Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon announced on the 7th of January 2017 the deployment of British soldiers to “train in the jungles of Sierra Leone”.
Sir Michael said: “Training with Sierra Leonean forces is just the latest example of the UK stepping up globally to tackle international threats that put Britain at risk”.
In addition to the new troops in Sierra Leone, over 350 British troops are deployed to Nigeria in support of the resident British Military Advisory and Training Team. A 70-strong team from the Royal Air Force Regiment is also in the country to help train its Nigerian.
A concerned Gambian:
Every Gambian who truly wish to see Gambia maintain the PEACE it is known for and grow prosperouslly for our children and our children’s children to not only be proud of us for handling over to them a country they will choose to further develop to their taste but also for handling them an an enabling environment paying the price for them to realise their full potentials by paying the painful price of sacrificing our emotional satisfaction and happiness for a period of our time on the face of the earth must accept that PEACE is not priceless! That we are prepared as a people to pay it for our own today and our children’s shake tomorrow. It is a medicine with a very strong curing power but with a price tag on it. This price to swallow and is difficult to see its benefits when we use the lenses through which we easily see what constitutes CONFLICT with all its numerous n unpredictable side effects! The price of PEACE is painful to pay for many of us but it is unequivocal that the when a people choose to pay it, they get in return far more than they expected! On the other side of the coin is CONFLICT, no one or a group openly say we want CONFLICT or we are choosing CONFLICT to get what we want ; but it is unequivocal that we often choose it at will when our sentiments are very high! This is very dangerous, it is the time when ‘saitain’ or ‘saitains’ (modern day politicians) play with our intellect or our mental capacity to judge with reason and rationality, our ego takes pride in triumphing over things which are often very immaterial /intangible, all that the ego makes us celebrate satisfys only one aspect of our lives ie our emotional satisfaction. Knowing that we are not complete as human beings with just our emotional aspects though a very important aspect of our being bt it constitute only one of many (at least 5) all of which we need to exist and live in a way enviable to lower animals with guaranteed possibilities to arrive at a desirable destination! Suppressing our emotional like/ego for a very short time to get what we want and make another indelible make on the bright pages of history that the world’s greatest people who beat the odds belong! It is no a simple truth that had Nelson Mandela chosen to revenge on the ills done to him and his colleagues as well as the great people, many would have gone with him along the path of TIT for TAT, but greater than that he chose the path of who worn over the temptations of the emotional judgement and action through retributive justice for a reconciliatory and healing path bringing about a model of social administration system of human beings base the society’s norms and values, this is what happens in South Africa and this is the foundation on which it continue to grow and allowing it’s children and their children to develop themselves and their country to full potentials! Today, all former leaders of this generation stand dwarf under Mandela not because he is tall, short, hansom, black, Christian, African, but because he went on an extra mile of a complex mental activity which objectively all the calculus of risk associated with the situation he found himself! He could not find the answers he needed to handle the situation facing not only him bt all south Africans and those living there in closed box before him. What he did become a miracle or at best an invention of the time for all lovers of PEACE to learn from and emulate. Mandela went outside of the limited options and choices in the chosed, man made box of ideas, rules, methods etc and maintained the core characteristics of a genuine leader using principle of collective protection and collective success and abandoned his own right to seek redress via the retributive justice system he too well knew was available to him and with mountains of evidence all over the place, he was sure to win in any court of law, he truly stand not for his own achievement, joy or pride, he suppressed his emotional sentiments and refuse to make use of the ego, he sees ‘the others’ more than himself, for him the mantra is not ‘I am therefore the others are’, rather for him, the mantra is ‘the others are therefore he (Mandela)is! The very people who put him through untold horrors of all kind become safer than they actually where while they were incontol! Is there no longer a chance for another Mandela to be born? Is there no longer another country to stand tallest by thinking outside the box and become another Rainbow nation? I want to choose my beloved country The Gambia to become the home of Universal Peace for generations to emulate, I want Adama Barrow to represent that lofty politician and become the world’s iconic leader Mandela has taught us all it is possible! I want to be able to nominate Adama Narrow for the Nobel Peace Price which I am sure you can get without my involvement by doing what many fail to accomplish by allowing something you don’t agree with for short period just for PEACE even though you have means not to allow it, by sleeping rough just for for PEACE even though you have means to sleep smooth!!!
I remain a troubled Gambian who pray, wish and willing to take the journey even though it is not my wish but just for PEACE for a short period, much shorter than Mandela had waited patiently in harsher conditions than ours!!! I salute all who did every little to make it possible for GAMBIA to remain with its known PEACE after all the painfull price we may have paid for PEACE!!!!