Gambian
author and historian has called on the Barrow administration and the President
himself to suspend – if he could do that, through executive authority – all bad laws in the country,
especially the laws on freedom of association and expression.
Dr
Baba Galleh Jallow was editor of independent bi-weekly newspaper, The
Independent, after working as editor of Daily Observer and he is currently a
professor of history in the US.
He
spoke at the launch of his latest book, Defying Dictatorship: Essays on Gambian
Politics held on Saturday at the Law Faculty, University of The Gambia.
“The
bad laws cannot wait till tomorrow; they need to be removed today,” Jallow
said, as the gathering cheered, arguing those laws do not have a place in the
‘new Gambia’.
“I
am calling on you Mr President, to use executive authority to suspend those
laws and allow the Gambian intellectual resources to blossom,” he argued.
Jallow
cited the law that requires him to bring a lease of a landed property or a bond
of a D500,000, just to be able to register a newspaper.
“I
was shocked,” he said. “That is part of, I think, the decrees passed by Yahya
Jammeh during the AFPRC days… Ideas are the building blocks of development. And
if you block the intellectual resources of the country, you are blocking the
development of the country.”
The
book was published by Center for Media Research in Africa, an agency
established in The Gambia last year to promote research, authoring and
publishing of intellectual works from both the media and academia across the
continent.
‘Dad,
we must go on…’
Mr
Ousainou Darboe, minister of foreign affairs, as a guest at the launch, also
explained how he and his colleagues were brutally hoarded into the back of a
truck by security forces for merely exercising their freedom of expression
through peaceful protests in April last year.
“We
were made to sit on a bare floor, on tile, dusty. Some of the officers came
around, with their chicks in their hands, and looking at me as if I was an
exotic animal that was caged,” Mr Darboe explained, recalling one officer
expressing surprise to see him there.
“I
had never regretted what had happened and I never wavered. But about an hour
later, I saw my daughter being walked into that place, bleeding from her
fingers, with a very thick laceration on her thigh; while I was also bleeding
from my head. When I saw that, I really wavered… that was the moment I asked: ‘Why
is this happening?’” he narrated.
The
UDP leader said his daughter came and sat next to him, and he cuddled her and
she kissed him and told him that he was seriously bleeding from his head. She
took a tissue and started wiping blood from his head. She kissed him again and
that kiss he translated as, “Baba we must go on!”
“That
made me resume the resolve in me that was wavering…. That incident, and the
‘Kalama Revolution’ – led by Madam Fatoumatta Jallow and others, culminated in
the production of this very valuable book that we are launching today,” Darboe
said.
The
book was launched by acting Vice President Madam Fatoumatta Tambajang, while
Ousainou Darboe was chief launcher, which in the words of Mr Darboe, was very
apt for various reasons. “To participate in this historic event, is in itself a
special experience. But to also have the exotic pleasure of launching the book
is a greater honour,” he said.
The
struggle against dictatorship was one undertaken by every Gambian: “Men, women,
children, mothers…. Some had to fight with the pen, others used social media
and there were those on the ground to make as much noise as possible, including
women who went out with the ‘Kalama revolution’.”
“Once
the women came out with the ‘Kalama revolution’, with their brooms, to sweep
out the dictatorship, I had no doubt in my mind that the end was near,” Mrs
Tambajang said in her remarks.
She
saw this liberation as a second independence – first independence was from
colonialism and second from dictatorship.
“Fundamentally
on page 48, what he [the author] is saying is that independence must not be
understood as giving the government all the rights to govern, all the rights to
make decisions, and all the rights to deal with people, or deal with matters of
state in ways they want,” she said, arguing that those are details of good
governance.
Over
a hundred copies were sold at the launch, with the UDP buying 40 copies for
distribution to various institutions within the country. Diplomats, the Speaker
of the National Assembly, university officials, and representatives of civil
society were in attendance.
