Mathew K Jallow reacts to Halake's London letter

 Dear Dida Halake,

Your pejorative reaction to Mr. Femi Peters Jr’s letter to Yahya Jammeh, in the Freedom Newspaper, last week, left many gasping with incredulity. Femi Peters Jr’s letter to Yahya Jammeh, which addressed a serious matter, not only to his family, but also to Gambians in general, was met with ridicule and condescension from you. Your efforts at masking your mean and insensitive streak, instead, inflamed the passions in those who believe in the cause of freeing our country from the tyrannical grip of Yahya Jammeh. Quite evidently, your attempt at parody was sincerely in very poor taste, moreover, there was nothing funny in your letter either, instead, by its insulting and outright demeaning tone, you, in a way, were attempting to undermine the efforts of Gambians and caring non-Gambians to secure the release of Mr. Peters Sr's. from unlawful incarceration. Additionally, your disgusting letter made excuses for the massacre, in April 2000, of fifteen innocent students. And you also seem to support the legitimacy of the Kangoroo trials by the mercenary judges who have, in effect, systematically and wantonly dismantled any vistages of the rule of law in our country. But more importantly, the premise of your letter that the murders perpetrated by Jammeh's regime, just happen, was an increadibly ignorant and dismissive position to take. You mean, it is just too bad, and that we just have to get over the murders, arrests and incarcerations? In its generality, your lame letter does not see anything wrong in these mass arrests, detentions, incarcerations, Kangaroo trials and tortures in The Gambia. Frankly, by your letter, you have shown your true colors, as uncaring and insensitive to the suffering and cruelty our fellow citizens are enduring under a system that has subdued Gambians into a permanent state of servitude. After seeing the character of Ethiopia, your homeland, in so many historical documentaries, it has not come as a surprise to me that you are bereft of the human emotions of empathy and sympathy. For mine own eyes have seen the slums at the edges of your cities and towns, where castaways human beings, ostracized from society by their own families, some of them handicap girls as young as twelve years, are living in filth and hunger. That kind of cruelty towards fellow humans cannot be found in the realm of our Gambian cultures and we will refuse to allow you to exposition it in our midst. But, unfortunately, I am unable to respond to your letter the way I really wanted to, since your offending letter was taken down, all because even Pa Nderry himself recognized, after the fact, that it was insulting to the sensibilities of Gambians and, therefore deserved no place in a Gambian newspaper. It is evident that you are still trying in your subliminal ways to kiss your patron Jammeh’s behind, but remember this, Jammeh will go. And after Jammeh is gone, Gambia will still be there. And knowing Gambians the way I do, some people will not take kindly to the apologetic position you are expousing. And in case you have not noticed, Gambians in the Diaspora, who support Jammeh, do so only because they want to be able to visit home and return to the U.S or Europe, and the rest of us see their overt support of their god Yahya Jammeh as motivated by greed and amounting to lack of good character. Additionally, there are some who support Jammeh, and are active in expressing this support in writing, but again, these are quislings who are catagorized as ignorant and cowardly, who out of fear of retribution, are hiding their identities behind the anonimity of pen names. So going forward, we hope not to see any more silly, disgusting and condescending London Letters from you. Obviously, no one can stop you from writing and getting your articles and letters published by anyone, but you ought to make sure you are not condescending or insulting to the intelligences of other people. This is for your own good, Mr. Dinga Halaku. Oops! My bad.

Sincerely,

Mathew K. Jallow.