It’s easy to minimize the pain of a victim; especially if you’re the abuser or a supporter of the abuser. To inflict a certain amount of abuse on another human being, or to defend the abuser and their evil, you have to dehumanize the victim such that you get get greater satisfaction from the abuse.
Some of us, in the process of justifying evil, inflicting pain on others or simply tolerating, accommodating and defending the evil of Yaya Jammeh, lost our humanity along the way. A lot of us also chose to deaden our conscience and not feel the abuse of others at all; even when it is a blood relative. Others are blinded by tribal and regional affiliations and refuse to see any evil whatsoever because for them it’s all about tribe and region and no one else matters.
A closer look at anyone that supports evil, turns a blind eye or denies the evil of Yaya will reveal that many have long since lost their humanity! And so it’s easy for them to make nonsensical demands for victims to move on. Mind you, many of them deny that any evil took place to begin with. Or they ask for direct proof. You would think they have met Satan when they do wrong or that God whispered to them directly that He gave us Yaya.
No abuser, or anyone who supported, ignored or tolerated the evil of Yaya Jammeh, should be telling the victims to forgive and move on. Ghana is not Gambia. To be telling people that “you need to move on because Ghana let Rawlings go” or the idiotic position that no one gains in holding a perpetrator accountable is the height of callousness and insensitivity. But when it comes from people who are still in support of evil and defending that evil while moonlighting as some religious guru, it kinda makes sense: They’ve lost their humanity in the pursuit of narrow tribal and regional interests. Those who are not tribally or regionally attached lost their conscience in their mindless attachment to benefactors who they see as untouchable demigods. Others are victims of losing privilege and feeling oppressed now because they are equal to everyone else!
That’s why it’s important to remind evil supporters that it is certainly not the place of an abuser or anyone supporting the abuse to be dictating forgiveness or reconciliation! Forgiveness and reconciliation is in the hands of the victims and not the government or its hypocritical emissaries. You cannot ignore the victims and claim to be reconciling the nation or asking for forgiveness. It is certainly not the place of a Yaya Jammeh apologist to be preaching “reconciliation” while they continue to defend and deny the evil of Yaya! If there are no problems, what is there to reconcile? To forgive is up to the individual victims! It’s not up to bystanders and definitely not up to the abuser or their supporters! If anything they should continue denying the abuse or minding their business as they’ve done all along.
Paradoxical and thought provoking indeed. However, one question begs to be asked. Who are the “supporters of evil”? How did they support evil? Have there been a period or time when such “evil” did not exist in in The Gambia or the World as a whole? The answer needs to be concise and clear with relevant exhibits.