By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in- Chief
Dear Mum:
It’s National Day again and celebrations are fever pitch. The little ones are being rehearsed for yet another daunting celebration. Money, time and resources are being wasted to a dream that remains illusive.
Oh mum! For over four difficult decades after Royal rule our motherland remains encumbered. I vividly recall the lofty promises you made when uncle Juma (may God bless his soul) handed me the khaki shorts for school. You also told me inspiring stories of the veterinarian and how he tactfully replaced the Master at State Castle where the gentle River never seizes to nourish with nature’s rare aroma of aquatic purity. That if I read well, I will make it. Promises that the vet was a selfless patriot who will deliver the whole territory. Promises and stories that teachers reinforced in my little innocent head. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” they invoked the legendary Eleanor Roosevelt. “Seek yee knowledge and all else will be on to you” they echoed Kwame Nkrumah's revered axiom. Words I never doubted given the history of our ancestral wisdom. Despite the striking inequalities; the irredeemable hypocrisy and pervasive corruption among some of our deliverer’s lieutenants; despite the veterinarian’s inexcusable inertia, despite the nonsensical naiveté, you and my teachers insisted that I march at the freedom arena where Banjul Mansa bequeathed the instruments of authority.
Oh mum! Back in Sare Gallo, back in Sare Tubai, back in Sare Mademba, I remember Uncle Demba and his siblings pounding their chests invoking our ancestral goddesses to bring their wrought on you for defying our customs of nomadism. For them, any learning other than the ability to regurgitate the Koran was hell bound. Therefore, despite the innocence of childhood, I had always raised eyebrows about the legitimacy and vitality trampling our beloved ancestors’ heads without corresponding compensation for their grandchildren. Grandchildren whose grandparents and parents sacrificed their wealth, their time, their life, their being for the restitution and protection of their sacred land that the vet’s followers greedily butchered, shared and senselessly siphoned resources across the Atlantic.
Oh mum! As the greed, butchery and callous indifference fermented, the Khaki kids kicked. Their rude awakening kicks generated great enthusiasm among the deprived many and children. A wind of change blew across the horizon and a conspiracy of silence set in. The foresighted protested with golden ink and the armchair patriots diagnosed political euthanasia only for a pound of the purported political booty. A scary climate reminiscent of the proverbial utterance that “Kwame Nkrumah had killed an elephant for the whole of Ghana to enjoy.” And after the cumulus clouds ominously dissipated, and the Castle overlooking the lake fortified, history began to absolve the thorough. Their predictions were well projected and their microscopic discoveries turned prophetic. Their determination and resilience for the triumph of the rule of good and freedom became unquestionably monumental.
Oh mum! The armchair patriots have seen the light and today, they lead the hoopla for political Armageddon. Like an idiot recovering from lunatic craziness they are immersed in norms that the foresighted had recorded in indelible golden ink. So when the chilling finality finally chills, the records will be exhumed for all to see who true patriots are. Do we call it a corrigendum of recent history or the verdict that follows the chilling finality of a despicable desperado?
Oh mum! Meanwhile, the vet’s people have returned to rhetoric that their legacy was better; that their master was human and humane; that his errors were excusable and above all; that his rights record was nulli secundis. And who can deny that?
Oh mum! Like Njoroge, that tragic symbolic character in Njugi’s Weep Not Child, we remain in manacles and our heritage in bondage. Our veterinarian has erred and disappeared; the Khaki fraternity shattered and our cattle are sick because the once luxurious savannah is dry: no food, no money’ no medicine, and no houses for the natives. This is the legacy of our struggle, of our endless march for nationhood, of four decades of festive celebrations, of elaborate lifestyles in the midst of massive poverty and decay, of false promises and false prophets and Gorgonian heads. Ours too is reminiscent of the dilemma that faced my poet, Nigeria’s Gabriel Okara whose immortal poem “Piano and Drums” ends thus: “And I, lost in the morning mist, of an age at a riverside keep, wandering in the mystic rhythm, of the jungle drums and the concerto.”
So mum, my dear loving mum, until tomorrow, good luck.
Affectionately,
Ebrima G. Sankareh.
Editor's Note: This Sunday marks The Gambia's 42 anniversary from British colonial rule. The mini-West African state gained independence on February 18th, 1965.