Two scores and two - Gambians have spoken!!
No
single epoch in history has ever led tidily on to another. Each era, carries
with it a burden of the past, a mentality, perhaps, a set of paradigms, ideas,
values, sets of beliefs even bits and bobs of an outmoded mode of production.
Such changes, are inevitable and will occur because they are thrown up by
specific historical circumstances. We see it daily all around us because life
itself is a moving and changing dynamic entity.
Out
of these new changes in the Gambian geo-politics, one could readily glean a defacto, frittering
alliances of sorts, new associations, a re-grouping of the old and new orders
and perhaps other emerging forces and shifting perspectives, values and
attitudes, all of which will go to join
the fray in penning a new history and therefore a new destiny for The Gambia
and for whichever society these changes are taking place.
No
society is immune! No society can claim
not to be undergoing such transformations.
The Gambia is not precluded. This unassuming tolerant but resolute
society was one of those places where these changes were least expected. It
took a long time coming and the writing on the wall has been there for every
one to read but every one was blinkered by an overwhelming form of threats and
military dominance. The saber rattling
from a beligerent President was also quite beguiling. Now, the country has spoken
and is boxed in the frame within which the Gambian nation has to find her way
in the world.
The
last seven weeks have sent people reeling from the dramatic events and still
mulling over their fate. Every body especially the Gambian diaspora, those in-country, those fifty thousand people fleeing and
seeking refuge outside of the borders of the land to escape the imminent
confrontation between Jamme’s loyal
forces and the forces of the West African economic community.
Equally
so, the world community have been held captive by straining tenter hooks and
fraying nerves, sitting at the edge of a cliff hanger while diplomats shuttle
back and forth with the hope of giving diplomacy a chance. What became apparent to all was
Jamme’s escalated daily shenanigans he had deployed to Gambians for the past
twenty two years. His intrigues were laid bare for all to see. In this
instance, he was clearly buying time to get the best of concessions, to get amnesty and to invoke loyalty
from a toothless, spineless lame-duck house of parliament. All of these were in
aid of identifying those wavering and
disloyal members of his party and to coerce his MP’s to rubber-stamp an illegal extension of his mandate and to
declare a preposterous state of emergency that he himself had little faith
in. He would also use his time on the
tight-rope for the cynical manipulation of the judiciary and his bewildered
supporters, to garner all his accumulated material treasures and to complete
his alleged loot of the Gambian vaults.
Diplomacy
did triumph! Not a single drop of blood was shed and no damage or loss to life,
limb and property occured.
To
some, Jamme has got away lightly and should have been captured and both him and
his booty arrogated for later consideration in courts of law or other
appropriate commissions of enquiry. Maybe through a truth, justice and reconcilliacion or perhaps through some other outfit for the
dispensation of justice and redress. I emphasise justice because a lot of
people’s rights were violated in other
truth and reconcilliations commissions and they are still carrying the scars
and hurts and still need closure. So, let us not jump the gun! We must find
what is adaptable and appropriate in our situation. We will come back to this later. I will argue
though that this was the best deal for The Gambia and her people.
What
is certain though is that life will
never be the same again in the country with the smiling coastline post Jammeh.
It will be weeks, months and even years before we can fully assess the full
impact of Jammeh’s twenty two years watch and its impact on the Gambian
mind-set, on her general body-politic and on her on going and future relations
with her sister states within the ECOWAS, in the African Union and the rest of the world’s committees of
nations.
At
Jammeh’s departure on Saturday, many a tear were shed. Some were crocodile
tears, most were tears of relief and joy and happiness, some shed genuine tears
and yet some tears of varying tinges were also shed.
Some
people’s faces were long and morose and their expressions were dour. His
sycophants had tear tracks in their faces! The same men and women who rejoiced
at his defeat in private yet, lay prostrate in grief mourning the fall and
departure of their ‘hero’ and sobbing in what looked like inconsolable sorrow
and grief in public. For the majority of his flunky’s; this was their long-held
narrative. The same narrative that they
play acted; cooked-up in the deep cauldrons of Kanelaay, peddled and gobbled up
whole even by his own stalwarts and the starving communities.
January
the 22nd , 2017, marks a significant turning point in her history. Gambians
have woken up to a new reality. Still dazed up and in semi-comatosed states of
being, they are pondering what has happened to them and their country. They are trying to get their heads around the
departure of their ballyrags leader who has ruled the country for the past
twenty two years and wondering what the future holds in store for them.
However
it is important to distinguish between tears and sorrow that were shed out of
expectations or tears shed out of a fait accompli and those that emanated from
a recognisable psychological condition inherent in the group dynamic. In some instances, massive grief is exuded by
the crowd out of a general herd instinct. Crowd behaviour is something
psychologists have studied since the thirties and there is overwhelming
evidence to attest to these different shades of grief.
Be this as it may, it is important to note
that this phenomenon of public grief is something that many cannot fathom out.
In some instances and in some ways, in certain places or in peculiar
circumstances, there exist invisible bonds linking people to one another
through the personification of their commonality. They may even grief over the
death or departure of tyrants and dictators who had subjected them to untold
misery. I have also learnt from
unconfirmed sources that in Ghana, there are professional mourners who shed
tears and grief for a fee and booze.
Most
of the youth and young adults in their thirties and up to their forties in The
Gambia, do not know any leader but Jamme. For twenty two years their formative
minds had been mesmerised by Jamme’s sadistic love of power, his occultism, his
pseudo pan Africanist vision, his irascibility, his anger and his malevolent
desire to ridicule, humiliate and to wrong-foot people in positions of
authority as a way of projecting himself as the saviour and saint from Eden.
What
I present below is a rapid analysis of his reign and its impact on the
evolution of the local politics and foreign relations. It is a small
contribution towards making sense of our new reality. I hope that it might
generate some discussion around ‘wither Gambia’ and where do we go from
here? It is by no means a blueprint for
development and its intensions must be viewed entirely from what it says it
sets out to do. The lessons we can
learn from this period are numerous, most of which are chilling reminders of
what people who have experienced authoritarianisms both in Africa and beyond her shores
underwent. I will argue that Jamme did not descend from ether. He is in fact a
product of this society, our society! I will also by the same token, refute the
adage that people get the leaders they deserve. The Gambians did neither
deserve the despotism that was meted out to them nor did they deserve the
prolonged state of jitteriness they experienced in the two scores and two
years.
It
will be instructive later in our conclusions to briefly examine the impending
work of the coalition government both in the near and distant terms. I will
conclude that they are beset by so many pitfalls and so many other constraints
such as resources, capacity issues or a lack of it and the expectations of a
populace with such lofty aspirations, high ambitions and dreams for the change
they hope for now, not later. I shudder
at the thought of the mammoth tasks that lay ahead but thankfully, if they
listen to sound advice from the very people they will govern, they will find
answers if this is done in a cordinated way and if they adopt a modest/humble
tack in their dealings and approaches with the people, they will find the
answers to and meet the challenges ahead.
I
will finally comment on my vision for both the coalition and the future of The
Gambia.
To
begin my analysis, I would like to start conveniently by examining the mind of
Jamme himself, his party hacks and the
resultant psychology of a people whose
narrative is consigned to the tales of subjugation, oppression, dupery; a
people forced-fed daily, a diet of brutality smeared on sacrificial oxes, biscuits, dates and sugar pelted at
them with such derision as to remind them of their place in the scheme of things
and to confirm Jamme’s delusions of grandeur. The grandeur of the benevolent lord of the kingdom, a kingdom
bestowed to him through divine intervention to rule for a billion years.
I
will also look at why his reign of terror has persisted for so long and why his
own party never presented any opposition to his misrule and how we as a people
have imbibed his ways and world view. Some of the answers are deeply embedded
in our subconscious! It is to these unconscious, repressed feelings, thoughts
and fears I now turn to in order to
explain why we have acted the way we did, the ways we ought to have or
should/could have acted but did not for the past several decades.
I
hasten to say that this is by no means a way of castigating Jamme. His deeds
are there for the people themselves to assess, evaluate and pass judgment on. I
also do not wish to descend to his level by using his methods to crucify him.
The idea is simply as oppressed peoples, we need to get behind the causes and
consequences of tyranny and its effects and try to understand it and how it
feels. It is, if you like, a catharsis-a purging of emotional tension, an exorcism; a coming to terms with so that
we can close the circle and heal. There is no doubt that people’s rights,
liberties have been violated causing frustration and anger. What we need to do
now is to talk about it in order to give ourselves the chance to heal. .
.
To
be continued
Baaba Sillah mu Sabel
