This is a rejoinder to the observations, questions and comments 
raised by Alieu Bah and Ebrima Sillah.  I would like to establish here 
that my previous article is just groundwork of ideas that I think might 
incite very fruitful solutions to human rights issues in the Gambia.   
Let me emphasize again that my opinion is purely apolitical, and I try 
as much as possible to avoid specific trends or facts in the Gambia 
that might embroil the discussions into a partisan debate.  This being 
the case, I believe that Mr. Sillah is completely wrong to infer that I 
argue in support of state abuse of human rights to maintain dictators 
in power.  This statement is far from the truth.   I stated very 
clearly, and I quote:  “...the use of coercion will sure lead to 
anarchy because it interrupts the necessary equilibrium between order 
and novelty ...that any society needs to evolve.” The rest of Mr. 
Sillah’s arguments are all but further misrepresentations of my essay.  
However, I will elaborate later on those issues.   
     On the other hand, Alieu Bah implicitly invokes the old debate of 
cultural relativism with respect to human rights that the West and the 
Rest has been wrestling with for decades.  Again this is far from the 
case in my essay.   My approach has its deep roots in Western culture- 
Western history, scientific method and philosophy.  I did emphasis on 
the scientific method and history in order to ensure neutrality and 
objective analysis.   Scientific epistemology is convincingly the only 
one faculty of human cognition that enjoys universal appeal.   The gist 
of my whole argument is for Gambians to exercise their “practical 
freedom”; the freedom that is feasible within their socio-economic 
context and not those imposed from without.  I further argued that the 
only way to break through the Western dogma of “human rights” that has 
sedimented in contemporary political discourse is to revise and 
critique its universal claims such as to emancipate our minds.   And 
here is my argument that essentially reflects my essay.
     The French Revolution started this modern understanding of human 
rights.  It generated the common concept of collective rights i.e. (1) 
Liberty-which implies political and civil rights; (2) Equality- 
essentially means socio-economic rights; and (3) Fraternity- or the 
fundamental right to solidarity or nationhood.  Out of all these three, 
Western history has constantly slanted more towards individual liberty 
over the harmony of the triad.  During the French Revolution, 
the “champions” of rights were the nouveau riche, bourgeoisie and the 
upper middle class, in other words the “propertied class”.  Their 
strategic emphasis on individual liberty was deliberately calculated to 
ensure their unfettered access to wealth and the exploitation of the 
low class i.e. women, slaves and the workers.    Over the years until 
this present generation the same age old argument has been repackaged, 
refined and re-modified to fit the salient agenda of the wealthy.  Even 
in current international politics, the USA is one of only few countries 
that fails to ratify the convention for socio-economic rights.   No 
wonder the immediate product of the French revolution was death, 
squalor and anarchy.  Martha Nussbaum, a well respected prominent 
American scholar has argued that the emphasis of human rights over 
socio-economic rights is a moral lapse of the West, and it is also an 
asymmetry of justice.  Noam Chomsky, who is never my favourite, has 
articulated the hoax of these western crusades as generating more 
instability whilst weakening the indigenous “social capital”.  John 
Rawls and Robert Nozick’s priotizing of individual rights over socio-
economic rights is fundamentally based on certain assumptions 
on “institutions” that do not prevail in third world countries.  
  Finally,   Samuel Huntington of Harvard did introduce an interesting 
angle to the debate of socio-economic rights and individual political 
rights.  In essence he adopts a very practical cost benefit analysis of 
the whole problem: human rights demand political rights to speak, 
organize and protest; socio-economic rights requires the economic 
freedom to own property, work, invest, produce and consume without 
government intrusion.  However, the real catch is in the implementation 
of these two rights:  It is easier for any government to draft human 
rights laws than to implement a sustainable economic development plan.  
So if one considers all options and inherent obstacles, it becomes very 
clear that it is to the best interest of poor countries like Gambia to 
priotize values within their socio-economic means .i.e. civil society 
must politically balance the triad of rights; and this balancing act is 
the only way to guarantee a “practical freedom” that ensure peace, 
harmony and economic progress. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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]

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