Among
many, the prominent scholars, leaders, journalists and the physique of our
security force are to blame for our seemingly decaying society. But, this way,
the statement seems very absurd and depressing. When I examine what is
responsible for the ugly atmosphere we are surviving; why we are so divided
between the very few who are rich and the poor majority, between the free and
the oppressed, and how the government have being ‘out there’ instead of being
‘in here’ for the citizenry has its roots in our fundamental institutions; the
church, the mosque and the society in general. The fragile results that make us
a highly unproductive society are strongly shape by our economic, social and
political performance.
That
we will live a democratic society is accurate and attainable. Yet, democracy is
a necessity for a civilized society but calls for a trans-valuation of all
values –the sharpening of our horizons of reality.
Traditional
explanations such as slavery, colonialism, imperialism, dependency, and racism
are no more sufficient explanations for why we are still very poor, ailing and
intolerant to change. We are not dead until we make essence of our living. Our
society is in a transitional phase from a system of total injustice to an
unknown world – what we meet tomorrow depends on what we collectively pursue
today.
At
a moment very decisive in our history, ignorance has thrown us into black holes
and we cannot see anything. Why this? And what can be done about it? In trying
to answer these questions, I want to focus primarily on three institutions
(mosque, church and society) nearest to us, that make up our social fabric. If
we want to reach an achievable minimal standard of living for all, it is
dangerous on the one hand to say the mosque and the church are independent
truthful institutions and that our society is basically a mirror of the church
and the mosque on the other. This propositions is myopic for several reason;
our religious scholars who seem to preach the same book(s) of God are at ill
with each other and their disciples even more. Those of us at the side-line are
at best ignorant and at worst hypocrites unwilling to show our true colours.
But by now, it seems quite clear that if we continue slumbering in our realities,
we will not only breed another dictatorship, but create a highly inscrutable
injustice. Our problems are artificial and can be solved only by our collective
efforts that make us into a state. These are not extraordinary circumstances.
It is humiliating, hearing from prominent scholars that most of the evil we
face are natural, thus, undermining our collective intelligence to eliminate
poverty, diseases and hunger. Our intellectuals and religious leaders have
frown their faces at what should be considered a common good for what they
would want to maintain as a private good. The sense of inner values and
attitudes have now become abnormalities.
It
is difficult to reconcile with fact that, at the face of all these injustices,
our religious leaders are still counted as the best breeds among us. In
thoughtful moments, social scientists among others have seen this to be a
misconception. Indeed, religious leaders can only assume the role of preachers
and the rest must be done by us through a cultural revolution that will pay
attention not to beliefs but in identifying problems to be solved. If we are to
keep our religious faiths at all, we must have to optimise our beliefs and
practices to march our common realities. We have to do it now or be compelled
to do it when any response would be illusive and ineffective. Those times are
nearing at a pace we are not aware off. I am an optimist but not all convinced
that with our present paradigm of living, we will not compromise with the
future of generations yet unborn. It is very difficult to give a map of where
our fundamental problems lie. Yet, many rational thinkers have diagnosed
culture as the core of shaping society from the worst to the imaginable. We now
reach considerable understanding that if other cultures are appreciable, then
others are to be adaptive to improve their owns. If mosques and churches should
wear the throne of injustice we then are in a silly problem. Rather than being
use as a tool for social organisation, religion is now under increasing attack
from within and outside. Many people now began to seek answers for themselves
than ask in a religious gathering; why so much injustices in a small society
where everyone could live peacefully and in dignity. Laziness as a cultural
product cannot be ignored. Culture is what really matters to what we are and
what we want to be. Defining culture in this case, will be not to understand
it, as our very ugly situation is nothing but a cultural product. What we want
to call culture will highly depend on what we achieve in the nearest future.
Until that time, intolerance and retrogress is our culture. Many Gambians are ready to follow religious
and party flags rather than doing their quarter to create a fairer society regardless
of their faiths. This mischaracterisation of individual and collective
priorities for flag colours could have been best placed in the domain for a
collective enterprise of justice.
Men
have come to define themselves the processors of every good and bad evil and
this is scientifically understandable. Since we cannot blame the poor father
for making a squad of children of his own, why should we blame God or
governments for not providing all the basic necessities? The answer, of course,
is found in our culture(s). Culture is not an independent variable, but if
everything we do is qualified as culture, then nothing is culture –and culture,
therefore, misses its substantive
importance. Let me drive you to this transparent taboo imbedded in our faiths:
it is normal for a poor man to marry two wives or more and become a social
liability but it is impermissible for a vulnerable teenager to abort her
pregnancy; it is nor injustice for our religious scholars to be seen as the
judges (in the cinema) but many times (the audiences) are deliberately insensitive
to their misbehaviours. Culture it’s the subsistence of our living. These trying times are surmountable only when
viewed as the fear for a more equitable population and that a cultural
revolution is definitely a necessity.
Culture
is the nucleus of our society – for achieving a progress we will be
collectively proud of, we must create a vision that must serve as our lens of
perseverance that encourages people to change their actions and inaction. If we
ask why other societies are better off than us, we will likely find the answer
in our culture. We have all argued that our culture is under attack for why we
still are very poor and speedily breeding injustice. Some easily point at
political leaders and religious scholars only secondarily. Others blame the
media, the poor and the market society we are now living. For these reasons,
the analysis become a lot deeper, conflict-ridden and complex, and through this
blame game we consciously and unconsciously create a culture. But, even in
prosperous democracies not far from our borders have troubling gaps. The
increasing gaps within our society, it seems to me, to be embedded in our
traditional religions of Islam and Christianity. Most of us when troubled by
the reality of our existence we find excuse in religion. Our religious
gatherings give more questions than answers but with high and raising standards
of living, we now can should find most answers for ourselves in a drastically
changing world of ours. Our over-dependence on others, and reluctance to meet a
civilized standard of living for all is not a choice between economic growth
and social equity but what we perceived and examined as justice. We should
acknowledge that most of the vices we face today such as unnecessary polygamy,
superstitions, and limitless child rearing do not need God’s intervention. To
change our society, we must all do our homework and augment government’s
efforts rather than read paradise in our books and sleep.
If
at all we want to change for the better, we need to create a sense of absolute
urgency to realise that our expectations are far from the reality and that the
reality goes beyond the parameters of our mosques and churches and personal
rationalisations. To be pragmatic, most of what have led us to this state have
concreate religious origins, but will sound stupid to find answers therein,
because man is fully responsible for his own decadence.
Majority
of us know that progress is good and achieving it is difficult, yet, only a
fraction among us have found the determination to go beyond socially
constructed obstacles such as poverty, hunger and diseases that propel
injustice. But even if we do know how to meet prosperity, many of us seek the
other way and prefer ignorance or laziness. As a society, cultures is the denominator
of prosperity because it shapes our purposes of existence. It shapes
institutions, beliefs and actions. By now, it is clear that even economic
activities are revolve around culture –a progressive culture, there cannot be a
progressive people. While some of us are paused in the abstract world of
–everything is destiny – some have made it to the real world where progress is
what counts.
