Irrelevant Relics Do Not Write Books
By Lt. Col. Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr
LT. COL. SHERIFF SAMSUDEEN SARR
Dear Editor: On January 10th. 2008 an article captioned Relics Dying to be Relevant was published by one of the online papers purposely orchestrated to smear my character. The editors should have just given it the most befitting title thus- “Samsudeen Sarr, Relic Dying to be Relevant”, By Editors. That would have been more than enough to complete their hateful agenda than the lousy attempt they had made to hide their motives in the way they did. I was going to ignore it because of its malicious and unethical contents, but since I didn’t have much to write about this week I decided to work on it.
These people should know that I have lived on such treacherous terrains long enough to recognize trouble makers in whatever form or style they may choose to conceal their naughtiness. They are like common criminals never tuned to the fact that their foot and finger prints are in most cases left at the scene of their crimes in the way these people did in this sleazy performance with blatant conspiratorial undertones.
When I first saw the story with my picture on it flanked by President Jawara on the right and Captain Sana Sabally on the left, I thought the author, with only the name “Sheriff of NC was a genuine person trying to get me into a constructive debate. I could remember being once engaged by the same people about a topic regarding Captain Sana Sabally. And with the cordial relationship I had developed with them since then to what I had believed was some form of friendship (I even sent them a copy of my book on gratis), I almost thought that it had something to do with reviewing my book.
I am sure if this were something good and not a smear campaign against me, they would have had the courtesy to ask for my permission before using my picture. However, going by conventional wisdom, articles published in newspapers online usually carry the portrait of the author including all the ones I had, so far, seen featured in their paper. But since it looks to me like “Sheriff” may not be anybody and the story all about me, they unilaterally took the decision to use my picture.
It also seems that soon after the publication someone drew their attention to what was seriously missing in the paper, i.e., my name and a damaging but purportedly believable subject about my life. The article only mentioned the name of Mr. BB Darbo in the context of a positive appraisal. They therefore, arranged for a rejoinder from Omar Jallow who provided one with the manliness to own up to it by putting his name, address and telephone number down.
However, the problem with Omar’s rejoinder was how it strayed from the central theme of the smearing theatrics. He probably either failed to grasp that reality or did it on purpose to deliberately sabotage his colleagues. Or was it inadvertent attentiveness to the real agenda of the conspirators? I dare enquire! But he might have also read the paper and found out that nothing was there believable enough for him to synthesize a supporting rejoinder. Already, he had made it clear that he wouldn’t read my newly published book Coup D’etat By the Gambia National Army because of its political nature; if he had read the book I would have imagined that going by the contents, everything about the article would have seemed flawed. I wouldn’t however rule out the possibility of him learning about the book from those who read and discussed it publicly. Anyhow, from the book, it was clear that it was not the GNA officers who were in charge of their army during the PPP era but Nigerian Generals, Colonels and other senior ranking military officers. That would have debunked the idea that it was our incompetence that led the junior officers to leapfrog us in the first place. That alone would have proven half the story false. And the rest of it was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing to borrow Shakespeare’s immortal text. The tale was all-laughable. I will later show why.
So for a more damaging subject Omar possibly sold them the idea of lambasting me on my books. Yes, they have tried my maniacal tendency in writing everywhere in cyberspace for relevance but the points tendered were too vague, weak and not very specific to cause the anticipated harm.
But just like I said above, troublemakers are often not very good in handling the mess they create. Otherwise these people would have taken their time to thoroughly compare the rejoinder with the article and see how the concept in one somehow contradicted the other. The whole aim of the paper as stated in the title was to make their readers believe that I was no longer relevant and don’t even know what to do with my life lately. So for Omar to talk about my published books in the past and present with a future one on the drawing board was in my opinion not too helpful in their campaign. He made it look like a mockery when the joke was actually on them.
If I had to start a smear campaign about anybody especially, on fabricated pieces of evidence to make that person look like a relic dying to be relevant, I wouldn’t entertain a rejoinder like this from Omar’s. But they couldn’t see the defects thanks to the blinding effects of hatefulness. They could have done a better job with Omar the book critic by sending him the copy of my book I sent them where he could have searched for tangible points for a more reasonable battle on a later date. As a matter of fact, his unrelated topic about Sam and the books he publish deserved a whole new publication slot but not this trivial rejoinder on my supposedly wasted life.
I think Omar at the end of the day gave me a resounding publicity without knowing it. Instead of hurting me, his rejoinder clearly made my day and gave me the break I needed from “Sheriff’s” venomous assault. I’ll also be honest with Mr. Jallow and let him know that Meet Me In Conakry never did that well with Gambians either. Nigerians and other West African readers made most of the purchases on that book. If writers had to depend on Gambian readers to write books, I bet the whole world would run out of books. You can check with other Gambian writers for that gospel truth. As for Coup D’etat By The Gambia National Army”, it’s only six months since it was published, still too early to compare its performance record with over twenty years for Meet Me In Conakry out there.
It’s also important to add that I am not just writing books but also legally employed, supporting my wonderful family and aspiring to become an American citizen in the near future. I don’t think that is as gross as these people are trying to make me look. This is what I will ordinarily call underestimating one’s readers but this time, I think it is all about overrating one’s I.Q.
I’ll stop here to allow the readers to go through the text before continuing.
“What do you make of our bloviating (don’t know what bloviating means) ex Gambian
military and political officials? And the air of holier-
than-thou incorrigibility with which they dish out their
"expert" opinions, as if there's a snowball chance in
hell they could be wrong? How about the contempt,
derision, defensiveness and venom with which dissent
(and dissenters) to their positions, even if merely
perceived, are responded to?
I don't know about you, but I'm not impressed. In fact, I take offense and exception to it. I think it's time they're challenged and called for it.
Their commentaries show not only how married to the past and bitter they are, but also that they are cynical and begrudging of the present; for them, the future holds no hope.
With the exception of BB Darboe, whose offerings published in an interview posted on The Gambia Echo, have been introspective, thoughtful, insightful and refreshing; almost all else just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It is not by mere chance that Mr. Darboe is now onto bigger and better things in life while the rest of the pack seem directionless and reduced to whining and complaining on any accessible cyberspace outlet.
I, like many other Gambians, read pieces by fellow countrymen -- former public and military officers in particular -- in the hope that we could glean from their writings some whys and wherefores for policy decisions and occurrences while they were in office. In other words, many Gambian read these former officers' works to get a better understanding of what they did in office and why.
While many of us may not know the reasons behind certain decisions and events, most are all too familiar with the direct consequences of those decisions on our lives. The ordinary Gambians have paid -- indeed continues to pay -- very dearly for the misdeeds of ex-officers while they were in office, serving in various capacities. Low life expectancy, unemployment, a high cost of living, low standard of living, and unequal access to educational, medical and other opportunities -- the list is
depressing!
These people were part of a system that brought us untold misery. The painful truth is that our country is not where it could have been in terms of socio-economic and political advancement due, in large measure, to one reason alone: leadership that leaves much to be desired -- the kind of leadership these ex-officers provided while they served in positions in the Gambia government and military.
To hear these deposed military and civilian leaders tell it, they ware ideal specimens of exemplary leadership. Via this very medium, they seek to lionize their records with lengthy and prolific publications saturated with implicit and explicit self-adulation. With pomposity and self-righteous, they point to flaws and excesses of all but themselves. They hasten to claim credit but never admit to any mistakes made during their tenure. They portray the impression that with everything that went wrong or awry while they were in office, it had to be some "other" person or situation or entity at fault.
They are wont to volunteer "expert" analysis and make high flu tent proclamations about all that is wrong with The Gambia and the current political system. It makes one wonder where such intellectual prowess was when they were in office. It is as though they have a panacea for the country's myriad of problems; that we're they to be reinstate, the Gambia will be transformed into a haven overnight.
There's only one problem with this narrative emanating from these throwbacks of the PPP dispensation; it's flatly false. And Gambians know it. Heck, we bore the burnt of the consequences of their failures. We can understand their nostalgia of going down memory lane; the fun memories of power and privileged once possessed, wielded and enjoyed. Perhaps it is this very reminiscing that miscues their recollection and skews their judgments about what really happened under their watch.
A majority of ordinary Gambians knows better than the misinformation that these former members of the Gambian elite are trying to peddle.
The poor, rural dwelling Gambian who, in order to be able to afford school fees, had to spend the entire Summer Holidays toiling on the farm while his classmates enjoyed the luxury of private tutoring; who had to donkey-cart his sister or mother or wife, who is in labor, to the nearest health center of pot-hole riddled roads while GG vehicles idly sped past; who worked hard and aced their exams but somehow inexplicably couldn't get the job or scholarship that went to one of his underachieving classmates. The ordinary Gambian simply cannot fall for such deception and propagandizing.
Gambians can understand your personal biases and motivations, as you try to play up your time at the realm. Scholars of human behavior argue in what's referred to as the Fundamental Attribution Theory, which explains that we tend to attribute success to internal personality factors, and failure to external
ones. In other words, when we succeed it's because we are intelligent and hardworking; but when we fail, we are more likely to blame it on external, situational factors rather than ourselves. This explains why a student is more likely to say: " I got" 95% or 100% in and exam that she/he does well in; while, on the other hand, when she/he does badly, you're more likely to hear that the teacher "gave me" 50% or 60%. This is no less true of our ex public officials and that's understandable.
What Gambians cannot understand or accept; indeed, what many Gambians take great umbrage at, is for these ex public officials to take us for fools. As if letting all of us down and betraying our collective trust was not enough, they rub salt to the wounds by attempting to re-write history, to change the facts, to claim a legacy that's nonexistent. They seem to be on an endlessly shameless PR offensive. These ex-officers may be entitled to their opinions -- and we all know they have some pretty strong ones, however incorrect and misguided -- but they are not entitled to their own facts (to borrow from an iconic Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan).
What, you might ask, might be the motivations for this unending image-making by these losers?
Perhaps it is a face-saving defense mechanism.
by the fact that junior Take the ex-military officers, for instance. Their incompetence was highlighted officers leapfrogged them to wrest the helms from an inept, corrupt, dysfunctional system that they were a part and parcel of. This is not only humiliating; it's mortifying. It speaks volumes of their brand of "leadership": clueless and out of touch. How can they not be resentful, begrudging, and disgruntled of those that inflicted such a devastating blow on their ego? But they are to blame because they didn't even have control of their own battalions or rank and file. So much for their "leadership"!
These folks have failed Gambians and they know it. And though they refuse to accept their demise, they are all but relics of the past; they're forever tainted and tarnished by their actions (or inactions) while they were in office. Their endless cyber blabbering is just the last kicks of a dyeing horse. What else can they do but vent? It's the only way they can pretend to be relevant. They have had an opportunity to serve our country but they blew it -- spectacularly! That is a fact and even a thousand cyber articles cannot change it.
There is a useful lesson in this for current and upcoming generations of Gambians to learn from: For all who are entrusted with public service responsibility and have betrayed the citizenry, an inauspicious life of irrelevance awaits, where you'll be reduced to nostalgic reminiscences from the sidelines.” ENDS HERE
There is no question in my mind that the story will entertain those who hate what I write about. Yes it’s all about my writing that I know rams through the souls and hearts of some readers like a freight train. Naturally some would hate it but there would also be those who wouldn’t have any problem with me. In general however, my objective readers in the Echo Newspaper or those that have read my book know better to be deceived by unsubstantiated allegations aimed at undercutting my credibility to perhaps chase me into hiding. (This is one goat Mr. Sankareh will milk as long as he wants).
I don’t know what they were reading from The Echo Newspaper to make them remotely think that I am among those showing frustration over my failures in the past with no hope in the future. Who in fact in his right mind will assume that the writing I so much enjoy doing is an effort to hoodwink Gambians into trusting me with an imaginary-future-political position? Only perhaps these people wrapped up with eternal problems and living in a fantasy world would come up with such baloney.
I want to say this to them. Writing, as far as I am concerned is one of the loveliest passions in my life. I use it for my personal entertainment, comfort and education. It prevents me from being idle and helps in a special way I cannot articulate to adjust and adapt to most difficult situations. I don’t think there is anything more rewarding in my life than the God given ability to write down and read my thoughts and feelings. It is just phenomenal. And frankly speaking, America has been a tremendous help in molding me into who I am in that respect. I therefore, see no reason to be angry at anything or anybody in this great country; I don’t complain to anyone about my past failures (supposedly), I simply discuss the past for the purpose of understanding it better and using the lessons learnt in future endeavors. I must admit that I had failed in some things in the same manner I had succeeded in others. But the two go together in life in a way that reinforces the concept of God’s mysterious and unpredictable ways. But I know that these people may never get it. Take for example the metaphor in their attempt to ridicule the Gambian senior officers about the junior officers being smarter for leapfrogging us to seize power in 1994. Coups are the worst military crimes for anybody to glorify in anyway and I strongly believe that good soldiers would rather stop them than be involved in planning or executing them. However, if they had factored in the reality that almost all their smartest warriors ended leapfrogging each other-thanks to their treacherous habits- resulting to most of them being killed very young and buried in unmarked graves leaving their wives and children behind as widows and orphans, then I wonder whether they would have still consider them too smart. They may brand us incompetent and even cowardly, but while those junior officers suffered the most brutal repercussions of their recklessness nearly all the senior ones survived it to live better lives. Even the Nigerians who were in charge of the army at the time and could have certainly done something to avert the coup new better. I can say that every junior officer that leapfrogged that day ended regretting it except perhaps Jammeh who from what I know played a minimal role in the conspiracy. It was a lesson that we should all learn from. It was a bunch of bad soldiers coming together and planning the worst crime in their careers against their country with the hope that everything was going to be fine according to their scheme. What happened after was nothing they had banked for and I don’t think they would appreciate the flattery of being called smarter.
But just show me the face or identity of these people calling themselves “Sheriff”, and I swear to show you how close the personalities of these haters fit the profile they have been trying to tag on us, except may be for the variation that in their cases, life has never meant any significance with the future beckoning no sign of hope. To these people the world by their imagination is all gloom and doom. They wouldn’t understand that the frustration and depravation felt by many of them are as a result of their state of minds. What is also true is that the anger and hate they nurture in their minds always translate into confusion and distortion of the image they try to project about themselves and about others.
Anyway if I can’t show you people like that then I will show you hypocrites whose families had perhaps benefited more than any family during the PPP or APRC eras, the main crime they said we had committed to cause them all their earthly miseries. They could also very well be President Jammeh’s protagonists on a desperate effort to stop Echo Newspaper contributors. From my experience, I am more familiar with most of my haters attacking my record as an “elite” in Jammeh’s government where I am often reminded of how I was used and booted out later. This is the first time I come across somebody with this bull of “Samsudeen Sarr elitist in the PPP government. I question their wisdom to avoid associating me with the APRC government based on the failure of numerous liars in the past to link me without evidence to atrocious events suggestive of the Jammeh regime. So the only logical reason I could think of in their avoidance of linking me with Jammeh’s government, which could have armed them with better believable lies, is the secret passion they might be harboring for Jammeh.
Let’s go back and read how the article started on what looked like an individual challenging us or me with his personal opinion and how by the middle of the story towards the end it changed into some narrative that sounded like a team of good Gambians (them) addressing the bad ones (us). They even had to dichotomized the Gambians into haves and have-nots and spoke on behalf of the latter; those supposedly born and raised in surroundings strewn with people of low-life expectancy, donkey farms and carts, street potholes and several other insurmountable problems. They also spoke of those deplorable conditions as being fallout from the evil activities of the rest of the affluent Gambian group-the haves- who enjoyed the GG vehicles, stole scholarships for their undereducated children and denying them the opportunities when they deserved it better. In short, they huffed and puffed all their frustration and anger over these Gambians they believed were responsible for their social and educational degradation.
I am sure my parents like most hard working Gambians who never held any government jobs or owned GG vehicle were all part of their forbidden group.
Sorry my father was a corporal in The Gambia Regiment during colonial days, the only government job he had ever held.
However after running out of steam but still wanted to say more, they came up with what they do best, wallowing into pedantic lectures to impress readers that they are super duper academics by alluding to theories in human behavior-“Fundamental Attribution Theory”. After reading that, I only felt very sorry for their souls and became more convinced that they seriously needed God in their lives. After all the resentment and the blame on others about how other external factors and elements destroyed their surroundings and aspirations, how the former PPP military and civilian officials betrayed their trust, how they deserved to know what was wrong, how our incompetence in handling our battalions added to the colossal problems they have been subjected to, I found their human behavior lecture radically inconsistent with their earlier characters. You don’t tell people not to blame others for their shortcomings after spending a harrowing moment blaming others about your own shortcomings. If that is how to educate us about the Fundamental Attribution Theory then our teachers must consider a refresher course on when to give the lesson. I personally, have no admiration for such an erratic sociologist.
To conclude, this will be for Mr. Sankareh, our great editor. Those who read the article have said that it is simply about trying to chase away The Echo writers from cyber space. That’s not too far from conspiracy and conspirators anyway. So I thought of sharing this story with you about Russians in the post- cold war generation. It was about two neighbors in a poor Russian village, Igor and Ivan who after decades of being taken care of by the communist government and now abandoned in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet empire, they found life totally unbearable under capitalism. They couldn’t understand it and had no clue on how to go about their lives anymore. One day, Igor did some research and discovered that apart from hard work and self-reliance, people in capitalist countries pray to God for help and guidance. So he started to pray to God regularly while searching for a productive occupation. Then one day, an Angel appeared before him and asked what he wanted. “I want a job to help me out of this unbearable poverty”, said Igor.
The Angel gave him a goat that he started milking and selling to the neighbors. Soon his condition improved far ahead of his neighbor’s, Ivan.
Ivan couldn’t understand what happened. He went to Igor for answers. He was told about the praying and how it brought the Angel that gave him the goat. Ivan also started praying immediately.
Then boom, the Angel came to him as well and asked him whether he wanted a goat like Igor’s or something better. “No”, Said Ivan. “All I want is for you to kill Igor’s goat so that he will be like all of us again. It’s not fair for him to be way up there when we were all down over here.”
The Angel denied him his request, and disappeared never to come again.
So Mr. Sankareh you now know what I mean when I talk about milking your goats as long as you want.
Cheers!
Samsudeen Sarr