Folks, the third annual Midwest Gambian Association conference, held During Labor Day weekend, with the theme "Gambia: Economy and Political Climate in the 21 Century", was a big success. The speakers for the conference were Dr. Michael Banutu Gomez, Professor of Business Management and Organizational Development at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, and Dr. Abdoulaye Saine, Professor of Political Science, Miami University of Ohio, Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Gomez's topic of presentation was "Using Cooperation To Build, Nurture, and Sustain Democracy in The Gambia For The 21st Century". Folks, this topic cannot be presented at a better time in the history of the development of our nation and it strikes at the heart of our current situation in The Gambia. An excerpt from Dr. Gomez's presentation reads, "..now, as often it is the case, people in and out of The Gambia, are blaming other people for the social, economic and political problems that we now have in our society. I believe that this is because many people living in and out of The Gambia hold a negative view regarding the use of alliances, reciprocity and exchange to accomplish work and solve problems for the 21st century democracy in The Gambia. They believe "I've failed if I have to go my neighbors for help - I will look bad." We tend to seek who is to blame for problems and to view persons we cannot control as our enemies. This tendency limits our perception of the many possibilities of a particular situation and it distracts us from coming up with positive ideas that may help to solve various social, economic, democratic, instability and political problems we now face in The Gambia. We try to influence the people who we believe are to blame for problems by criticizing them because they have influence in our society or control financial and human resources needed to solve our nation's problems and have to cooperate if plans to solve those problems are to be implemented. We need to remember that they cannot be ordered around and will only work with us to solve mutual problems when they choose to. For this reason, I believe that it is very important for us to understand how reciprocity works and how to set up mutually beneficial exchanges in The Gambia. To do this, we as Gambians in and out of The Gambia need to understand how the principle of exchange operates." Dr. Gomez went on to talk about the three factors that suppress sustainable democracy in our society and can hinder the successful growth of positive exchange in the Gambia:1) failure to treat those we disagree with as potential allies instead of enemies, 2) ignoring the need to understand the world from other's unique points of view, and 3) our lack of awareness about our own interact ional style. To achieve these three opportunities for improvement, Dr. Gomez recommends that, a) we be aware of the needs of an ally, b) seek mutual benefit only, and c) not use that knowledge and power to manipulate them in order to further one's own aims. Dr. Gomez also offered a model for sustainable democracy for 21st century Gambia that he named "Queen Mother Gambia". Dr. Gomez will post his paper on the L for a wider exchange. Dr. Saine's paper titled "The Gambia and The political Economy of Globalization: Prescriptions For A "New Order" in the Twenty-First Century",assesses The Gambia's chances of surviving in the new world order of "globalization". He argued that "The Gambia's current political and economic arrangement, and its 'culture of dependency' on external 'development partners' must be replaced by 'creative-national-self-reliance." The rest of the paper is divided into four subsections. The first deals with the conceptual and ideological dimensions of globalization. The second provides an overview of The Gambia's political economy (pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independent forces that dominated the Senegambian region). The third subsection revolves around the notion of "new thinking" and creative-national-self-reliance" the goals of which are to reverse the country's economic decline, and "culture of dependence. The forth and final subsection is concludes the paper. Ladies and gentlemen, these two great speakers touched the very nerve of our ailment as a nation. They diagnose our problems and offered real solutions to reverse the tide of decades of economic and political decay. Drs. Gomez and Saine will post their papers on the L for a wider debate. On behalf of the participants and the member organizations, I say thank you, thank you, and thank you Drs. for sharing your time, knowledge, and wisdom. Future leaders will benefit from your prescriptions. So, look out for these papers everyone. The conference was capped with a teleconference call with Mr. Halifa Sallah of PDOIS, courtesy of Pasamba Jow (Coach). The participants had an opportunity to engage Mr. Sallah for more than an hour, on the many issues that confront our nation, such as: that state of our economy; coming elections; the need for increased participation of women in our economy; the plight of our farmers; PDOIS' solution to our country's problems; the issue of all the opposition parties uniting, etc., etc. Folks this conference is getting better and better every year, and we intend to build on that success each time. On a lighter note, there was an evening Gala on Saturday and a family picnic and a soccer tournament that Detroit won, on Sunday. There were three teams, Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota. The two teams with the most points met in the finals. Each team played twice before the finals and Chicago had the most points followed by Detroit. The scores were as follows: Detroit 2 - Minnesota 1; Chicago 2 - Detroit 0; and Chicago 1 - Minnesota 1. Detroit beat Chicago 4 to 3 in penalty kicks after a goalless tie. Habib Ghanim, had Chicago not played three consecutive matches with twenty minute breaks between games, Detroit knows they would have been given a clinic.:)! Congratulations to Detroit for winning the Soccer Tournament. Folks, next year's conference would top this one, and do not take my word for it, just ask the attendees. Chi Jaama Joe sambou _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------