Note to activists...

To be an activist, you don't have to become a prophet of doom. Activism shouldn't be about sharing hoaxes and causing people to lose faith in humanity.

It shouldn't be depressing; it should instead be uplifting. It should manifest the best in humanity despite the jerkassery and endless lunacies in diverse places.

What's in an arbitrary label anyway?

When people are really good at what they do, their names become definitions. Michael Jordan's for instance is a definition of excellence, not only in sports. Mandela's for someone willing to be put in prison for adhering openly to a belief, and Delilah for an attractive and seductive but ultimately dangerous woman.

So, Lawyer Darboe being dubbed Mandela, in my opinion, and in the non-literal sense that it's usually said is not necessarily equating him to the celebrated South African lawyer and freedom fighter; their realities are a bit similar but different. It's just a figure of speech, dammit!

In fact, if we try harder, some names on social media may become definitions of 'opal' (uppity), 'sehw' (nitpicking), and 'kawuyehyaa' (foolhardiness)... but I'll have a problem with y'all calling Barrow 'Kurangmala Mansa' even if he fixes the disgrace at NAWEC; that name's just not sexy.

What communal progress abhors the most...

Progress abhors a community where largess and volunteerism constitute a fard (legally binding obligation), and where people are so afraid of taking responsibility yet so quick and so good at delegating culpability for something negative or undesirable.

So everyone expects someone to do everyone's job, including things that are so easy that anyone could've done. In the end, no one sees the need to do for such a community what anyone could have done, because the consequences are usually not fair valuations, and that's so annoying.

New Gambia, still...

Gambia - coming on social media to cast aspersions, just for the heck of controversy, and perhaps because it’s how you see it happen elsewhere is neither "building" an enviable "New Gambia," nor is it keeping The Gambia Gambian.

I have said this before and I will reiterate: some tendencies, beliefs, norms, attitudes and behaviours are people and geography specific. And really, the level of disrespect, pseudo-intellectualism, gutsy lampooning and trash talking on here lately is so NOT us.

Maybe some are too young to remember how it was before July '94, maybe too forgetful or too unwilling to appreciate how ours was generally a politics of wits, of tolerance and mutual jokes, known by the Wolofs as 'Kalantu' and 'Sanawuyaa' in Mandinka. Or maybe like NAWEC, we need prayers - some serious soul searching. Maybe I'm too old school or too "hypocritical," but I thought I should say this... suma yown si golo bussi pudaroo.

Our recovery from idiocracy...

The New Gambia – Commission of Inquiry - lessons being conveyed – emotions alternating between ‘mungork, nyaw!’ and disappointment, between should and shouldn’t, could and couldn’t, why and why not, et cetera

Some respondents come calm, composed and to the point. Some will talk almost non-stop, until you’re like, hey, e’fanang! Can’t you see that was a leading question to what you said you had no clue? Others get caught between answering affirmatively and risk making judgmental statements or say no and get grilled further.

That’s what circumstantial allegiance to power does. It fetters the will and disrobes the mind of its duty of care - of its nobleness. Before one knows it, one’s caused to do very reckless things, things that one will look back in anger, frustration and shame like, how did I let this happen? Wishing you could go back in time and fix your part of the mess.

Despite all these, it wouldn’t be abnormal for the human in you to feel for the respondents; I do that all the time - like, c'mon, we all knew what it was like. You know, like, under the circumstances then, anyone would've done likewise. But is that so? ‘Alama mumino beh tankala kataa ning katatola.’

The kehbehtou!

If our social media community is representative of a fair sample, it's safe to say that The Gambia has more drama kings than queens.

Pay attention and you'll see that on here, most of what was stereotypically feminine is adoptively masculine - the pettiness, the exaggerated reaction to issues, the struggle to always have the last word, the interpersonal intrigues, the vindictiveness, et cetera.

"Enabling environment"

An "enabling environment" is not just the legal, organisational, fiscal, informational, political, or cultural design, it's also attitudinal. The environment must shed every mentality that isn't conducive to the claim of enablement.

In fact, it's safe to say that no environment is enabling where hearts are disenabling, where struggling to escape the many interpersonal intrigues, pettifoggings, attacking of (supposed) adversaries, inflammation of division and other wedge issues is business as usual.

Some debates eh...!

No matter how exonerative your defence is, you just can't win with someone who's as stubborn as recklessly determined to prove that you're guilty of wrongdoing. Even worse if the person's skilled in playing victim, and is in solidarity therein.

I'm not saying don't bother arguing, but if it's taking forever to reason with the person, or make progress towards understanding, best thing's to invoke your Miranda right and move on - y'know, knowing that anything you say can and will be distorted and used against you.

Pray for our newfound democracy...

I'm neither a political expert nor pretending to be one. But I needn't be one to opine that the saddest disservice to any budding democracy is NOT criticism (without malign) intended to provide suggestions for improvement, but the dishonesty of those who got defeated of their political expectations and are taking forever to get over the cycle of grief.

It's those who tend to become the reason why I feel like burning politics: those hellbent on emboldening a support structure that'll create third rail issues, either for the heck of controversy or to entice potentially polarised individuals to rebel out of imposed disillusionment.

It's those who (since it's a majority rule) make it look as if the electorate was duped, and now it's that tyranny that they've been warning folks about, as if there's a certain cabal in power that's placing its own interests above and at the expense of country, and as if there is/are groups that are deliberately targeted for oppression, sans statistics.

If they are really good and the audience is manipulatable, they'll succeed in giving them a perception of disarray, just to create a tension to exploit. I hope this our thing we call democracy be saved.

Grassroots my foot... pay my friend, pay!

I thought my sporting days were the suckiest until I heard the account of two former national sprinters. I was like, man, thank God for Plan B.

Well, how can we thrive in athletics when St. Augustine High School's "inter-school" team is more equipped and motivated than the National Team where an athlete is supplied with one oversized singlet all season long? And you wonder why these kids run off the slightest chance they have? At executive level, the clichéd diagnosis is: "we need to go back to the grassroots."

Grassroots? Mtcheew! If you want to develop a sport, you make it attractive, be ingenious about it, raise money to pay money, because the career span is too short. That's what Senegal did to promote the growth of their national sports. See their wrestling league today; no one tells those boys to go to the beach or hit gym, they already know what they're striving towards.

Excuse explicit content ...

Olof Njie neh diganteh jekarr ak jabarr, kersah gi waruta barri. (Between a husband and wife, too much shame is a turnoff) - here's a true story:

He was 60 something, married this fine 22 year old. First night abed, acting all 'moka pojj' (alluring), the girl offered a sensual massage. All was good until she got to the man's most remote and farthest.

"Bloody hell! Are you mad? Can't you see I'm your dad's contemporary?" The man yelled. The young lady apologised for her manners and shied to sleep.

Each night thereafter, the lady will wear her tastiest nightgown, do a lil cock-tease and then she'll retire for the night. Night seven, the man was so horny he couldn't concentrate. He thought it's about time he redeems himself:

"Yowe suday lu ndao lolu motah nga merr beh teye amm, mooti'ngini. Dehfal lula nekh?" (It's like you're still mad at me? Look, here's arse. Do whatever the heck you please)

If the Gambia fails...

IF The Gambia fails like she likely would thanks to our continued bigotry, divisiveness and unending cynicism, I wouldn't blame the leader, I would blame the creators of his leadership, and that's none other than us "The People" in the statement of the meaning of the word "democracy." Blame it on wedges disguised as change makers and activists, but in fact slacktivists.

Blame it on self-appointed senior-deputy-chief-acting-principal-government-bashing New-Gambia-building strong-institutions-creating stuck-ups and academic supremacist with the following as their de facto terms of reference:

1. Be all over social media throwing seemingly well-reasoned but actually fallacious arguements to shrug off the good that others see. 2. Exploit issues that you know are controversial and divisive enough to polarise the people, and to weaken our unity. 3. Propagate your prejudices and divisive sentiments of disillusionment to mislead eyes, minds and spirits into unnecessary defiance. 4. Plus any other jerkassery that you may deem necessary.

Civil service not civil slavery...

Nothing's as honourable as service to God and country. But really, how folks can slaver for civil slavery (service), and the unimaginable things and backstabbings that I see people do for a 'Mansakunda Dokuwo' (government job) is just so baffling.

Before anything else, I cannot ball with a "Golo'k Gong" (GG) - [where I come from, that's what we call a government vehicle].

Secondly, I hate fleeting 'teranga' (prestige). I hate to work in a 5-star office only to return to my shack in Wellingara. Bloody hell, can't we see... even a position of Permanent Secretary isn't as permanent? Well, people are different, I guess!

Confession...

In The Gambia, geography seems to determine the quality of a product. So, once I was coming from abroad, got some wrist watches as 'yobal.'

And because our's is a community where every friend of mom and dad is an uncle or aunt, before I knew it, I ran out of gifts to give.

The following morning, I went to the Albert Market in Banjul to restock. Knowing the value that folks attach to stuff from foreign, Europe and America especially, I didn't tell... well, until now. LOL!

Gambia, the Ashobi wahala... lol

I’m of the opinion that in every free economic environment, businesses take advantage of what’s of the moment. Like how almost every stand on the streets of America was selling Barack Obama’s “Hope” apparels. We saw Jatto Ceesay backpacks, Pope John Paul exercise books, and most recently brand #GambiaHasDecided, including its shameless imitations. Sheikh Ibrahim Niass and Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba’s portraits flood the Senegambian market during Gamo and the Grand Magal respectively; list goes on. So, about the Ashobi thingy, some of y’all see budding sycophancy, I see capitalism.

What I’m trying to say is: businesses will always exploit happenings for a profit, including other people’s misfortune – haven’t you seen profit-oriented charities? How about the length that a typical journalist can go to fetch and publish bad news? So, in my honest opinion, if some garment maker saw a selling product in commercialising the president’s face, and the president isn’t claiming consent or contractual compensation for the use of his personality right, why should I worry? To begin with, I don’t like Ashobi - I don’t like looking like everyone else. Secondly, with the lessons being learned from the ongoing Commission of Inquiry, whether any public enterprise will have the nerve to become a client of such is what I doubt.  

So, even as it is good to be preventive, I don’t think this is anything like that emotional blackmail that used to obtain - where some self-serving civil servant will do a circular suggesting some presidential-ego-inflating event, solidarity march, or some farming visit, coining it to look like it was the president’s call. Or some event organiser suggesting that a certain cultural group be invited at an awful cost to the taxpayer, because that group’s the president’s favourite. Or some connected photographer or pseudo-author using the office of the president to sell their works to public corporations... yeah, that was messed up, this isn’t.

Weed...

I have an opinion... on weed, and I'll say it! Whether I 'pohn' or not will remain a 'kumpa' even to Kumba.

My take is unlike President Jimmy Carter's. He said: “penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.” And that's exactly what the (unfair) war on weed is doing. I write this in honour of buddies who are still trying to get their lives back after the prison shitstem robbed them of valuable time.

The irony is, the herb's prescribed to regulate epileptic seizures, used for the treatment of glaucoma, asthma, anxiety, PTSDs, etc. yet we frown on its recreational use, and not on tobacco and alcohol; why is that? See Babylonian injustice? See why intelligent civilisation is calling for decriminalisation, if not total legalisation?

I'm of the theory that anything's capable of being abused, especially when made illigal. Yeah, when a thing's decriminalised, "abuse" drops to "use" because that macho image, and thrill in the illicit will no longer be there. Ask any sincere fornicator, they'll tell you how their urge dropped from kinky to normal soon after their unions got legitimised.

Envy…

When you're moving up through the ranks and they're stagnant, your low-key nemeses will hate themselves just as they envy you.

In the end, they'll come out as if statisticians, going about collecting data on you, compiling what they want of it, unfairly analysing it, validating it with their partners in envy, then draw damaging conclusions just to puncture your self-esteem, knowing that it's your most empowering and valuable asset.

Don't let them bruise your confidence like they did theirs, even if they be on steroids... like the kids in Senegal will say: 'bul maye ken beuzz!'

Cynicism...

Life's like the weather. Sometimes it offers great feelings, sometimes bad vibes, and sometimes it's just ugly. Ah so di ting set. I mean you can't go through life expecting all your ideals to come true.

That's like setting a very disappointing experience into motion - after which a frustration that can blind you to not being able to see anything but the cynical version of every good thing that others see.

And by your conduct of denial, anger, and sulky dissatisfaction, folks will think you're green with envy, or just plain rude: "ki defa enyan. No, hamady more like! Ki sah fum tojj?" Well, to me you're just heartbroken.

Gratitude, like common sense, is not so common...

Where I come from, we call it ‘yaroo ndik yorror’ – the obedience of someone who is because he or she cannot be anything but meekly obedient. I mean those who when in need of you, pretend modesty, being as soft as the foreskin (derri dambal).

Push them to break out of their need; facilitate their climb up the ladder, support them to obtain a new identity and you’ll become their first if not their biggest nemesis. This is why I think they Kenyan proverb is unfair; it’s not only the donkey that says thank you with a kick. Humans do it all the time.

Bad mood!

Many a bad mood is down to one thing: discontented attitude - pawning what’s readily available for a mere yearning, even if it seems certain to happen. The feeling's a toxin and it has an antitoxin: an attitude of gratitude for what’s readily available. So you can complain about the food being unpleasantly cold, or rejoice because there’s food, and in knowing that it’s easier to warm the food.

The Commission of Inquiry!

I looked forward to it so badly, and now that it's happening, the effect is debilitating. I see learned people on the high table, seemingly valuing honesty and order than anything, seeking to unravel the truth, throwing questions that those responding would rather they wouldn't, probably feeling envious of those institutions that stayed off the radar of the plunder.

I see some respondents fumble for answers, especially when a question puts them on the spot, like they're being caused to think faster than their usual intelligence. I sense a lot of complicity, but I also see circumstantial perps and collateral victims. I see technocrats that I once thought knew everything, now taking the trouble of proving that where there's dictatorship or idiocracy, the rifle is mightier than the pen. I hope a wake-up call and death to whatever it was that caused that shitstem that we once had.

Kerr Fatou ak GRTS...

Public corporations are created by the state to carry out public missions and services, fact! The "Kerr Fatou" show, from conception to now that it's given this pitch into GRTS networks has proven to be one such service that needs to stay.

But, in the business of media production, content producers and broadcasters have always had their moments of storm. However, from when they ignore those of us who tend to make a small problem seem far greater than it really is, put unevaluated sentiments and egos aside, issues get resolved, even before their viewers know it.

I'm not saying it's or it's not the case, nor do I condone censorship, but for the cultivation of political trust and goodwill, it's not uncommon for a government to crave the indulgence of state-owned media and even private media to delay certain airings, usually to buy them some time to achieve a certain public demand.

So, for my part, we don't always have to squash our beefs by throwing fists; sometimes it's best to dialogue, especially in this our Senegambia that's as amiable as it's controversial and divisive; so many wedges and termites amongst us, dread! Look what we did to the brotherly bond between Muhammed Ndao and Eumeu Saine.

The bravado in this New Gambia... mtcheew!

Checking up on facts in this new Gambia is a piece of work - because almost everyone's trying to flex some nerve, using frivolous, petulant, impertinent and rash censures - we call it "civic duty," still. But those who are being fairly reasonable are said to be hypocrites, as if objectivity doesn't exist here anyone.

But that's none of my business.

My headache's life itself - the emotional highs and lows, of good times alternating with really difficult times. One moment you’re sending good wishes, as on a happy occasion; next minute you’re doing a eulogy about someone who’s just died. You can be riding through a certain relationship of great happiness, then from nowhere, shit happens, leading to a serious break-up, or shit goes all so damn complicated. See how you cannot tell from this moment to the next what you'll be in, can you?

“Who will help Myanmar's Rohingya?"

Some article was captioned: “Who will help Myanmar's Rohingya?" – Well, even if Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Donald J. Trump, Vladimir Putin, Theresa May, Ban Ki-moon and all other bigger heads fail, Allah wouldn’t - “Allah is sufficient for us and He is the Best Guardian.”

See, throughout history, each time a (true) Muslims fights, it is in self-defence, because (true) Islam despises tumult and oppression. But as far as we know, Muslims have become the most persecuted people in the world, and it’s no longer a case of misunderstanding – scratch that; it’s plain-arse bigotry. Check unbiased news channels and see today's news on Rohingya, then tell me if you still wonder why some Muslims get enraged and radicalised?

We need to overstand that the support structure for faith is an affair of the heart. Personally, I may not be a model Muslim, but earlier this morning, I saw a video of uniform men on the loose, beating up everyone who resembles a Muslim, including kids, and I wish I could enter my monitor to whoop some arse. And these weren’t doctored videos or alleged abuses, shit’s real in Myanmar!

And because humanity’s lost its sense of empathy, the world’s watching. Those beautiful speeches and manifesto that got that (formerly-sensible) State Counsellor of Myanmar to power is being reversed to suit the broad intolerance. Now tell me - how can there be world peace when what we condemn, what we condone, the wrongs we right and the transgressions we overlook are as discriminatory - eh? I place the helplessness of the Muslims of Rohingya before Allah.