Says, “Let’s Keep It Civil, Mr. Karamba Touray”

Dear Editor,

I must confess the struggle I had to go through before finally deciding to respond to Mr. Karamba Touray’s rejoinder to my article, last week. I really didn’t want to do it because this is a special person who for the past years totally captured my admiration and respect for his courage and candor online. I really never met him or talked to him as such but envisioned him as a cool brother and friend. As a result, I thought it necessary to first apologize to him for pushing his button this far, before further reengaging him in this unfinished business. I hope he will accept and understand that spirit of comradeship in which I am conducting this debate.

Lawyer Darboe, Femi Peters & Samsudeen Sarr

The issues in question still remain constant and I think as an independent observer, I am entitled to share my personal opinions, with modesty of course, over any political situation in The Gambia deemed interesting enough to write about. But thoroughly scrutinized, one would notice how speculative my opinions were, dotted with sentences that allowed room for correction where they were inadvertently inaccurate. For instance, it is obvious that my statement indicating that the crowd at the United Democratic Party (UDP) meeting on October 24, 2009 may have realized the illegality of the rally only when the police started showing up, was inconclusive and far different from how Mr. Touray interpreted it as my cynical way of insinuating that the people were duped into attending it involuntarily. Even my prediction of the outcome of the court case with Mr. Peters being found guilty and the subsequent failure of the next defiant rally scheduled for the following Saturday after “Tobaski” were purely speculations.

In fact, the best part of my analysis was derived from the single report written and circulated about the event, courtesy of the Foroyya newspaper. And when no other report emerged from other news outlets, the party operatives or their sympathizers at home and abroad to complement, contradict or even refute the Foroyya paper’s version in the way Mr. Touray attempted to do now, then I thought there was nothing more to know about it. Considered one of the most eloquent members of the UDP’s foreign wing, I think Mr. Touray could have started effectively by helping me with answers over questions asking why the UDP external activists like him, always keen to share the party’s doctrine and programs online, were totally mute about the program if they knew about the rally before hand. Though not exactly how I expected any of the UDP members abroad to volunteer and enlighten me over what happened, especially coming from someone of Mr. Touray’s caliber, I still believe he deserves commendation in mustering the courage he showed to give me the best he could.

In the end however, he didn’t show much depth in his knowledge of the party’s activities as I thought he had. Or else, he wouldn’t just stop at emphasizing that there were other speakers at the rally different from Mr. Darbo, the party leader without elaborating on who they were and what exactly they said that the Foroyya reporters failed to cover. In the absence of those details, my assumption over that particular subject, thanks to the Foroyya reporters, still stands valid to me.

Another unwavering position I will stand by until convinced with better evidence is the poor publicity of the rally which I think was deliberate by every account. If Mr. Touray really wanted me to believe that the UDP was not necessarily obsessed with the publicity of the rally then he would have given me a good reason why the party was bitter about the failure of the GRTS to air their program after exhausting their efforts to have them do so. Yet for them to play the sense of the innocent as if they didn’t quite know that the GRTS will not approve the application was laughable.

I think it has already been proven to many that the UDP is all too well concerned with publicity like any normal political party aspiring for office would; it was precisely what angered Mr. Femi Peters, compelling him to contact the online Freedom Newspaper on June 17, 2009 to express his dissatisfaction with the private media in The Gambia. That was indeed the incident I referred to which happened barely forty-eight hours after the six journalists were arrested and detained on June 15 2009. I was hoping that by now, one of the several readers who read Mr. Peter’s controversial interview on the Freedom newspaper posted on June 17, 2009 at about 1:30 am would come forward and acknowledge it to Mr. Touray who denounced the allegation as “preposterous and untrue”. But asking a friend who actually read it why he wouldn’t clarify it for the man daring anyone with the evidence to show it, he quickly explained why. “Why” he asked “would anyone safeguarding his respect want to entangle himself in such a debate characterized by invectives and ridiculous anger?”

Once again, before machine gunning me with all kinds of insults for what he believed was false allegations against Mr. Peters, Mr. Touray I guess was at liberty to conduct some little fact checking with the Party’s Campaign Manager who granted the interview himself, something I assume shouldn’t have been a problem given his status within the party hierarchy. I always believe that he is big among the top elites. But hopefully, unless something is seriously wrong about the party members’ ability to reach one another in moments of urgency, I expect since after the publication of his rejoinder that Mr. Peters did update Mr. Touray at last. If not, the entire details of the interview can still be accessible in the Freedom newspaper’s archives. It’s rather lengthy otherwise; I would have copied and pasted it below.

However, captioned UDP’S FEMI PETERS SAYS A SECTION OF THE GAMBIA”S PRIVATE PRESS ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO THE COUNTY, the following is a verbatim extract in the first paragraph: “United Democratic Party Propaganda Secretary Femi Peters is the least pleased with some section of the Gambian private press, saying that they are doing disservice to the country, by refusing to give voice to the opposition whose views he says are usually not featured in the public media.” Mark you this interview, as I said above, given two days after the arrest and detention of the six journalists was the first statement uttered from any opposition political party in The Gambia about the problem. It also goes to re-confirm my theory of how much publicity meant to the party and also how they must have known that they had had no chance of getting GRTS to announce their illegal rally when their legal stories were denied publicity in the past. So blaming the TV and Radio for the poor publicity was at best laughable.

In the final phase of the interview however, Mr. Peters was quoted as saying that “…..the Daily Newspaper for its efforts to provide objective news to the Gambians………..is doing its best to provide coverage to both the opposition and the government.” Did they for that reason try the Daily Newspaper for coverage? I doubt it.

 Anyway, let Mr. Touray take a good look at this paragraph in the same text and tell us what it was all about: “Mr. Peters said that from now on he intends to channel his views through the online media since the local press is afraid to grant him audience. He says the silence of the opposition is partly because of the media censorship. He says the local press perceived them as bunch of rejects and as such are not keen at giving them voice”. There is more in the text to crystallize my argument that the party seriously yearns for publicity which I think could be solved by simply having their own website or journal.

I don’t know what else to tell Mr. Karamba Touray other than to plead with him to simmer down the unnecessary emotional outburst quite unbecoming of the gentleman I always thought he was. Naturally, I found his reaction pretty much surreal; but more dreadful than that is the scary premonition of how the man would react to his critics as a full fledged member of a UDP government, perhaps a senior officer in some Department, with all Executive powers at his disposal, when at this moment with the dream perhaps never to materialize, he reacts in this volatile manner from a criticism of his party.

Well, one of the beautiful byproducts of the current political climate of the world with The Gambia by no means an exception, is the channel of opportunity provided by the Internet and Extranet for political voices like ours that otherwise might never have been heard. People can no longer be taken for a ride by condescending politicians intolerant of critics that hold them accountable to their inadequacies and incompetence. So whether it is the APRC, UDP, NDAM, PPP, NADD or PDOI government, this online tradition of scrutinizing government activities and pointing out to them where it might hurt most, will only continue to flourish with overwhelming improvement. 

Having to conclude before getting on another person’s nerve, I read in Mr. Touray’s closing statement that “good soldiers” according to him “fight to the end”. I sure have a special one to add to that. As a former soldier, I don’t anymore believe in soldiers being good or bad; all I know is that all wars are bad particularly, the unwinnable ones we fight thinking that we will eventually triumph. Civility is the greatest virtue nevertheless too elusive in the human family because of our flawed habits. Let’s keep it civil brother!