In
a reaction to “Gambia on the Move - II” on the Community of Gambianist Scholars
listserv, an anonymous member wrote: “This is truly a very optimistic view of
what seems to be starting off according to Prof. Baba Galleh Jallow. Time will
tell. . .” This concise statement is pregnant with truth for many reasons, but
especially because yes, it is hard to be optimistic when we have so many
serious problems in Gambia. And it is hard to be optimistic in Africa where
potential moments of progressive transformation so often founder on the rocks
of human vanity, carelessness and inactivity. Invaluable chances for positive
change are lost because inimical habits and practices from a debilitating past
continue unchecked into the present; and debilitating difficulties suffered by
people in all areas of existence remain unresolved and growing in the present.
How then can we in the Gambia dare to be optimistic when we know fully well
that inimical political habits and practices from the past are still very much
with us in the present? How dare we be optimistic when we know fully well that
difficulties suffered by the people in all areas of existence in the past are
still with us today? Time will indeed
tell if our current optimism is misplaced. But it will tell such a sad story
only if we fail to strive with all our might to confront and neutralize these
persistent difficulties and inimical political habits and practices from the
past, including for example, denial of permits to our alternative political
parties.
A
Point newspaper story of August 14, 2017 quotes the GDC’s national campaign
manager as saying that his party was denied
a permit to hold a rally in Brikama after he and two of his colleagues
were subjected to some tedious form-filling procedures totally unbefitting the
new Gambia. The outpouring of reactions to the story on Gambian social media
circles is refreshing. Luckily, the authorities are not denying an encounter
with the GDC over the matter but are attributing the incident to a
misunderstanding rather than a deliberate intention to deny the GDC its right
to hold a political rally using a public address system. Certainly, if the
police have concrete evidence that a political party is planning a rally with
subversive intentions, appropriate courses of action may be taken. But without
such concrete evidence, the police can absolutely not refuse permits to
legitimate applicants in the new Gambia. If orders or instructions to do so
emanate from higher authorities as they did in the old Gambia, the police
should refuse to obey those orders or instructions because no person or
authority has the power to take unlawful action against any individual or group
in the new Gambia. No person or authority has the power to deny citizens their
right to freedom of association, assembly, and expression in the new Gambia. If
in their exercise of these rights citizens break the just laws of the land,
they will be held accountable. But until then, the police must act with the
full knowledge and confidence that what we have in the new Gambia is the rule
of law, not the rule of men. Gone are the bad old days of unquestionable orders
from above.
Time
will prove our current optimism misplaced if we also fail to start actively
ameliorating some of the debilitating difficulties suffered by the people for
so long that they have become abnormal sub-cultures in our society.
Difficulties like water shortages and power blackouts for example. Who
remembers a time when there were no water shortages or frequent power blackouts
in The Gambia? Since the days of the GUC, Gambians have been mentally slapped
every time the lights suddenly go off leaving them in crippling darkness.
Blackouts are bad for business but they are also bad for our psychological
wellbeing. Blackouts automatically inspire a sense of stress-inducing
powerlessness among the majority of ordinary people who cannot afford
generators or solar power. The strange combination of stress and powerlessness
induced by frequent blackouts invariably evokes a sense of helplessness and
maintains a heavy presence in the public mind.
And
then there are our terrible street conditions. Who remembers a time when the
streets of Banjul were not littered with muddy potholes and ugly craters
through which Gambians have to walk and drive every day, and have done so for
many years? Who remembers a time when there were no large, muddy and often
stinking pools of water on the streets of Ebo Town, Tabokoto and almost
everywhere else in the Greater Banjul Area? Who remembers a time when there
were no potholes on the short street leading from Brikama Highway into the
University of The Gambia campus? Much
like the Banjul streets, this short stretch of road – just a few hundred meters
long - is a messy tapestry of muddy potholes through which cars and
well-dressed students have to wobble and wade to reach office and classroom
buildings. A mere $15, 000 will transform this small street in unimaginable
ways and remove a festering nuisance from the lives of hundreds of young,
dignified students and others who use this short street on a daily basis. To
bolster our optimism with realism, we must make the new Gambia look and feel
different from the old Gambia in ways that will directly improve the lives and
daily experiences of our people at the UTG and elsewhere.
A
journalist asked me in a recent Standard newspaper interview (Bantaba, Friday
July 14, 2017) whether in my brief interactions with them as a visiting
professor, I saw any hope for the country in the students of the Masters
program in African history at the UTG. Yes, I do see hope for the country in
them. They are intelligent, energetic, outspoken and engaged with their
subjects of study and in the national discourse. They hold strong views on
matters political in the new Gambia. And they express these views in no
uncertain terms during class discussions moderated by civility and respect.
Together we learnt that we can all write our own histories of the recent past
and we can all tell it right. But these students are faced with all kinds of
crippling difficulties. They have no access to the research facilities and
databases so crucially important to graduate studies in history. And they have
severely limited access to internet, copying and printing facilities. Good
reading materials are hard to come by partly because surprise, surprise, 38
years after its founding the University of The Gambia has no main general
library. UTG students at Brikama use the Gambia College library which they say
is very poorly stocked. It is amazing that these students are able to pursue
and do well in graduate courses under such difficult circumstances. In undergraduate
programs at the UTG Brikama campus, some students attend whole lectures without
seeing the lecturer because they have to stand outside and listen through the
windows for lack of classroom space. A shortage of lecturers is compounded by a
shortage of classroom space and furniture. And so our undergraduate students
suffer the repeated and tedious indignity of attending lectures on their feet
outside or sitting on the floor inside severely cramped, overcrowded
classrooms. We know that a new campus is being built at Faraba Banta. But
learning facilities such as the ones above cannot and should not wait for the
completion of that project. They are urgently needed now.
And
then there is our undeniably broken public health delivery system. On Saturday,
July 22, the New Gambia Movement (NGM) launched its Heal the Family Project at
Serekunda Health Center. The launching included a small ceremony at which the
NGM team donated a hundred thermometers and first aid kits and were given a
tour of the health center. The report on our experience by Dr. Surahata Ceesay,
the NGM’s Coordinator of Health Services is revealing. Part of it reads: “The
entire center has only ONE blood pressure machine that they share with the
Emergency department. They have to wait for one another to use it. There was
not even a single thermometer in the center. The center has 12 beds which are
insufficient for its operations. Two new born babies and their mothers are
sometimes required to share the same bed. The beds are dilapidated. And none of
the beds are electric, so forget about comfort. Mothers are discharged from
delivery to their homes in 24 hours instead of the normal 48 hours. There is
limited access to the center during the day due to market vendors on the
streets selling their goods. This restricts emergency vehicles leaving or
entering the center. Cars cannot reach the center because the street is totally
blocked by vendors. Sometimes babies are delivered in taxis on the street due
to lack of access to the center. They have only three delivery rooms with no
tools or equipment. The delivery kits on the deck have to be sterilized and
re-used several times. No pain medications are available for mothers in labor
or during labor.”
We
certainly cannot allow such conditions to persist in the new Gambia if we are
serious about getting anywhere at all. As a matter of urgency we call upon
Inspector General of Police Lang Kinteh to dedicate one morning or afternoon to
clearing that street of vendors and to ensure that it remains clear and easily
accessible to cars at all times. It is almost unimaginable that babies are
delivered in taxis in the middle of the street, in broad daylight and with all
the loud noise and people everywhere, some of them obviously stopping to watch.
We also call upon the Ministry of Health and the UN system in this country to
help upgrade in practical ways the horrible conditions at Serekunda Health
Center. How can such a major health
center in such a densely populated part of our country not own a single
thermometer, and own only one blood pressure machine which it shares with the
emergency department? How can such a health center not have any pain
medications for mothers in labor, or tools and equipment to help them through
the painful labor process? Needless to say, things have been like this at the
health center for a very long time. But we can no longer afford to have our
babies delivered in taxis right in the middle of the streets of Serekunda, in
broad daylight. We call upon President Barrow himself to personally oversee
immediate remedial action at Serekunda Health Center, even as the Ministry of
Health plans or executes other interventions in our public health sector where
across the board, similar conditions are known to be the norm rather than the
exception.
The
bottom line is that while we are optimistic that the Gambia is on the move in
the right direction, we cannot afford to romanticize or ignore our harsh
realities. We cannot afford to wear beautiful feathers and pretend that
everything is fine and dandy beneath the bright colors. The good news is that
because we are freely talking to each other in a civil manner, there is genuine
cause for optimism in the new Gambia, however guarded. When a people are able
to freely and openly express their opinions over the wisdom or propriety of
their government’s actions and policies, when they are able to disagree in a
civil manner over issues of common national concern, and when they are able to
protest real or perceived injustices – whatever their source - in an open and
civil manner, then that people has genuine cause for optimism. Our present
optimism is grounded in the pleasant reality of a blossoming culture of free
expression in the new Gambia. But it must be optimism backed and guided by
practical action directed towards eliminating or minimizing inimical habits,
practices and difficulties from the past.
It
must be optimism matched by practical action towards making sure that things
like police denial of permits to legitimate political parties, frequent power
blackouts and water shortages, muddy potholes on our streets, poor learning
facilities at the UTG, and lack of thermometers and painkillers at our health
centers stay in the ugly past to which they belong.
