Two scores and two- Gambians have spoken!!
How
and why did Jammeh become the Baabili monster?
Apart
from his own personal psychological predispositions identified earlier, by
1994, Jammeh, the young lieutenant had had his baptism and thorough induction
into the excesses of the public officials and their cohorts in civil society.
He saw firsthand what obtained at the citadel of power-the state house and the
quadrangle. By now he was smitten with resentment and hate owing to his
peculiar position as a guard and his own warped sense of justice and
oppression. As a soldier, he also saw how easily one could seize the reign of
power. July 22nd 1994 was the D-day and
he and his band of rebel soldiers prosecuted a neat, swift and clinical
bloodless take over.
Mr
Jawara, like his successor Jammeh wondered why they had lost state power when
they did. It was a shocking experience for both of them. Power is like a gravy
train and its passengers never know when to descend as their journeys have no
termini.
At
the coup in 1994, Mr Jawara had spent umpteen hours negotiating with the boys
in green but the boys refused to take his bait and he could not lure them into
some form of partnership between his regime and the military. That was the end
of his rule and ever since then, the rest is history.
I
am not sure how many of you had had the chance of following Donald Trump in the
US in the past few days in relation to banning Muslimsโ entry into the US (from
the seven Muslim countries he does not have any direct business interest in)? One of the main executive orders
includes one of his election pledges which he says he wishes to make America
safe. There is a lot of opposition to the order and he is currently being sued
as his action is said to be illegal according to US law. I mention the Trump
saga with Jammehโs to draw a parallel.
When Jammeh took over, he made a lot of pledges. His major pledge was to
right the wrongs, bring the perpetrators to justice and go back to
barracks. Twenty two years on, he was
still here and wanting to stay some more thus plunging the country into a
crisis of epic proportions-not known to Gambia and Gambians. Small wonder why
fifty thousand people fled the country. The University, the students, the
school pupils and other key institutions of government refused to execute their
duties and he did not even bat a wink at the protracted civil disobedient he
had in his hands.
This
goes to show how unfeeling dictators can become and quite remarkably, that in
our own way; we have made an effective opposition against his regime, something
no one could contemplate a month earlier. We also refused to be drawn to a fist
to fist fight, to go on a tyre burning rampage and go out in hoards in public
protest. This was what the monster wanted in order to declare a state of
emergency, kill, mangle or maim people and subvert the emerging democratic
process, but we did not oblige him. These actions are uniquely Gambian. The
lesson here is that you can neither import or export revolutionary strategies
nor tactics. Each strategy and tactic
must reflect the nature and character of the people and it must be borne out of
the specific historical circumstances on the ground. In other words, you cannot
prescribe the same potion for different ailments, pardon the metaphor!
During
the first few days of the coup in 1994, Jammeh rounded up all the king pins in
key executive positions and all the members of cabinet, all holders of
ministerial positions and put them into custody. He then paraded the officials
in and around the streets and egged on the lumped element to jeer and heckle
them. His action was in part to humiliate them and in part to demonstrate to
the public that he means business. This gave him some cheap popularity. He went
around the offices and gave direct instructions to the heads of department to
either remove or to deface the photos of the deposed President Jawara as he
stood and presided over the โceremonyโ. (Doesnโt history have its own curious
way of repeating itself or is it the law of retributive justice taking effect)?
In
addition, he gave the former ministers of state, intermittent access to the
media under gun-point and under duress. All of them were either tongue tied,
incoherent or just simply garbled along, reflecting their deep states of shock, distraught and demoralisation.
These were personages that were held in
esteem, even in awe by the society at the time and the deflation of their egos
will have had a colossal effect on them and even to larger society. We may not
have realised that we had witnessed and internalised such acts of terror but
twenty two years down the line, the actions of his cabinet and indeed his own
members of parliamentโs behaviour demonstrates amply, their fear of Jammeh
himself and his tight grip over all of
them to the extent that he was taking them down the path to treason and a total
breach of trust of their constituents and they were prepared to go down with
him down that lineโฆโIt is difficult to free fools from the chains they
revere;โ:says Voltaire - [Franรงois Marie
Arouet] (1694-1778).
Jammeh
knew pretty much as Fredrick Douglas has articulated that โLiberty is
meaningless where the right to utter oneโs thoughts and opinions has ceased to
exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they
first of all strike downโ. Where is the โNew Citizen'?
Where is Deyda Hydara? Where is Radio 1? Why have
some journalists and academics fled the country and are languishing in sad
exiles in Europe and America?
Jammeh may not have been au fait with Nazi
tyranny or their methods but his actions could have come directly from a leaf
extracted from a text book by Hitler, Ikeman, Goebel and so on as to how one
can break, dehumanise and totally demean the other.
These
seemingly innocuous acts may not have any symbolic significance to the everyday
onlooker but for a psychologist, they have had deep psychological
overtones/undercurrents en-masse that will stay not only with the victims of
public humiliation but to the general public,
a deep and enduring effect on all of us to this day and perhaps the rest
of our lives.
From
the very beginning of his reign, a state of real fear reigned supreme in our
collective consciousness. All of our
actions, thoughts and feelings were guided or directed by it. The psychological
conditioning of our minds was now total and complete owing to fear. This is the
subject that I will now turn to.
Fear
is said to be a natural, primitive and powerful reaction that has evolved both
in humans and in animals. It warns us of
the presence of danger and had helped us to stay alive ever since we set foot
on this planet. Psychologists have divided fear into two stages. The first is
biochemical and the other is emotional.
We
see the bio-chemical reaction daily. If you chase a dog, it will run away.
However, if you corner it and it cannot escape, it will turn against you. This
is known as they flee or fight response, whereas the emotional response is the
response to fear. It is very individual in nature. We may sweat, develop an
increased heart rate, experience high adrenaline levels, shake or break-wind or
climb up as they say.
To
be continued
