We Are Not Going Back To The Drawing Board

I stay away from partisan politics but this time around, the PDOIS has finally exposed its inflated sense of self-importance, and its control freak leadership.  Even the most loyal and hardcore followers of Halifa Sallah are starting to ask questions about the motive behind an editorial penned yesterday in the Foroyaa by one Ousman Njie for Halifa and his PDOIS party. The opening sentence of the editorial stated the obvious as only Halifa and PDOIS can; telling us that brain and not emotion is the key to leadership. Everything else about the editorial is vile, repulsive and insulting.

The editorial’s venture into American history only served to reveal the ignorance of the author about the history of the civil rights movement in America.  Martin Luther King was not a politician and never aspired to be one.  Even if he had harbored the notion, it soon evaporated because he realized early that he was more powerful and influential in his role as leader of a movement operating outside the machinery of government than trying “to take over the White House or the Congress.”  To think that only through government that change can be effected is pure madness. It is also folly to advance the false notion that “in International Law states and not personalities are recognized” and hence those “who control state power become the legitimate authority for the state”. The statement even though shortsighted, tells us a great deal about PDOIS’s view of government as the agent of supreme power.  May I remind the PDOIS that Adolf Hitler was recognized by law as the legitimate head of government but it took non-governmental organizations and victims of the Holocaust to help draw attention to the heinous crimes committed by a legally constituted and internationally recognized government.

The compartmentalization of Gambians into those “children of Independence and those born during the colonial period” by the PDOIS is a vainly concealed effort at sowing seeds of discord between the alliances that seemed to have emerged after Raleigh, London and Stockholm which culminated in those that emerged among the civil and non-political groups like DUGA-DC and the Organization for Democracy and Justice in Africa.  "The children of Independence" did not march the streets of New York and stake out at the Ritz-Carlton alone; those born during the colonial period joined us. We received and continue to receive moral and financial support from young and old, men and women, from Gambians and non-Gambians alike.  Gambians should and will vehemently oppose any attempt by any politician or group of politicians to compartmentalize Gambian society, be it UDP, APRC or PDOIS.  

The PDOIS editorial proceeded to accuse us, “the young of today” of being morons and marionettes who are being manipulated by those born during colonialism, and driven into political adventurism because we do not have a mind of our own and have less “clarity, maturity and tact”.  How insulting can Halifa be?  Is he pre- or post-Independent child?  I know Yahya Jammeh is post-Independent child because he's been reminding Gambians of it every day.  The advise PDOIS gives to the ‘young of today” is for us to “partner with those who wish to empower the people through necessary and viable means so that they can take full ownership of the country.”  In short, PDOIS is saying to the Coach Pa Samba Jows of this world that they should be partnering with Halifa Sallah and not with the pre-Independent relics , when he Halifa, has steadfastly refused to get off his high horses and join the demonstrators, at least in spirit.  But no, he’d rather hide behind Foroyaa editorials to throw rocks at those willing to take on Jammeh head-on when everything seemed to have failed.

To convince the “young of today” that we are on a fool’s errand for opposing the government of Yaya Jammeh because he’s legitimate in the eyes of Washington and London, the editorial cited the fact that the Syrian Foreign Minister was welcomed and heard at the U.N. which, in Halifa’s mind, is tacit support of the Assad regime by the Obama administration, ignoring the geopolitical importance of Syria and the fact that neither Barrack Obama nor any other member of the United Nations could deny another the right to take to the podium to speak.  It is a member’s right and not a privilege.  Halifa should know better.  It would have been a different matter if the Syrian Foreign Minister was provided a platform at the United States Army War College which could only happen with the consent of the Obama administration.

If Halifa Sallah or any member of PDOIS thinks that the demonstrations and activist agitations around the Gambian Embassy in Washington is to get foreign governments sever diplomatic ties with Banjul, then they are missing the point.  The protests rose out of the desire to change tactic after 19 years of political ineffectiveness of the opposition, including PDOIS, and designed to bring international attention to the violent dictatorship in Banjul, an objective that is being achieved beyond expectations.  And if you think we the so-called ‘children of Independence” are going to the drawing board, PDOIS and Halifa Sallah better think again.

Governments are extensions of their constituents but they may not necessarily and truly reflect the desires and aspirations of the governed, and this is particularly true of dictatorships.  Therefore, for Halifa and PDOIS to continue providing cover for a despotic leader like Yahya Jammeh by citing international law is further confirmation of what many have in the past, accused them of - they are collaborating with the corrupt and violent regime of Yaya Jammeh, whether they know it or not.  If after 19 years of writing 100 page letters to Yahya Jammeh following every unconstitutional and extra-judicial infraction without a single response is not enough reason to change tactic then nothing else will.  Therefore, the “young of today” have decided to take a different approach to political activism than to return to the drawing board.  There is of course nothing preventing Halifa Sallah and PDOIS to continue doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results every time.  A better option is for Halifa and PDOIS to get off their high horses and join the fight to get rid of an incompetent, corrupt and violent regime without endless lectures and preconditions.