By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

That an innocent tribute to a friend has the capacity to draw the wrath and vengeance of a few does not surprise me, but to suck more leverage than is necessary out of Sana Sabally’s simple eulogy to a dead friend, tantamount without a doubt to a zealous overkill. While Sabally may not be an angel by any stretch of the imagination, the ubiquitous calls of vindictiveness carried in certain newspapers, is quite simply grounded on unadulterated malice and the characteristic ignorance that has come to typify junk journalism at its worst. No one is attempting to absolve Sabally of any wrongdoing here, but it should truly be in our natures to protect underdogs from subjective reasoning and deduction that has the potential for unnecessary vilification and character assassination. It appears to a few that Sana has turned into the pariah that some, for their own sinister and self-serving reasons, quite simply love to hate, and descending on him as hard as some have done over the past year, is clearly a mortifying manifestation of simple-minded prejudice. And contrary to what is being insinuated, no one is applying any different standard for Sabally, on the contrary, my predisposition for equity and fairness have up until now, hardly ever been called to question.  The fact that both Sana and myself are Fulas, does not in any way cloud my judgment, otherwise both Chongan and me would be on the same side of this very divisive discourse. When Sana Sabally wrote his tribute in his signature narrative juxtaposed with religious quotes, he did not expect so much vitriol laced with such hateful innuendos. And in hindsight, to say that there has been an overreaction to Sana’s tribute is quite clearly an understatement, yet the innocence of his article took on a life of its own, as it was given a level of notoriety that generated a reaction which sought to shut him out of these ongoing discussions. To not see the value of having Sana on our side is to be blinded by mental amnesia and objective paralysis; but when we talk of nurturing democracy in these forums, we are essentially talking about unrestricted inclusion of all potential actors. We cannot exercise parochialism in a democratic forum and expect our visions to survive the smell test or the test of time. By us precipitously shouting Sana Sabally down from the debate for the future of our country, we have invalidated our claims to the moral high ground, and in the process reduced our ownership claims to democracy to a mere meaningless rhetoric. Irrespective of what we think about Sana, we have a real social imperative to not exclude him from the struggle to regain our country, because he like many of us can bring to the table assets that only he can. For now, the hatred and distrust is so pervasive in our country today that we can only under very extenuating circumstances afford to malign any member of our Gambian family who is committed to join the struggle to restore democracy in our country. The pre-existing and perennial tribal animosities based not on any existing reality, but on centuries of historical struggles, should not be permitted to dictate or injure our clear decision making processes. And, reading between the lines of some of the reactions, it is easy to isolate the insidious and paralyzing hatred that seems to color the minds of some of the reactors. Rather than explore new social paradigms that will foster understanding and harmony, we are wallowing in a history we cannot change, and held captive to the ancestral struggles that have dimmed with time, but which still have the potential and the potency to freeze our society in that past that has proven to be dysfunctional at best, and calamitous at worst. The democracy and freedom dichotomy are not absolutes, but they are sufficiently expansive to include everyone, because we cannot have democracy and freedom for only the few. We have seen how Yahya Jammeh over the years has tried to redefine democracy to fit his ill-conceived concepts, but the only thing he has succeeded in creating for himself is a narrow-minded parallel universe that is divorced of all reality. In conclusion, though much of the criticism of my piece is exclusively based on conjecture and extrapolation, there is no interest in revisiting and critiquing line by line all that was made out of it. But, coming back to the question of Sabally, the adage that there is power in numbers is an incontrovertible truth, which makes it ironic that at a time when the growth of our strength matters the most, we may be browbeating down the numbers we desperately need to successfully bring our struggle to fruition. This oxymoronic catfight over Sana Sabally has as far as I am concerned, run its course, and I am ready to move on to other really pressing political and social matters. We should engage in the issues that most resonate with our readers, the issues that matter the most, and the issues that add value to our social and political discourse, and also challenge us to strive to regain the soul of our country. The unhealthy fixations on some individuals, rather than build us up, will instead have the potential to tear us apart and perhaps immeasurably delay our efforts to restore sanity and dignity in our country. We are better than that. Aren’t we, guys?

Moving on. If there is something positive that has come out of the acrimony of the past two weeks, it is that finally people are willing to talk, and are in fact talking. As we enter this new phase of the debate, we must be mindful that it is not the messenger that we must focus on, but the message itself. The history of the past twelve years is beginning to unravel as the primary actors dispense a willingness to tell their stories for us and for posterity. At this moment in time, we hunger to know the facts surrounding the over handed and over reaching behavior of the Jammeh government, so that we can arrange the pieces together to give us a full picture of the activities of this mendacious and cannibalistic regime. And who is better suited to do this than the personalities who were the architects of the coup, as well as those who were later involved in running the affairs of our government? But, Binneh Minteh was the first to break through the self-imposed wall of silence to vociferously criticize Jammeh and his criminal henchmen. Last year, Sana Sabally came aboard the bandwagon and offered some perspectives that cleared the air with regard to the genesis of the coup, and in response to one of my articles, he elucidated on how Yahya Jammeh came to the lead coup-makers. As we now try to make sense of Jammeh’s governance methods and the short and long term implications of the effects and consequences of his exercise of power, our stubborn search for the truth must be tempered by an equally persistent rejection of the needless desire to harm the credibility of others. Surely, it is not in anyone’s interest to inadvertently obscure the truth by alienating those that have the stories to tell. The interest to take back our country has never been greater, and while our people have shown a remarkable resilience over the past decade, the agony of defeat and subjugation is beginning to take its toll. This is manifest in the tripartite symptoms of social decadence: drugs, prostitution, and felonious crimes. We have been moving on the wrong trajectory, and a course correction is what is needed before our national legacy too will become synonymous with violent implosion. As Yahya Jammeh’s pictures decorate the streets of our cities and towns, the pervasive suffering he leaves behind transcends the tribal divides. For among those who have paid with their lives for opposition to Jammeh includes Jolas as well as members of other tribes. While Jammeh is defiantly and openly showing a preponderance to appoint his fellow Jola tribesmen to positions of power as a way to create a security buffer around him, there are indications that not all the Jolas embrace his divisive and abhorrent practices of tribalism. Once we can take comfort in this knowledge, we can reject the wedge he has tried and continues to construct between the Jolas and the rest of our tribes. We must all as citizens try to coalesce around a single vision and purpose, without regard to our tribal and other discriminate affiliations. We must never take our eyes off the ball; Yahya Jammeh, not until we drive him out of our State House. And one more thing; we must do this sooner rather than later.