Well said Dr. Jallow... Keep it coming

On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

>  Khaleel,
>
> Thanks for your very kind words and your insightful comments. What you
> wrote is your opinion but it is informed and rational opinion, the kind we
> need to cultivate in our homeland. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your
> comments and thank you for taking the time to chip in. Have a great weekend.
>
> Warm regards,
> Baba
>
>  ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 15:04:57 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
>
> Subject: Re: [G_L] [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>  Baba,
>
> Thank you for providing us an interesting read. I must say, you invoked
> self-reflection in me while reading this beautifully crafted article. I
> think it is fair enough to say that there is always a special appreciation
> for a well-put together article that speaks to the minds and hearts of
> people. I am looking forward to your next post.
>
> The question you raised is genuine and merits attention by every African
> that is truly about progress in the continent, not just in words but in
> deed as well. “Why America Works and Africa Not . . .”. While I can think
> of many flaws of America, its systems, policies, politics and people; it
> epitomizes democracy at its highest. This is a nation mostly very tolerant
> and nurtures the best out of every citizen. These are people that can
> fiercely disagree about politics, policies and ideologies but still live
> next door to each other, pray together and visit the same establishments
> without building hatred that creates a lasting divide. These are people who
> understand that disagreement does not equal hatred and expressing an
> individual opinion is treated as such “opinion”. This is a nation where
> people are proud to call home regardless of its imperfect systems and
> policies. This is a nation that sees patriotism as a symbol of excellence
> and the people willing to die for. This is a nation where people reserve
> the right to select their govern and hold it accountable when it fails to
> deliver without being thrown in jail to rut.
>
> As you may agree with me, we need not to copy the American system but
> there are significant lessons we can learn from them, tailor a system of
> governance that fits and suits us well as Latjor eluded. I think we as
> people create unnecessary divide that pushes us further away from coming
> together on the most basic issues in life. For the most we make decisions
> based on emotions rather than facts, faith is essential but our religious
> believes can be so extreme sometimes, not to mention our different cultures
> that we impose too far in our decision making process. Understanding that
> all these things matters to an individual but can we, are we willing to
> look beyond these and cultivate an environment where the most important
> thing is the issues that affect the states and the people without
> alienating each other.
>
> For the most part the U.S. election was peaceful regardless of the heated
> debates among people of different political ideologies. No rocks thrown and
> no fistfights reported among many things that could have went wrong. This
> is largely a credit to the people, their maturity, understanding and
> respect of the laws of the land. Security of their democracy helps without
> a doubt. Ultimately, we have a lot of work to do with such a high
> illiteracy levels and poverty in our societies and the lack of respect for
> the rule of law. These are the roots of our problems I believe.
>
> Until we understand that there is something bigger than our ego in a
> crucial fight for justice and equality for all, until we realize that we
> have a long challenging task of educating our people to stay clear from
> those ideologies that only divides us masked under the banner of tribe,
> religion, culture, riches and self gratification, we will never enjoy half
> the success we see and hear in the American society. We need to master the
> basics and work hard to improve our society through selfless sacrifices.
> What I wrote is entirely my opinion and none of it is scientific. Thanks
> for reading it.
>
> Khaleel
>
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 10:20:11 -0800
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [G_L] [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Thanks Latjor. Actually we do have a lot to learn from the American
> experience and I did understand your point. One thing we have learnt from
> the American experience is that it is nations (people) that build states
> (governments), and not the other way round, which brings to sharp relief
> one of the reasons why Africa keeps failing: the unworkable practice of
> "nation-building" from above. I look forward to your thoughts on the Nation
> School sometime soon. Thank you.
>
> Warm regards,
> Baba
>
>  ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 17:57:48 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [G_L] [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Great Doc.
>
> Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on the proposed mental
> revolution. BTW, I did not say we ought to copy the American experience,
> rather to draw lessons from them and others. The concepts of "Family Nation
> and Nation School" are of particular interest, especially the latter, and
> they need greater articulation.
> Will share some of my thoughts on the latter concept at some point after
> your insights.
>
> Cheers!
> Latjor
>
>  ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 09:22:13 -0800
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [G_L] [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Latjor,
>
> Thanks for your kind comments. You do indeed raise a valid point: It is
> one thing to call for a Mind revolution but quite another thing to
> actualize it. I have actually been thinking a lot about this issue over the
> past few years and have written and shared something about it at the L and
> Post sometime last year. I think we do not need to copy the American
> experience to empower our people. We can craft practical home-grown
> strategies to do it, namely, through actualizing the concepts of the Family
> Nation and the Nation School. I will update those pieces and share them
> with these forums over the next few days. Thanks for the encouragement.
>
> Warm regards,
> Baba
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: RE: [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 15:42:37 +0000
>
>  An excellent write up Baba with much food for thought for the
> continent's people.  I quote below part of your final paragraph which I
> completely concur with, however, calling for a 'Mind revolution' is one
> thing, and actualizing it another. It would be useful to offer some
> strategies and concrete actions that can be taken to arrive at the
> empowerment you allude to. Perhaps the American experience can serve as one
> where lessons can be drawn.
>
> "Africa’s salvation lies in the empowerment of the African people
> precisely in the manner that the American people are empowered...
> Africa will not work until the African people become conscious of their
> power and make it impossible for political actors to pretend or act
> otherwise. The revolution that will set Africa free is therefore above
> everything else, a Mind revolution that will place political power firmly
> in the hands of the people to exercise and defend as they deem fit."
>
> Latjor
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [>-<] Why America Works and Africa Not . . .
> Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 15:05:11 -0800
>
>  *Why America Works and Africa Not . . .*
>
>
>
> By Baba Galleh Jallow
>
>
>
> How did Africans feel watching Republican candidate Mitt Romney walk up to
> the mike at his subdued campaign headquarters on the night of November 6,
> 2012 and graciously conceding defeat in the 2012 presidential elections?
> Perhaps some sense of relief that America, in spite of its great mass of
> ugliness, does have some extremely beautiful aspects that cannot but be the
> envy of the world, especially those parts of the world where conceding
> electoral defeat is almost unheard of and where political grace is
> displayed only in its patronizing, bullish manifestation, as if it were a
> favor to be conferred and not a virtue to be cultivated and shared. It was
> at once humbling and gratifying to watch a man who had spent so much energy
> and resources of all kind walk right up to the mike, in front of TV cameras
> and congratulate another man who, only a few hours earlier, was his most
> bitter political opponent. And Romney conceded defeat graciously, even
> praying for Obama to succeed in his renewed role as President of the United
> States. This is what putting country before self looks and feels like. And
> this is a huge part of why America works.
>
>
>
> It would be simplistic, however, to suggest that Romney conceded defeat
> merely because he is a gracious man, or merely because he puts country
> before self. These, of course, are to some extent true. But there is a
> bigger force than Romney or any single American that dictated Romney’s
> decision to graciously concede defeat in these elections:  That force is
> the American people – a people who are politically literate and who will
> hold their leaders accountable for whatever they do or fail to do. The
> American state is one that was built by the people and that continues to be
> sustained by the people. This is quite the opposite of what obtains in
> Africa where the state was put in place by a small group of people serving
> imperial interests and where the state continues to be made up of a small
> group of people mostly serving their own interests.
>
>
>
> The 2012 elections in America were certainly the most fiercely contested
> in a long time. Right wing hatred of America’s Black president became
> personified and vocalized through the agency of men like Rush Limbaugh,
> Glen Beck and Donald Trump, and through institutions like the Tea Party and
> Fox News, among many others, some visible, most invisible. America’s crop
> of wealthy racists sponsored Super PACs that invested hundreds of millions
> of dollars into the GOP campaign machinery while less wealthy racists
> swelled the ranks of the Tea Party and formed all manner of racist
> organizations devoted to “taking our country back” as if they were the only
> ones who could claim ownership of the United States. In the U.S. Congress,
> racist members swore to make sure that their dear America will not be ruled
> for a further four years by Barack Obama, not because Obama is a bad
> president, in spite of protestations to the contrary, but because Obama is
> a Black President and the idea of a Black President of the United States is
> just intolerable to America’s racists. Republican members of Congress grew
> so obstructionist as to be almost subversive of the country they so profess
> to love. They did and said everything they could to make sure that the
> first Obama administration failed and therefore rendered ineligible for a
> second term. And during the months and weeks leading up to the elections,
> they did everything they could to drive the Black President out of the
> White House. Happily, racist America remains in the minority in almost all
> of the states that most matter – those states with the highest number of
> electoral votes. And so Obama gets re-elected with at least a margin of 100
> electoral votes as of election night. For a brief moment after CNN
> projected that Obama has been re-elected, it seemed as if Romney would
> refuse to concede defeat. His campaign actually said he was not ready to
> concede, that they were crunching the Ohio numbers. But with Colorado
> declared for Obama moments later, Romney knew he had to throw the towel in
> or risk facing the wrath of the American people. One feels pretty certain
> that if Obama lost the election as clearly as Romney did, he would have
> readily conceded defeat rather than risk the wrath of the American people.
> Both Jimmy Carter and George Bush senior were incumbents when they lost the
> election, and they had to vacate the White House without any particular
> prompting other than the scary prospect of incurring the wrath of the
> American people.
>
>
>
> Contrast this scenario to what obtains in Africa, where in a country like
> The Gambia for instance, the incumbent president declares that the ballot
> could never take him out of office even before the vote is cast.  African
> presidents are able to make such insulting statements because they, and not
> the people, are the repositories of power and thus the objects of fear. The
> balance of power between state and nation, between government and people is
> so terribly skewed that it is generally taken for granted that states are
> all-powerful and people are all-powerless. The possibility that people
> could even object to the words and actions of the state is diminished to
> near oblivion. The state appropriates to itself the right to erase the
> agency of the people as political actors by forcefully identifying its own
> interests completely with the interests of the nation and daring anyone to
> question the validity of that fallacious assumption. The entire nation is
> held hostage to the barrel of the gun and the malicious whims of a state
> that has no conception of itself as beholden to anything but its own
> selfish interests. When Gambian tyrant Yahya Jammeh declares that he is
> afraid of no one but God, he is precisely saying that all power in the
> country is vested in him, and that the people, the true repositories of
> political power, are in fact completely without political power. This lie
> is given a semblance of truth by the deployment of merciless state
> repression against all perceived or real critics and opponents, and by the
> practice of hiring and firing people as frequently as he deems fit to serve
> his interests. In Africa, a president can fire any one from their
> government position, have anyone arrested and locked up, ban any media
> house, or seize any business or private property without as much as the
> blink of an eye because the people have been so thoroughly emasculated of
> political power as to believe that they have absolutely no claim or right
> to political power and no say in the conduct of their own national affairs.
>
>
>
> Africa’s salvation lies in the empowerment of the African people precisely
> in the manner that the American people are empowered. It is not a question
> of emulating America or any other nation on earth. It is the reality that
> within the context of the nation state system that prevails in America as
> in Africa, political power belongs rightfully to the people. But the people
> can only wield this power if they are aware in the first place that they
> own this power. African governments are well aware of this, although in
> pursuit of their selfish interests and their insatiable greed for
> self-aggrandizement and their sweet tooth for power, they force themselves
> to live under a self-imposed ignorance regarding this fact. The tragedy of
> the African condition is that the modern state is not one built by the
> people but one imposed on the people by the colonizing project of imperial
> Europe. This tragedy is worsened because the state that took over from the
> imperial project did not see fit to bring into being an empowered and
> politically enlightened people. Rather, the state has consistently been
> happy to pull the political blinders over the eyes of the people and to
> perpetuate the myth of the absolute power of the state and the absolute
> powerlessness of the people. Elections are projected and seen as a practice
> in the expression of political gratitude to the rich and powerful, not as a
> practice in the exercise of the people’s political power. America works
> because the people of America are conscious of their power and no actors in
> the American state – whether it’s a Romney or an Obama – is so foolhardy as
> to contemplate the mere possibility of testing the reality of that power.
> Africa will not work until the African people become conscious of their
> power and make it impossible for political actors to pretend or act
> otherwise. The revolution that will set Africa free is therefore above
> everything else, a Mind revolution that will place political power firmly
> in the hands of the people to exercise and defend as they deem fit.
>
>
>
>
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