It is commendable that Gambians in the Diaspora engage with the political
and social issues of major concern to fellow citizens at home. One would be
justified in hoping that collective involvement must at worst, highlight
those concerns that engage a significant number of people in Gambia in their
day to day running of the country on the bases of official policy. There
should
therefore be more organisations like UGOA. It is in that spirit that I would
like to comment on a handful of issues raised by the APRC Atlanta
organisation in its press release.
Dr. Abdoulie Saine's observation that a disproportionate number of young men
of the Jola ethnic group populate senior positions in the military is of
major significance. If it can be statistically established that Saine's
observation is factual, then any policy responsible for that circumstance is
what has raised ethnic consciousness. Not the resultant observation of the
fact. There must be a quest to deal with our past and to historically
excavate potentially contentious questions such as may relate to ethnic
discrimination of various groups like the Jola, Manjago, Balanta, Aku, and
Papel. Discrimination based on gender and religious affiliation need as well
to be openly discussed, their social and economic roots exposed and
explained in order that they may never recur.
Filling in military positions by loyal ethnic brethren is an old post
independence security strategy used by most African leaders. And the
consequences
of this myopic stratregy has been invariably devastating. It is thanks to
the intelligent observations of folk like Saine that we may intervene
politically to defer the negative consequences of appointments and
promotions based on factors other than professional merit.
A second issue of significance raised in the press release is the April 2000
massacre of school children. Every effort to explain away this terrible
nightmare must simply fall on its own callous irrationality. In the press
release,
guilt of the demonstrators is callously equated with guilt of their
murderers.
We are told that ."...the authorities on the ground made a serious error of
judgement"....and the students "made a serious error of judgement when they
defied the constituted authority and took the law into their own
hands.....".
Indeed the students threw stones and destroyed public property.
The "authorities on the ground" murdered them in cold blood. Thirteen of
them!
Unless we are lobotomized zombies, there should be no comparison whatsoever
in degrees of lawlessness inherent here. The tragic events of April 2000
is not something that can be occassionally retrieved for political
convenience
and purile academic debates. Not even in Apartheid South Africa was the cold
blooded murder of school children acceptable. Ours were legitimately angry
school children venting their anger the best way they felt they could
(like students do all over the world!) and they got killed for it! Worse is
that no
one has taken responsibility for the heinous crime and so no one has paid
any
price for the blood of the children. The APRC can only be free of moral
opprobrium
when it dispenses justice on this and other cases of wanton extra-judicial
killings
in our land. And if we do not apportion the APRC leadership blame, where
esle
should we place it? Only when African leaders protect the sanctity of
African lives
shall we see a human rights revolution throughout the contitnent.
The political establishment has every right to spew rhetoric at so-called
intellectuals
and their role in national development. But it seems to me quite foolish to
hold that
criticism is warranted only when it provides alternative ways of thinking or
presents
alternative policy formulations. Far from it. All of us are capable of
judging whether
or not a particular policy negatively impacts our lives without for that
matter, being
able to offer suggestions as to what should consist of improvement. In other
words,
Gambians have every right to say what they think is wrong, even if they
cannot suggest
how to better the situation. Criticism is constructive as long as it prompts
us to think
of the probability of alternative ways of doing things. Certainly, if
Gambian intellectuals
provide ideas on matters of policy or policy implementation, that is well
and good.
On the other hand the government has a host of employees whose job is to do
precisely that,
people whose job it is to think of alternatives. Or does it not?
As they say here, No Hard Feelings!
Momodou S Sidibeh
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