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.
No comments:
Post a Comment