*Discourse with Dr. Jammeh: On Your Neo-Traditional Rulership* * * *By Baba Galleh Jallow* You see, Dr. Jammeh, we know that you do not define your political leadership according to the books of constitutionalism that officially govern the affairs of our country. You define your political leadership according to that genre of neo-traditionalism so dear to your heart because it perfectly matches your personal conception and preferred mode of leadership among whose troubling features is once a ruler, always a ruler. How can one be a ruler and then become a ruled? That could happen only under the most unfortunate circumstances. So long as fortune smiles, I rule. We know that your distaste for liberal notions of democracy derives from your understanding of that notion as synonymous with western democracy. Hence your frequent threatening protestations and warnings against attempts at imminent recolonization. We have heard you say, not exactly in the same words, “Emergency Red Alert! Nation Threatened with colonization! I will never allow the West to come and re-colonize Africa! Over my dead body.” We have heard orders, this time not of the particularly threatening sort, rumble from above to impose order and apply Chinese balm to this spot of bother. We say these particular orders are not of the threatening sort because they are directed at powers much greater than our mighty above; powers within which their very source is inextricably embedded. No amount of threatening protestations can insulate you from the positive trends of Gambian humanism, this great awakening of the Gambian spirit to the beauty of its nation, this great determination of the Gambian spirit to re-appropriate and actualize our national beauty. For this re-appropriation and actualization of the national beauty to occur, Gambianism seeks to do away with all trappings of neo-traditional rulership within the context of our constitutional presidency. We know, Dr. Jammeh, that in the choice between acting like an unaccountable neo-traditional ruler and acting like the accountable ruler of a liberal democratic society of enlightened citizens, you have chosen the former. You know you are the ruler of a constitutional democratic society. You lay claim to your right to rule by deploying the instruments of constitutionalism – party politics, elections, legislation, the law, propaganda – whenever they suit your purposes. But you show the greatest contempt for these same constitutional instruments being deployed by your fellow Gambian citizens, those who hold different opinions from you. The problem is, Dr. Jammeh, that the very idea of the traditional-constitutional ruler you see yourself as being is a contradiction in terms. The mechanical accuracy and efficiency with which you deploy certain aspects of Gambia’s constitutional machinery in pursuit of your aims and objectives prove that you can deploy any aspects of that same constitutional machinery to enhance liberal democracy in The Gambia. But you deny the relevance or even existence of any aspect of our constitutional order that raises questions about your preferred neo-traditional form of politics. Secure in your position as President of The Gambia, you have invented a tradition of the traditional-constitutional ruler that represents a political eyesore and that we seek to thrash out in the course of these conversations. You see Dr. Jammeh, we do appreciate the need for the invention of traditions. However, we must hasten to add that not all traditions are to be invented. Some traditions, especially of the neo-traditional rulership sort, are better left uninvented. The mansa mentality with which you drive your constitutional motorcade is one such tradition that is better consigned to history. It has long gone caput, it is out of place, and it represents a clog in the wheels of our national advancement. We have been pointing out this dangerous anomaly within our political culture since 1994 when you first became a political doctor. And we will continue pointing it out until such a time that it drops out of our nation body and spirit. We cannot have the rule of men riding the back of the rule of law. We cannot have absolutism in the guise of constitutionalism. And it is the former that must give way to the latter. You are either a king or a president. And since you cannot be a king by any stretch of the president, you are a president and must be seen to act like a president. These are not orders from below, just hard-nosed observations befitting the spirit of our honest discourse. You see, Dr. Jammeh, there at least three known mansa mentalities in our part of the world. There is the mansa mentality of the precolonial period, the mansa mentality of the colonial period, and the mansa mentality of the postcolonial period with which we are currently engaged and which, we repeat, is not only passé but blaisé. Our questions would have been difficult to ask had we lived during the good old days of Mansa Futa or Jollof Mansa. But old Mansa Futa and Jollof Mansa are now in blissful retirement in the cozy realm of the ancestral spirits, still with us, but never to return as the physical Mansas of ancient days. What makes our questions easy to ask but hard to answer is this ugly phenomenon of traditional-constitutional rulership that, in spite of our proclaimed mental decolonization and our hatred of western re-colonization, remains stubbornly lodged in our political mentality; and we seem to be enjoying it because it perpetuates our ideal of what a healthy national discourse should be. Not that it could choose otherwise, given the circumstances. As a cherished tradition, the mansa mentality is welcome to stay. But as political practice, it has no place in our current political configurations and must go decorate our museum of national history where it rightfully belongs. On this point, there can be no compromise. Not if we are ever to build a healthy Gambian nation. You see Dr. Jammeh, we know that you hate the very idea of the rule of law. Because you feel generously endowed with “traditional African manhood” and claim to be possessed of strange mystical powers of unknown origin, you habitually take the thesis for the theory and the theory for the thesis. How otherwise could you loudly proclaim to the whole big wide world in the year 2010 that you will never allow the West to come recolonize Africa? As if you can protect the whole of Africa if necessary? As if anyone is the least interested in colonizing Africa in this day and age? In spite of your doctoral prowess, you do not see that every contemporary people have their own big problems and are hostile to the very idea of carrying on another people’s burdens. Or do you merely pretend that you can say whatever you like whenever you like and no one can do anything about it? When you make such outlandish and embarrassing announcements, you are deploying your constitutional right to have a voice among the community of world leaders or misleaders, as the constitutional head of a society of laws. But once you are done having your pious say, you cast aside your constitutional disposition and don your neo-traditional persona as the supreme ruler of a society of that has no room for any rules or any rights as long as these rules and rights conflict with your personal likes and dislikes. This state of affairs is totally unacceptable and Gambianism is out to challenge it to a wrestling contest and throw it down flat on the ground and flush it out of our national political space. You see Dr. Jammeh, Gambianism believes that conflict of opinion, like all other conflicts, are best resolved through a regime of healthy compromise and not an unhealthy regime of forced victories and enforced silences. We all know that some compromises are unhealthy and leave a bitter taste in our mouths and an unhappy look on our faces. While some doctors don’t need to put on any fake appearances because they are so, well, handsome, they are forced once in a while to attempt a smile even when they are seething with rage and a sense of inadequacy or littleness in the face of higher powers. In any case, what constitutes a healthy compromise for some doctors constitutes an unhealthy compromise for other doctors. We do believe, however, that we do need to compromise on this issue of your posing as the absolute neo-traditional ruler of a constitutional nation-state based on the rule of law and not of men. Your preferred notions of neo-traditional rulership must necessarily be compromised because they negatively compromise the Office of the Gambian President. They negatively compromise the Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia. They negatively compromise the doctrine of the separation of powers which is the bedrock of our constitutional order. And they negatively compromise the dignity and sovereignty of the Gambian people to whom power truly belongs. We shall leave it at that and get back to this issue of neotraditional rulership that represents such an ugly blot on our national flag. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤