“For The Gambia to rise, the foundation must be dismantled…” Alagie Saidy Barrow
So much truth in the above quote. We can only have a better Gambia than the ones we have had, if we build the new Gambia on a completely new and different foundation from the ones the old “orders” were erected on. Nothing stands firm on a foundation of sand – sooner or later the edifice will collapse like a house of cards. An old wine in new bottle is still old wine no matter how it is branded or how beautiful the bottle is made. With time the wine “festers” or maturates uncontrollably and bursts the bottle.
It therefore requires a revolution, a real systemic and cataclysmic change, if the “old order” and its foundation are to be dismantled completely. Revolutions that have been successful in history did two things in common: they totally, completely dismantle into smithereens the foundation of the political, social, religious or economic system they wanted to change; and tjey did a total rewiring of the minds of the people through ideological reorientation, value system recreation or theological reschooling.
No revolution survives for long if it is built on the foundation of the system it is supposed to dismantle. No revolution takes place if there is no complete break with the past; if it only sweeps the old order under the carpet and revive or rebrand it under a new guise.
Dismantling the foundation also means keeping at an arm’s length the “main loyalties” that the old order bred and nurtured. You can buy a person’s hands but not their love and loyalty; they are “earned”.
It is very true that loyalty runs deep, especially when its roots are firmly and deeply entrenched. When you want to replace that loyalty, long after the person to who that loyalty was owed is gone, you do one of these: uproot and throw away the roots, hook, line and sinker, or do more that what the replaced person has done to keep and sustain that loyalty. The former is unsustainable and if the “bought” loyalties have the opportunity to betray the new system or pay homage to the person they owe their loyalty, they would.
Fact: Yaya Jammeh ruled this country for about 22 years. A whole generation was born in his time, the 1994-2016 born. These people knew no other President than Jammeh. If fact, what can a person who was 7 or 4 years old remember politically at the time Jammeh and Co. usurped power.
Jawara and his work would be “fictitious” or rather a fiction to him or her. It is Jammeh they know and him they naturally would owe loyalty. Thus, to get the loyalty of this group would require “doing different things and differently” from the one they know.
Fact: Jammeh “made” a lot of men and women in this country. He uplifted the lives of many people; sponsored the higher education of many who wouldn’t have dreamt of such ( forget it whether it was the state’s money or not); promoted others to positions they know are undeserved; gave jobs to many; literally fed a lot more out of his hands; and was benefactor to countless others. Much more, there are others in higher echelon in every department of our Government who benefitted from his largesse or were paws he used for his dirty jobs.
It would be foolhardy to think that these people would abandon Jammeh or change loyalty in this short span of time. Loyalty runs deep. After all, our culture teaches that we remain eternally “grateful” to those who help us in our time of need.
It would be the height of naivety to think that those whose paws Jammeh used would throw away their loyalty to him so easily and quickly; that with a new baptism they would turn Judas against him. That by giving them “sensitive” posts in New Gambia they would be loyal to the new order. Loyalty runs deep. It is not easy to betray a long standing friend, especially someone who made you who you are today.
Jammeh is the devil incarnate but, as my friend would argue, even the Devil has lovers, admirers and sympathisers. And so Jammeh still has “fans” whose loyalty will be for him for a long time to come.
To establish a completely new society, one ushered in by a real revolution, would require keeping these main old loyalties at an arm’s length from the seat of power; would mean not trusting these men and women with the changes the revolution wants to usher.
Loyalty runs deep. And as my friend is wont to saying, we would have to destroy the foundation if we truly want to build a new society. We have to create a completely new value system if we really want to create the New Gambian.
If the old order is to yield place to the new, it must stand on a new and different foundation. Otherwise, it will not be a revolution; it would be a change of guards.
