Thanks Suntou. I am glad you like the piece on African intellectuals. Said
was (is) a great scholar and teacher from whom we still have a lot to
learn. We shall continue doing our little bit as time and energy permits.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Baba

On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 10:47 AM, SUNTOU TOURAY <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> A great piece Baba. Going by the last piece you wrote on the
> intellectuals, I totally concur with a favorite writer of mine, Edwards
> Said. I took this part from the article:
>  *"**In Said’s formulation, educated people who keep mute over the
> injustices inflicted upon their compatriots or who join and actively serve
> the oppressive political structure may write and publish many books and
> articles in academic presses and learned professional journals. However,
> because they either passively or actively condone or aid tyrannies and
> injustices in their home countries render them disqualified for the title
> of intellectual. These kinds of educated people, Said suggests, are mere
> academics or professionals contributing to the production of knowledge in
> their fields or otherwise serving their narrow professional and personal
> interests. By their abstinence from critically engaging the tyrannical
> system or their active participation in the tyrannical power structure,
> these educated people actively participate, if by default, in the heartless
> destruction of their own people. Said suggests that the intellectual cannot
> afford to be either part of an oppressive structure or quietly sit on the
> proverbial fence in the face of injustice or aggression."*
> Keep this kind of articles coming, we need the lone voices to express
> opinions like this. Sadly, certain graduates are too eager to fulfill their
> quest for a beefy resume to see sense. I am told, the Christian Council Bar
> close to YMCA is a venue for drowning of sorrows, the compromised
> intellectuals meet and plans trips to Kanilai.
> At the end, the UTG Dr's heaping praises on Jammeh knows the real streak
> of the President. It is our duty to speak and be part of the larger
> opposing voices to tyranny and fear infused state of existence.
> I am disappointment of few scholars, but that is because knowing one from
> a distant can create a false narrative.* In the end, if scholars cannot
> eliminate a bigoted and bias approach to larger issues of life, I wonder
> what their hard work avails them of.*
> We will all one day look each other face to face and reflect on our part
> in our national dialogue. Elitist approach to life has it short term
> benefits and long term shame. Let the silence continues and the pandering
> to the *'tyrant and his insecurity'* since one thing is clear, it will
> never be possible to break our spirit and quest to see a Gambia devoid of
> fear and aggression.
> Thanks
> Suntou
>
>
>
> On Friday, 25 September 2015, 20:48, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>
> *Looking Beyond the Power-Grab*
> By Baba Galleh Jallow
> Every revolution is inspired by outrage. Outrage at the specter of a small
> minority in power oppressing a large majority of citizens. Outrage at gross
> injustices and often unbelievable socio-economic and cultural hardships
> majorities endure under oppressive political regimes. Revolutions succeed
> not only to the extent that they are also inspired by a burning desire to
> politically empower the powerless majority so that never again will they be
> oppressed by a minority, but also to the extent that they genuinely follow
> through and actualize such popular empowerment. The nation always bears
> within itself the resources requisite for its own empowerment.
> Revolutions fail to the extent that they fail to look sufficiently
> forward. They fail to the extent that they miss the need to look carefully
> beyond the moment of empowerment and critically engage the challenging idea
> of what comes next, of how do we fix this. They fail to the extent that
> they loudly talk of what they have come to fix and how to fix it, but give
> little thought to the practical challenges involved or how to sensibly
> overcome them in order to actualize what they proclaim as their mission.
> Revolutions fail when at the moment of empowerment their top priority is
> not what they proclaim but the glittering promise of fantastic power and
> glory.
> One is tempted to suggest that a failed revolution is no revolution at
> all. It is rather a power-grab that, like everybody else, may freely choose
> to proclaim itself a revolution and insist on being called and hailed as a
> revolution simply because it can do so. A true revolution, by definition,
> cannot have failed. A revolution is a flexible constant that manifests
> itself in an ongoing, never ending process of positive renewal and growth.
> A power-grab on the other hand, is an unfortunate political event that
> remains unchanged for as long as it lasts. Where a revolution actively
> looks forward to and creatively seeks to actualize popular political
> empowerment, a power-grab forbids looking forward and promotes a culture of
> obnoxious political subjection in order to prolong its stay in power.
> A power-grab often assails our senses with the free and ubiquitous
> rhetoric of revolution. Through a vernacular of offensive and parochial
> jingoism, it makes lofty pronouncements of revolutionary cause and intent
> and roundly condemns all the colonizers and neocolonizers that ever existed
> on earth. At the very moment of its empowerment, the power-grab already
> thinks of the nation as composed of friends and enemies, so-called
> patriotic and unpatriotic citizens. This unfortunate bifurcation of the
> nation-body betrays the power-grab’s fractured and utterly disjointed
> misunderstanding of national mission, national empowerment, what
> revolutions are all about. The power-grab prides itself and often loudly
> brags about the frequency and efficiency with which it severely deals with
> traitors and enemies of the nation, always the one percent who must never
> be allowed to destroy the 99 % at State House. Like a large iron tent with
> great iron walls, the power-grab plants itself firmly upon and over the
> national space even as it perfects its damaging politics of insults and
> enmity. The power-grab grows, nurtures and sharpens its sweet tooth for
> power even before the moment when it actually grabs power. And because all
> other motivations and justifications for the power-grab are marginal to the
> power-grab itself, they are manifested only as flamboyant rhetorical
> devices to be swished and rattled around to deflect attention from
> embarrassing failures and to justify the power grabber’s only real
> expertise: a politics of insults and enmity.
> The power-grab never really captures the essence of political power beyond
> the physical act of grabbing power and installing itself as a government.
> True political power is manifested not in a state’s monopoly and misguided
> application of force over its citizens, but in a state’s demonstrated
> willingness and capacity to generate and actualize a culture of popular
> political enlightenment among its citizens. A state is only truly powerful
> to the extent that it presides over an empowered nation. It is the
> crippling powerlessness of the power-grab that explains why it is so
> obsessed with demonstrating just how powerful it is. The power-grab fears
> the very idea of an empowered people, and because it is inextricably part
> of the people, it cannot help but feel as powerless as the people. Rather
> than seek and discover its proper station and role in the national scheme
> of things, the power-grab assumes what it feels is the most convenient
> position at the top of the human pyramid and insists on staying there no
> matter what. From its illusory citadel of power, the power-grab
> manufactures enemies left, right and center and criminalizes looking
> forward and the very notion of popular political empowerment. Through a
> deliberate series of brutally repressive measures, the power-grab forcibly
> imposes its parochial identity on the nation.
> By discouraging a forward looking politics and criminalizing popular
> empowerment, the power-grab inadvertently feeds and fuels the real
> revolution. It galvanizes opposition to itself by provoking questions over
> the limits of political power and authority, questions over ownership of
> the nation, and questions over what comes after the inevitable decline and
> fall of the power-grab. The politics of repression inspires thoughtful
> engagement with the practical challenges of the nation and a burning desire
> to actualize a politics of universal mutual respect characterized by
> universal citizen empowerment. It highlights the need to look forward and
> nurture a genuine understanding not only of our future practical
> challenges, but especially of our present political realities. Repression
> drives home the important lesson that the challenges of the future are
> really the challenges of the present.
> The revolutionary culture that emerges from political repression manifests
> itself not in the pursuit of numbered visions (e.g. Vision 2020) or of
> numbered goals (e.g. Millennium Development Goals), but in persistent
> critical engagement with current socio-economic and political problems
> which, in turn, inspire a constant search for answers and solutions to such
> problems. In essence, what most inspires the revolutionary consciousness is
> how to transcend the ugly and damaging politics of the day and actualize a
> politics of natural justice, which is only possible in a nation of
> politically empowered citizens, not only in terms of being able to vote
> their national servants in and out of office, but especially in terms of
> being reasonably conversant with their constitutional rights and
> responsibilities. The revolutionary consciousness eagerly and
> enthusiastically engages the challenge of empowering the people politically
> not through moribund civic education commissions, but through concrete and
> coherent national institutions and processes geared towards actualizing a
> nation of politically empowered citizens.
> Many power-grabs pay lip service to the important task of political
> empowerment by setting up moribund civic education commissions. Faithful
> cronies and mis-inspired loyalists of the regime – all without adequate
> civic education themselves – are hand-picked to chair and sit on such
> commissions. A solemn inauguration ceremony is held where the unspoken
> understanding is firmly established and confirmed that only “patriotic”
> lessons in civic education must be given. The civic education panel makes a
> few public appearances and falls forever silent which, paradoxically, was
> the idea all along. As far as the power-grab is concerned, all people need
> to understand and always keep in mind is that “we are in power because we
> enjoy the mandate of heaven not of the ancient Chinese kind which could be
> lost, but of the kind which could only be lost when heaven itself expressly
> says so to everyone’s hearing and physically intervenes to make it happen.
> Unlike the genuine revolution, the power-grab hates the very idea of
> political empowerment because it might suggest stepping down and becoming
> ordinary citizens again – as if it is ever possible for any citizen to be
> anything but an ordinary citizen. Refusing to imagine the day when it will
> step down, the power-grab fights anything that tends to suggest the idea of
> such an unimaginable day. Concepts like national equality, natural justice,
> informed voting, freedom of expression, freedom of association, human
> rights and the rule of law are branded vestiges of colonialism and the
> obnoxious neocolonial stooges who are identified and neutralized to enhance
> the longevity of the power-grab. On the other hand, the genuine revolution
> is inspired and fed by these very concepts. It creatively engages in
> measured contemplation, looks steadily forward and beyond the period of the
> power-grab, and thoughtfully plans for the actualization of a better and
> brighter nation of politically empowered citizens who will never again
> succumb to a power-grab.
>
>
>
>
>
>


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