A story was once told of a mouse who looked through the crack in the wall to see a farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain?”
The mouse wondered, but was soon devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed a warning: There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The goat sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.” So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it, was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his knife and offered the chicken for soup. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the goat. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
Hmmm! The story calls us all to stand for/with one another, so that the next time we hear someone is facing a problem we should not think it doesn’t concern us, because when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
Your silence at this moment when your voices need to be heard, standing, and condemning every act of bigotry and tribalism anywhere and everywhere, of all Gambians, speak volume to those who may not belong to your divide now.
Your silence, though golden now, will no longer be golden when the world is finally turned into a theatre of hatred and war and friends are made enemies devouring one another.
Your silence will no longer be golden when cries of pain, sorrow and death rents the air all around you and foul smell of injustice fills you breathe, with bells of guilt hanging over your consciences.
Your silence will no longer be golden, when in your freedom you realize you are now living in chains and shackles of those who have now taken over your life without your consent and all because you refused to talk when it was most necessary and needful.
Speak, also now, before your voices become irrelevant by todays silence.
If you refuse to speak you will soon realize that you share common enemies with those you now label fanatics and are still advancing a course in your name.
If you do not still speak, you may only wake up one day to realize that the fanatics own you already and when there are no more enemies to target, you will yourselves become slaves and victims of the blood thirsty political vampires
Alagi Yorro,
My personal and of course genuine dislike for the present administration lies on the composition of the administration itself. I think, Gambians have made a very serious mistake in appointing/electing UNQUALIFIED people for very responsible jobs/positions. This is all about our life here and the hereafter.
In this advanced technological world should an UNQUALIFIED person be employed to occupy a responsible position?
Here in Holland and as in all European countries and indeed in all democratic countries with the desire to advance for the betterment of their people, the people refer to politicians and public service functionaries as their EMPLOYEES. In contrast, we Gambians bear that perverse idea of taking them as MANSOLU, DINKENDOLU, BAFUTU DINGOLU all at the expensive/loss of the people they MUST serve. That’s why they do what they want without adhering to the people’s thoughts, feelings, complains, claims and needs.
If Barrow had been a rich man from his fraudulent estate dealings, I think he should have gone to the Mecca well before assuming the “presidency”. If both Mai Fatty, Ousainou Darbo were bonafide lawyers, they should have gone to the Mecca well before taking our august public offices. The same with that cunning fox-faced Hamat Bah. Why did they go to the Mecca just 8 months into their administration? Why the haste for personal aggrandizement when the people’s social and economic necessities were abound?
The first things they were eager to do were to accomplish their personal desires by going to the Mecca, sending their children, buddies and families overseas to study, give away dubious contracts to buddies, buy expensive homes, ride very expensive cars, give PAJEROS as their wives’ shopping vehicles and their children’s school-going transport, create fat salaries for themselves, budget for a first lady’s USELESS office…… JUST TO ENRICH THEMSELVES!
The most annoying is, while they are building their personal empires, the children of the poor still go badly nourished, badly clothed, at times empty stomach.
But again, Gambians are naive, complacent and conformist. These very BAD administrators ply on the Jammeh excuse for all the evil administration.
We are not talking about the British, Jawara and Jammeh. We are refering to the on-going trends in our country which are gradually eroding our livelihood.
That’s why I always insist that the younger generation of our people should not mortgage their future by blindly following a clique of very SELFISH and CORRUPT officials who are only adamant on making their lives and their children’s lives better. The MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES philosophy.
Our young should start looking up to more patriotic citizens who are indeed ready to put our collective resources in their right places. Not the present bunch of VERY SELFISH people.