Dear Editor:

Allow me to respond to Foroyaa’s latest editorial about a Cuban and middle-aged Gambian immigrants in a bar in the U.S. I found the editorial amusing, but mostly, I found it very revealing. Until now, no one has really challenged PDOIS and the organization's political philosophy, because Gambians have generally deferred to that organization's perceived "intellectual power-house" that would roll over and crush anyone who crosses their path. PDOIS has over time taken this glory or bane and ran away with it, but to not question and challenge the philosophy and the motivations of that organization, is to do disservice to our fellow citizens. It is the patriotic thing to do to create a balance in the kinds of information and political education our vulnerable young men and women receive.

For more than two decades, PDOIS has been inculcating a socialist ideology in the minds of some of our people, and it is necessary and imperative that these young people are given opposing views so that they can make up their own minds. The idea of "guiding" the minds of our young as the PDOIS editorial puts it is ridiculous and in-fact downright scary. The question of any political organization indoctrinating our population with their own ideas and theories should make us all sit up and take notice. A nation's strength lies in the diversity of opinions and views of its peoples, because no two people are alike and it is unnatural to expect them to think in a similar manner. I don't think PDOIS's ultimate objective of having every Gambian think the same way they do, guided by PDOIS's "supreme socialist ideology" is right for our country. If we accept their arguments, we will end up like North Korea, where everyone can easily complete everyone else’s sentence, and they all eat the same things and dress the same way. What else does socialist North Korea have? They have probably the world's highest suicide rate.

But, from their editorial, I have learnt how sensitive PDOIS is to criticism. To date, the party has enjoyed a free ride and a wave of adulation from many young men who have little understanding about what it all means. In the process of attacking me, the minions who wrote the editorial stooped so low when they not only mocked my poor background, but they also connected me to alcohol consumption in a bar. If that was meant to discredit me, it will not succeed, because I do not hide from my past. By the way, if PDOIS wants to tag everyone who drinks, (or all those that ever drank), then there will not be many well educated Gambians left standing; in fact, the most powerful people in the world from the princes who rule Saudi Arabia, to the Putins of Russia and to the Halls of the U.S Senate and Congress would all be found guilty. I am in America now, but Julbrew is still there. I guess they are saving all their beers for my return, aren't they?

Personally, I am waiting and hoping that we can salvage some of the bright young minds in PDOIS. I am hoping they can snap out of their delusion and see the real world outside the ideology that has so consumed them all these years, and turned them into some kind of zombies. I do not like the picture of perfection they project about themselves, nor do I like the unnatural sense of cohesiveness that binds them together. I do not like saints running my government, and I do not want ideological clones running my government either. We want normal human beings, people who know what is right and can do the right thing, but who can also sin. I want people who can argue and duke it out, not people who are all lock step in everything like a military regiment. PDOIS wants us all thinking the same way, acting the same way and I call that indoctrination. The idea of a political party educating its people reminds me of time gone by: remember the Soviet "Pravda"; or Cuba's "Gamma", and China's "China Today" and many others mediums run by former socialist organizations? They were all tools of indoctrination, of mind control that limited their people's intellectual development to just what they fed them each day on the pages of their papers. The education of the people should be left to the independent media, civil society organizations and organizations of that nature who have neutral values that will empower people to look at divergent views, ideas and opinions and draw their own conclusion. I shudder to think of any political organization giving direction to any citizenry. All the past and present dictatorships said and did the right things when they started off, but when they won the people over, the tables were turned over. Remember when the idealist Castro went around his country supposedly to educate and awaken his people, but once he took over he murdered his people by the tens of thousands. There has been no socialist government that has not carried out systemic and prolonged murders of it people. Socialists cannot tolerate dissent, and they never have as far as we know from history. We will never allow that in The Gambia. One dictator is enough, never again.

Sincerely,

Mathew K. Jallow.