(JollofNews) – Facebook can be a safe place for people with differing political persuasions to express views and exchange thoughts with others. So please keep commenting away, and continue to debate with spirit…. and civility.
Facebook at the same time inspires crass and even abusive rhetoric, spurred on by tribal and political groupings. The notion of a village Bantaba as a place to hear differing opinions now exists more in the digital space than the physical. However, we see increased polarization and self-selection in our network of friends.
The more I read the comments or statues on Facebook the more I am convinced that this country is hopeless.
Cyber-activism or blind activism is a disease which needs to be treated as soon as it is detected. Its symptoms are “forming and voicing one’s own opinions”, “refusal to giggle and blush at bigotry comments”, “rejecting crap from anyone”, “having own views and decisions and standing by it”, self-mobbing in moralities, gossips etc. etc.!
The most effective treatment prescribed against cyber-activism is personal whipping using keyboards, use creative counter punches soaked in “epistemological -techno-ethical” morals.
Granted, only a certain percentage of people are on social media. However, the number of percentage of Gambians that are active on Facebook and Twitter is pretty much a good indicator of the current state of our society. The semi-anonymity that the internet provides only served to reveal the true nature of Gambians. And the image is not good.
Probably the most accurate image of a Gambian is that of a fanatic. This can be seen in religious Muslim ceremonies such as Gamos, Seyarre, processions of traditional Christian ceremonies. Never mind that you grabbed on people’s eye sockets, if you get to wipe your sweaty towel on the face of the poon or ineffectual person. Never mind the reasoning, the logic, your religion is better than their religion, and your interpretation of Scripture is better than theirs.
This same fanaticism now translates to politics. The cult of personality surrounding the President has transformed social media into an echo chamber. What was supposed to be an avenue to connect with family and friends became a battleground for political fanaticism. Labels were put on people, instead of analyzing each opinion as it is. You had to take sides.
In the Gambia “patriotism” has an ethnic, religious, and regional identity. When someone who shares the same primordial characteristics as the president or leader of a political grouping “patriotism” becomes important, and holding government accountable to the people becomes “treason.” If the president is from the “other” side of the primordial divide, everything is neatly reversed.
Mark Twain was right when he said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” If your “patriotism” is situational, if it is inspired only by the primordial affinities you share with the person who is president, you are, to borrow from Twain, a “scoundrel.” If you are not with us, then you are against us.
It weakens me to see that we have devolved discussion into name calling, with Jaliba’s ghostwriters turning each opportunity to propaganda. There is no more reason or logic. Only pseudo reasoning that to some people, is indistinguishable to the real thing. The more reasonable people on both sides are left on the bottom, with comments that pander to the hive mind earning the top.
And thus, the cycle of propaganda continues. Repeat a thousand times and it becomes the truth.
The Gambian society is now a big circle, one hand in between the legs of the person beside them, moving up and down. And in the middle, the country, waiting for their release.
By Alagi Yorro Jallow
The author is founder and former managing editor of The Independent, the Gambia’s only private newspaper before it was banned by the government in 2005. He was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, a 2007 Nieman fellow and is the author of Delayed Democracy: How Press Freedom Collapsed in Gambia published in 2013.
The voice of reason, rationality, proportionality, propensity and truth.
You need to be a brave citizen to enter this mindless arean of discord attack and counterattack;
No one can ever deny Mr Jallow inspires only common sense and heroism.
” To keep one’s head while all around others are losing there’s”
>.and then you will be a man my son.
Not many about these days>>men I mean. Only screamers.
May my President be better than your President.
May my party be better than your party.
May my tribe be better than your tribe.
May my truth be better than your truth.
May my mistakes by smaller than your mistakes.
and at the end of it all>> no winners only losers.
The Gambian blame game.
No peace/ No Progress/ No prosperity
Forwards never backwards ever.
I thank Mr Jallow and the toubabo’o above for their respective comments; in particular for their attempts at reminding us of the virtues of modesty and tolerance in the broad sense of the term, not least in the Gambian context. Indeed, many of the causes in this context could easily be boiled down to the (unfortunately) very low level of enlightenment in the country. The most sustainable long-term cure for which must be widening citizens’ access to quality formal educational facilities country-wide.
In other words, it is thanks to our formal training that those among us who welcome criticism appreciate it each time we are met with objective critique. That is by letting others subject ones own views about physical, social, cultural, etc. phenomena to objective critique. What a wonderful way of continually being wiser! Hence, let us collectively campaign for more and better educational facilities in our beloved country – within a relative short space of time (a decade or two) many of the ills in society that Mr Jallow bemoans in the article will have been solved.
I think the many years when tyranny really caught hold and turned citizens into informers and became the norm for a generation; People who learned the silent whisper, only to speak in guarded speech for survival. People whose eye’s turned away when asked >>” and what do you think of this APRC government;” met with fainting smiles and open palms. The volume turned down to ” let’s leave it in the hands of God”
The sudden change to freedom has enabled screams of human expression and has to take its course as loud as car horns singing in a rising crescendo of words.
To say education is the cure is to say Gambians are not qualified to speak.
I believe the education was 22 years of tyranny. That in time the noise will return to normal and Gambia will rise again at its own speed.
Thanks for the comments above Mr Scales. Well, as a native of The Gambia, I am sure I will be amongst the last humans on earth to categorize fellow Gambians as unqualified to speak. My dad and some of his life-long friends happened to be amongst the first Mandingo to attend the then Armitage High School back in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I can assure you his network was full of enlightened and brilliant Gambian debaters.Subsequently, most of them by the way occupied high positions in the civil service during the Jawara regime.
In fact Gambians have on average always been boastful and loud-mouthed, hence the advent of Jammeh may rightly be deemed as an exception to the main rule in this regard. Speaking our minds is “ok” with me, but I admittedly prefer listening to speakers whose words are backed up by the lights of science, reason and logic – and that is where the paramount importance of education becomes evident.
Jammeh and the likes have very little or no chance to rule any country where the vast majority of the populations’ thoughts are guided by science, logic and reason – and not metaphysics as the case is in the Gambia, unfortunately.
The above-mentioned enlightened approach to solving worldly phenomena is by the way what has propelled global development over the past 400 or so years. Therefore, mass illiteracy and ignorance are not only something that retards global progress in the broad sense of the term but also fosters insecurity globally in an age of “fanatical Islamism”. Such forces have a fields day on illiterate/ignorant shores all over the world. So, we can’t wait as far as bringing “light” on the doorstep of every Gambian is concerned – for our own sake. The outside world has been taking advantage of the mass ignorance on African shores for far too long!
Yes, education is to a large degree a panacea to many of the problems confronting poor mother Gambia at this moment in time!
I am the product of Post war Britain, where segregation in the primary school mean’t an awareness that some children wore neat new clothes and shoes whilst we from the Council Estate endured second hands from church rummage sales. I was used to putting cardboard in my shoes to keep the rain out. We had runny noses whilst” they” had neatly formed handkerchiefs. So I was introduced into Britain’s class system and learned difference the hard way. Between” they” and ” them”. “They” with neat handkerchiefs sat the 11 plus exam and went to Grammar school and “them” were relegated to the Secondary schools. There I won all the class exams in almost every subject and was promoted from D to B. But then” they” gave me homework. So I learned that coming last and being demoted mean’t no homework. So when exam time came I answered everything wrong. Until One day The headmaster came to me and said Michael your a bright lad, I want you to take this job as a Junior Clerk for £4.11 shillings a week.
I then learned I could double that in the local shoe factory. I quickly rose to become the youngest white collar worker earning £20 a week. I then worked night shift making Milk powder earning £60 a week and drove a sports car.
Then someone said be a salesman and earn a fortune. So I did and owned a company. Then I bought a clean handkerchief and became one of “they”.
“they” is better than being one of ” them”. But I am and was never a snob.
I was just one of they who became one of them.
You took your vocational education to serve Denmark;
I took my life’s education to serve Gambia;
Tell me, which of us has benefitted> ? They or them ?
I thank the combative toubabo’o, Mr Scales, for the comments above many of which are beside the point in this specific case. Perhaps he should be reminded that the first paragraph of my comments above is aimed at disproving his claim above that I think Gambians cannot speak. That paragraph shows that I indeed have met very eloquent and enlightened Gambians through my upbringings in the Kombos. Long before Mr Scales set foot on Gambian soil. Hence, my knowledge of Gambians in the broad sense of the term must in many ways be superior to his.
As to my views and wishes that affordable quality education be soon brought to the doorsteps of each and every Gambian, I still stand by them. On several grounds as expressed above. It is a certain route towards the attainment of our national developmental goals as evidenced by global economic developmental history. Secondly, it is a sure way to effectively doing away with the dominance of metaphysics in the country over scientific and enlightened ways of thinking about world phenomena. As stated above it will help strengthen our national security in a world where The Gambia and Africa as a whole are prey to Asian, Middle Eastern, European and Islamist imperialism. In other words, it is our very survival as a nation that is at stake!
Last but not least, people who genuinely know this author will invariably not hesitate to tell you that I happen to be one of the most modest Gambians you unfortunately have never met. I mean modest in the genuine sense of the term! Hence, I do not have the time or genes to openly boast of my contributions both to The Gambia and the kingdom of Denmark at this stage of my life. It is to boot beside the point in this specific case, in any case.
Saikou M.D. Manneh “strengthen our national security in a world where The Gambia and Africa as a whole are prey to Asian, Middle Eastern, European and Islamist imperialism. In other words, it is our very survival as a nation that is at stake!” Your a true, 100% African, no tribal segregation, just collectively 1 nation.
I was glad and somewhat surprised that Gambians treated me as an equal and they did not feel superior over me.
We English working class love Gambia. We feel quite at home.
Saikou, while intelligent discourse is welcome on all forums for the object of educating and informing the readership, one soon gets to learn that exchanges with a fellow like Scales on this forum are laced with ego trips, distractions and innuendo that hurts the general take for brilliant ideas from contributors like your good self.
Go on with your intelligent analysis and offerings on Gambian events as you have been doing and not be drawn into exchanges with the Tubabu Kensego/Samba Allar that’s mostly devoid of ideas but chooses to pick Gambian brains for the object of adding value to his narratives. That’s all he does!
Engage Scaly on betting, idle talk, the perennial Toubab (Two Bob) habit of eyeing young vulnerable youth and the fake life in Distopia and you’ll have a field day! All in the name of The Gambia! Time will tell.
Sad to have his presence on this forum!!
I am immensely proud of just how many African candidates have stood for election in the British General Election. The shape of British politics has changed for the better.
“They” and “Them”?
Muhammed Ali wrote a poem claimed to be the shortest ever written: It reads
Me We.
They and Them were brought to equality by the Labour Government and the creation of The Welfare State; The envy of the world. Now its changed to Me We/