can be. Gambia's increasing
dependence - mainly due to the crushing burden of the country's
international debt - on donors and the Bretton Woods institutions, makes
acquiescence to unfettered arrangements pretty much of a foregone
conclusion. Many people have routinely argued that if Gambia can only
secure substantial investments, the country will develop. Presumably, what
they mean by this is that Gambia will export out of her difficulties. What
they fail to acknowledge is that inside the country, the dereliction of
the infrastructure makes trade much more difficult and expensive. And that
outside the country, the picture is even bleaker and less promising.
Without increased capital flows that go beyond traditional investments in
the tourism and agricultural sectors, the mixed blessing of globalization
may well prove to be a disaster for the country. And it seems increasingly
likely that in this market-driven world, Gambia will indeed come out a
loser.

Without capital inflows, there is not a foreseeable way for Gambia to
compete in the global economy. Even if the capital flows were forthcoming,
in a world in which there is a surfeit of cheap labor, it is hard to see
why any business would choose to set up in our corner when it could simply
expand in Asia and other parts of the world. The middle class in Gambia is
too small if any, the infrastructure leaves much to be desired, and
literacy rates not very impressive. These are some of the issues that make
the claims of the A(F)PRC trumpeters both so fallacious and, however good
their intentions, counterproductive to the promise of a Gambian remake.

You do not alleviate vast human suffering with fine words. To the
contrary, the fine words may well get in the way of the search for viable
answers to Gambia's problems.

Emotionally, it is a relief to imagine that, at the eleventh hour, what is
left of Gambia's fortunes will take such a radical turn for the better
because of true democratization, or a calculated social and economic
reorganization by a new generation of Gambian leaders. Rationally, this
makes little sense. The bitter truth is that Gambia has little in
preparation for the world market; she cannot compete, and if she attempts
to do so there will not be any hope for success. There can be no hope for
a soldier armed with only a knife in gun battle lest that soldier is
believed to have command of certain metaphysical forces.

For Gambia is weak. There is nothing to be gained and everything to be
lost by pretending otherwise or even that it has the potential to become
stronger soon. Indeed, in a world in which information technology is
creating an even greater gap between stronger and weaker economies,
Gambia's technological underdevelopment may be the greatest obstacle of
all.

To get Gambia out of this mess then, will be an enormous undertaking.
Gambia is marginal to the geo-strategic concerns of most important rich
countries, and marginal to the economic concerns of most multinational
corporations except for those engaging in cheap and quick illegal
undertakings with Jammeh and his gang. While levels of development
assistance continue to fall and the levels of Gambian indebtedness
continue to rise, foreign or domestic private investment is not taking up
the tab and local political engagement is lacking and inconsistent. What
we are winessing is instead, pillage, despoliation and uncontrollable
levels of corruption on top of the suffering that the downtrodden are
going through.

The answers to the economic problems of our homeland can never be provided
by the A(F)PRC. They are at a detrimental stage of self-denial. Instead,
it has to be the notion of human need and moral obligation, the sense that
not to work towards a better Gambia is a moral scandal, not the notion of
a blurry economic promise that could just possibly provide the
underpinnings for a Gambian remake. This would involve not only a vast
increase in flow of aid from donors but also a systematic effort to
protect Gambia from the effects of its internal leadership woes and those
of the global economic system for which the deck is stacked against her.

Decent people do not enjoy being pessimistic, nor should pessimism be
wielded like a sword in an attempt to write off Gambia and to preclude
engagement with the country's economic problems. Yet the optimists among
us are arguing on the basis of a set of assumptions about Gambia that will
not hold up well on closer scrutiny. It is conceivable, of course, simply
to insist that we must hope for hope's sake, but in that case the debate
acquires a metaphysical propensity in which all questions of evidence and
all reliance on chance will have little relevance. Similarly, it is
possible to make the case that it is important to pretend that things are
going better, because otherwise the donor community would lose whatever
marginal interest it entertains in our economy. These may be viable
judgments politically. They are, however, unsustainable both morally and
intellectually. Surely if the situation in Gambia is dire, and becoming
even more calamitous by the hour, then that needs to be said, not swept
under the rug in the name of opportunism, or simply the wish not to feel
badly about our homeland for which there are enough reasons to see the
gloomy horizon and deal with it.


Abdoulie A. Jallow
Omaha, Nebraska
May 27, 2003.


--
BambaLaye

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-M.L King Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

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