Dear brothers and sisters,

Though I am physically distant from you there in the Gambia, I am always with you with my soul. Gambia is dear to me, and I love all the citizens of the Gambia regardless of one's political and religious affilaition. Political and religious tolerances are indispensible factors of sustainable development. Even if the whole world decide to assist a country, they will not be able to do so if that particular country suffers from inherent religious uneasiness or political intolerance. And no matter what level of development the country has achieved, its development will one day evaporate in pain as religious uneasiness and political unrest become the sickness of the socio-economic institutions. That is, when people and institutions compromise national harmony and rules of law for the sake of individual slogans; when diversity is abhorred for sake of ideal uniforms; when different judgements are passed for indentical cases; when scholars twist principles to please rulers; when morale teachers condone nakedness and inmodesty, and when wrongdoers are in charge of affairs. When these things occur, there will be a crack in the nation building. The crack becomes larger and larger as the nation grows.

We have just come out of Ramadan, the month of blessings and mercy. May Allah shower His Bounty, Love and Peace on my people and the Gambia. Love plus peace should normally equal harmony and prosperty. This is what most people believe; but it is wrong. The combination is smaller than harmony and prosperty because it lacks an element of justice. In the Gambia we have Islam the slogan of which is peace, and Christianity the slogan of which is love, but we can still be less harmonious and less prosperous if we choose to ignore the justice. Justice is derived from careful management of democracy and individual liberty. Democracy is a dominant strategy equilibrium while individual liberty is a Nash equilibrium. In a dominant strategy, if the highest weighted members of the population can have a collective choice, that choice must prevail at equilibrium regardless of the behaviours of the other memebrs of the society. in a Nash equilibrium, each memeber or each group of the society will not change his/her or their behaviour(s) given that others do not. To achieve justice the society has to assure the existence of these equilibria and ensure their stabilitiy. It has to work out the existence and stability of democracy, which will then be entrusted to work out the existence and stability of individual liberty.

Thanks

Bukhari Sillah

Deutschland

I WILL CONTINUE LATER ........