So to be considered an accomplished elite, one has to be on a sisyphean journey to be the like the Tubab because that is the key to admiration and respect.
You do not get respect or admiration by loading or unloading rice while the elite celebrate their accomplishments on TV next to you! You think if I was trying to marry Miss Gambia I would want her to see me on TV while loading and unloading rice that I can’t afford to buy? I’ll be damned!! Do you know why the men that collected people’s waste in Banjul back in the day mostly only operated at night?
The regular guy knows that unless they too mimic the elite, they’ll never get the respect and admiration the elite enjoys! If the elite or those in their circle will not load and unload rice, the regular guy will not want to be seen doing it either; especially for pittance.
The youths want to be part of the elite too! Can you blame them? Our respect and admiration is tethered to titles and looking like the successful global northerner. So you see regular folks wearing ill-fitting and ridiculous looking suits because they too want to be admired and respected. You see lawyer-wannabes being required to wear a particular colored suit to mimic the elites of their profession because it’s the Whiteman’s tradition! Elitism and tradition in The Gambia should make for a nice essay! Everyone wants respect and admiration. But you cannot anchor respect and admiration on self-defeating and vainglorious notions of job position or titles and expect the youths to have the sobriety to think differently!
Back let’s go back to mindsets. A minister is often considered to be more important than a Taf Njie even though a Taf Njie can probably pay the minister’s salary for a few years without batting an eye (Sorry Taf, you never told me you’re rich; I’m just going by what Njundu told me). Whereas you may see Taf in construction gear doing work at his construction site, the only time you’ll catch a government official at a rice loading or unloading station is to either take pics or to carry out some official function! It doesn’t have to be one’s job or function in order for you to show solidarity so miss me with it’s not their job defense.
The guy in the nice shirt and tie will certainly not be caught loading or unloading rice! That is beneath him just as it was beneath the Whitman whom he is perpetually mimicking. And so the regular guy who is also mimicking the elite in the suit and tie also thinks loading and unloading rice is beneath him! The guy in the suit and tie ensures that the regular guy never catches up to his status doing whatever it takes to stay ahead of the regular guy! But then he blames the regular guy and calls him lazy because the regular guy is refusing to do what the elite considers demeaning work. He tells the regular guy that he, the elite, is there to serve him but somehow, he expects the regular guy to be his servant!
One thing I’m certain of, as I’m a hundred percent certain that I’m taller than all the men shorter than me, until we dismantle the foundations our nation operates on, we will continue to subsist in poverty and beggardom and continue to blame the regular guy because he votes for the elite and refuses to do manual labor the elite wants him to do. That faulty foundation includes the colonial mindsets we so admire.
Given the right opportunities and rewards, I am of the belief that the youths will adopt the mindset that there indeed is “dignity in labor” just as they do when they leave the shores of The Gambia.
