The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity
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By Mathew K Jallow, Associate Editor
If ever the opposition party leaders needed a strong, principled voice to emulate, they got one last week. And, he has been there all along; right under their noses. Shingle Nyassi is a distinguished opposition voice, and like Femi Peters, has with easy confidence, carried the weight of the UDP in the face party leader Ousainou Darboe’s docile, unspectacular, tentative and recalcitrant leadership style. If you think that I am about to argue that the opposition leadership’s timidity contrasts Nyassi’s temerity, you’d be darn right. And, it is not just Ousainou Darboe. It is O.J. It is Hamat, and it is Halifa.
UDP's Darboe
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It is time to shift gears. For despite making all the wrong moves that could get him voted out of office, Yahya Jammeh seems more anchored in our State House than ever. This is the ultimate paradox of Gambian politics. After every murder and execution committed, Jammeh seems to have gotten more emboldened, because we did nothing. And after each failed coup, imagined or real, Jammeh has emerged stronger, because we failed to rise up in tandem in support of those who put their lives on the line for our liberation. After each election cycle, Jammeh’s brutal reign has become more entrenched, because all along, we were cynical enough to think that we could rid our country of him without the necessary investment in courage and political passion.
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PPP's Jallow
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Today, our collective helplessness has become the sanctuary of our anguish, and we are farther from seeing the back of Jammeh’s head than ever. At times, we wish the crowded field of opposition leaders possessed half the boldness of Nyassi or Peters. And, I am not just talking about the singular moment of calculated act of courage, that is more theatrics, but of a more substantive political posturing. The painful sixteen years journey behind us has tested our dignity, prides and humanity to the absolute limit of human endurance. But conversely, our efforts in dealing with the degenerating political and economic climate in our country, have been anemic at best, and have so far come to naught. And, you would think that after so many years of spectacular failure, we would have had the fortitude and wisdom to change course for a new direction. The objective truth is that, as long we still continue on the same trajectory, we cannot expect different results. Jammeh and his cabal of mostly barely literate and corrupt officials will continue their boisterous, directionless and brutal leadership, to the chagrin of Gambians, if we fail to act boldly, fearlessly and decisively.
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NRP'S Bah
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Shyngle Nyassi’s interview on Freedom radio showcases the dilemma of our politics, but it also epitomizes the weaknesses in our political leaderships. The courage he exhibited in denouncing Jammeh regime’s most gruesome treatment of Gambians ought to be a theme of the political campaigns of a united opposition. The brutalities committed by the regime are nothing new, but Gambians must be reminded of the kind of evil monsters that we are dealing
with, in Yahya Jammeh and his acolytes, and Darboe, O.J, Hamat and Halifa, must muster the courage that Nyassi showed in his interview to amplify the message and carry it to the far ends of our country. If our people are sufficiently informed about the atrocities Yahya Jammeh committed, and the international condemnation of his brutality, his rejection by the Gambian electorate will be a foregone conclusion. But the imperceptible and some would argue, criminal failure and ineptitude of the political establishment in our country, has no doubt, reduced the political parties into circuses, even as our country continues its descent into the dark depths of political pandemonium and economic ruin.
PDOIS's Sallah
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We must redefine the way to proceed in order to engage the Gambian electorate in the war against the ubiquitous abuses of human rights and corrupt one-man regime of Yahya Jammeh. We cannot afford the continued, if not thoughtless manifestation of weakness, because Jammeh is like a blood-hound that can smell the negative energy of fear from a mile away. The opposition must work together to provoke passion in the population, as a sure way to engage the voters in the political discourse for the preservation of their own self interests. Yahya Jammeh and his military regime are the metaphor for that is wrong in Africa, and Shyngle Nyassi could not have said it better. A united opposition must pick up the message from where Nyassi left, and carry it to every corner of our country. If the party leaders are going to be arrested and held in detention, they will vouch to be arrested as one team. Yahya Jammeh’s worst nightmare is dealing with a unified opposition in a manner that will expose his despotic regime to the wrath of the international community. An insightful political leadership that is committed to doing not just the easy things, but the hard and painful as well must be nurtured for the good of our country. The opposition party leaders should take up the mantle of Shyngle Nyassi, only then can we successfully carry our country out of the darkness that has engulfed us for the past decade and half. It is only something drastic, something bold, something different that can save us from this tyranny, not the same old, tired and failed approaches, which have gotten us deeper into a political abyss. In short, the party leaders should emulate Shyngle Nyassi’s fearlessness, and bold straight-shooting.
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Gambia's criminal Yahya Jammeh
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As of now, Jammeh’s regime has denied, what we can best define as four generations of Gambians, the right to active involvement and participation in the economic and political life of our country for more than a decade and half, and until someone articulates a more appropriate time-period categorization, these will be known as; the Colonial Generation, the Lalo Kebba Drammeh Generation, the Ifangbondi Generation, and of course, the Kukoi Samba Sanyang Generation. These generations, and their historical significances to our country, would be explored and articulated in much greater detail at a later date, but for now, it suffices to say that even as the cream of Gambian society languishes in exile outside our borders or remains as mute as caged animals inside our country, the long road to freedom is still nowhere in sight. And each day that passes, the noose around our necks is tighter, as the Jammeh regime chokes the air of freedom out of our lives. The ultimate aim is to reduce us to slaves and subject our people to Jammeh’s brutality and irredeemable failure of leadership. The famous Irish poet, W.B.Yeats's; The Second Coming, captures the mood that illustrate the hopes and failures of our country under Yahya Jammeh.
The Second Coming; By W.B Yeats (1865-1939)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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