By Michael Scales UK
Dear Mr Editor,
In the English Dictionary, {Collins} the word corrupt is described, as thus.....open to and involving bribery,morally depraved,unreliable through errors or alterations.
Please allow me to reinstate the words of Ambassador Sey and Dr.Sulayman Nyang.
Sey.......No system or leader ,should expect to be criticism free. This is the cancerous part of our system back home .To say the least. President Ya Ya Jammeh,wants to respond to every criticism ,with force and anger and then forcefully insult people to support him through threats. This is not his role. He should leave that line with those he appointed to do so.Let them do it ,with respect and maturity.This is why everything ,is turning upside down.
Nyang.....Speaking of Ya Ya Jammeh he says...Such political animals ,are an endangered species. because of the changing International system and the greater desire for peaceful politics,through slow but positive Democratization.
How the words and wisdom of the enlightened and the wise..melt so easily into the cooking pot of intelligence. This is the missing ingredient of a political regime and absent principles of the erstwhile Dictator.
From the thousands of words set free to fly from this newspaper....These are amongst the very best to serve the decision making mind of the friendly observer.
There are many road blocks, that trouble me when considering the History of The Gambia. The first is..how can men be tried for treason ,for a failed coup, when its present leadership is co respondant in the first act.Surely all must either be guilty or innocent...How say you guilty or not guilty ?
The principal of governance ,to the delegation of responsibility,touched lightly by Ambassador Sey, he should leave this to those appointed to do so. is a time honoured principal evident in government, company management...and the armed forces.....The chain of command no less ! To smother and entwine ,every facit of Government buisness and protocol, akin to an Octopus with its many tenticles, holding on tightly to everyone and everything....to me does not proclaim strength and unity.But weakness and insecurity.The consequences of which.....missuses its intelligence service , to become the political traffic wardens of The Republic.Such tactics..were widely seen before the advent of Fascism in Europe ,in the 1930s. a widely proclaimed failure which lead to the utter destruction of its temples .
The dictionary...again...Fascism...a rightwing totalitarian political system,charecterised by state control and nationalism.
The fertile political climate for its rapid proliferation,was poverty,unemployment and oppression.The Historical reaction of many Governments of the time was to promote appeisement.They walked arround Mussilini and Hitler ..and stood and watched as its mighty armaments factories made ready for a World War that killed millions .
Never in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed,by so many , to so few.This was Winston Churchills tribute to The Royal Air Force...who bought time ..precious time...for the World to regroup and resist through The Battle of Britain.
I ask myself...what did Africa gain from its contribution..to resisting this global terror.?
It was not until i was 50 years old that first stepped foot in a former British Colony.....carrying the properganda of my life ,at what was given to me at school and elsewhere, i expected to see The Gambia with some resembelance,of good temples left in our name.I recall in my journal of April 2000,
What i have seen here is not what i expected.Apart from some iron railings and pavements in the capital..Banjul....it is barren of any sign of England or Englishness.So much for 300 years of colonial rule.We appear to have taken much..but given very little.
There are good men and women in The Gambia..i have met many.Most work towards earning a bag of rice to feed there families.Though i have met several men of conscience and good will towards the future of a peaceful and prosperous Gambia...sadly.they no longer have the position or authority to exercise change for the better.What is left is left to serve blindly in fear.
No mountain in History, was ever climbed without having the vision of it peak.
I remain yours in friendship and peace...Michael.