The tale of the high crime of the intellectual harlot is the pimping of intellect, the prostitution of a gift of rationality to the service of Godfathers, employers, as well as to and political paymasters.
Nevertheless, at one level, this is what the rest of some so-called educated Gambians in the Gambia as well those in the Gambia Diaspora community does daily without condemnation.
Former President Yahya Jammeh was not Gambia’s problem; instead, the Gambia’s educated elites, the “Intellectual Harlots” who enabled him since day one he assumed power and continue to enable him until his last days to exile were the very so-called intellectual folks: They were the jumping jacks, Yahya Jammeh pull strings, and they dance “Arrwataam.” Their talents, their possibilities and their lives were all the property of Yahya Jammeh. They were intellectual prostitutes,” aiding and abetting Yahya Jammeh to cling to power.
The business of the country’s public intellectuals during Yahya Jammeh and currently under Adama Barrow destroyed the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell their country and race for daily bread.
We know it, and they know it, and what folly of blame of one person did not tell the truth of Yahya Jammeh’s enablers and the “intellectual harlots” were in complicity to his kleptocratic rule.
The ostensible educated Gambian or the pseudo-intellectual sells their souls to every willing buyer or mortgage their souls as slaves, and we do not question their morality. The dishonest Gambian educated folks shave every chin, much like a Billy Goat’s beard that presents itself, without assessing its owner’s criminality or moral standards.
Some of our so-called public intellectuals double as both social and traditional media pundits, as well as commentators, are secretly hired to spin a yarn.
In contrast, others engage in sophistry and propaganda in annihilating the truth because of tribal and political affiliations to spin the sins of their Godfathers or patron as a virtue not vilified by people when they merely sold their souls and talents, doing what other African intellectuals harlots do daily?
Yahya Jammeh cabinet was full of Ph.D. holders, and he had one of the most educated trained civil servants from prestigious universities and from laid-off transnational workers in various multinational corporations as well as from multilateral organizations when he took over.
Moreover, many of those who served in his administration have sold off their integrity, principles, and conscience to serve him’ beck and call.
Some even preferred Yahya Jammeh’s kleptocratic rule to democracy and good governance. In the Gambia, we are afflicted with “intellectual astigmatism,” in many cases hopelessly blind to the injustices and belly politics.
We must be reluctant to any fireside chat on verbal abuse and power arrogance also obsequiousness in our politics shame of recently. We must be reluctant too to ask why and how our so-called intellectual politicians have become the single nut in our fire.
It is golden to wail at fascism; it is godly to scream at conscienceless power wherever it rains. However, some evil matters are beyond wailing and flailing. How should a country handle a tragedy bigger than tears?
If there are still elders around, they should tell us to blow this moment off with laughter – and wait for the end of the mad season with its sure harvest of doom.
Why should public intellectuals secretly hire to spin the sins of their employers, godfathers, and paymasters as a virtue vilifying their patrons perceived political opponent when they are merely selling their talents, doing what the rest of the Gambian educated folks does daily?
The answer is that they do so under pretenses; for example, the farmer who offers beans does not dress it up as an avocado. Neither does the barber offer his blade in service as a brain surgeon.
What the intellectual harlot does, however, is to pimp white elephants as essential infrastructure for profit, to present worthless partisan opinions purchased in a beer parlor – or ivory tower – transaction as a rigorously-thought out opinion presented in service of the nation.
While the half-fried chicken might turn a few stomachs, the half-baked, or maliciously baked, intellectual opinion can turn the destiny of a country on its head.
No one who hears a lawyer argues the innocence of a serial rapist assumes that he urges an honestly held opinion. We know that his voice has been bought for a fee, and we can add that knowledge to our assessment of the evidence he presents on his client’s behalf.
Our tragedy is the racket in the public domain of worthless opinions urged by respectable voices who are in truth nothing more than prostitutes urging the lies of their current clients as truth.
That public noise of intellectual vandals drown out the few, authentic voices of reason and pushes nations towards the precipice of destruction.
Everyday, thousands of thinkers, reporters, writers, scholars, mentors, take to the media to sell their ethnic interests as national, to argue the virtues of some politicians over the other.
In suing for sympathy for their political Godfather, the most honest argument they can genuinely make is often ‘My thief is better than yours,’ but no: for self-interest, common thieves are dressed up as statesmen and presented as messiahs to deluded nations that see blood plainly and drink it as milk.
A clear case of those who are willing to be lost falling into the hands of those willing to sell them out, which is why the pimping of intellect is the public intellectual’s high crime.
What the intellectual prostitute does, however, is to pimp their political Godfather and the political party they support to present worthless partisan opinions purchased in a beer parlor – or ivory tower – transaction as a rigorously-thought out opinion presented in service of the nation.
