Rats in the rat race...

Perhaps out of fear of what they're capable of, snitchy-arse corporate bitches and mitches tend to be avoided. Some slaves to the rat race even after making out these rats would rather befriend them; so that they wouldn't tell on them.

Faithless if you ask me, and that's why trust is dead and truth is dying in our corporate circles. My school of thought: stitch their okra mouths or use them as conduits and watch them get your intended messages across faster than radio waves.

Here's what I think...

I think our roads are full of drivers waiting to be offended by another driver's mistake. Like I erred with my signals this morning, and even though I said sorry, dude kept storming like he needed a hug or something.

Granted, the average Gambian has twenty-something years of reasons to be angry, that's a fact. But, hello! We are all aggrieved at the same conditions. So, taking our indignations out on innocent people in traffic is completely insane.

Human aspiration and capacity...

Of all things, human aspiration and capacity are probably the two most elastic. Any person can wish anything, be anything, adapt to anything, and pull through anything. However, how much you make of this matchless gift largely depends on you, your social setting and the company you choose to keep.

For instance, when you live in a community where the richest possession is a 40-inch Wall Mount TV, that gadget becomes your leading craving. To you, you’re dreaming big, but to someone somewhere, you think too small. And it’s not like the person is arrogant or something. The person probably is coming from a place where it wouldn’t be extraordinary to find Samsung’s ‘The Wall’ (146-inch MicroLED TV) in someone’s living room.

It’s like Chairman Mao’s allegory of the frog at the bottom of the well. He said this frog thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If the frog surfaces and sees an entirely different view, like, wow! Everything changes: larger sight, bigger dreams, new motivations and stuff, and here are the likelihoods:

The frog could be one that refuses to let its origin be a limitation. And by going against the odds, it can break out of its sad past, climb up the social ladder and create a new identity for itself. That’s my typa frog right there.

But it can also develop very unrealistic feelings of inadequacy because the new setting seems too superior. In compensation, such a frog gets too aggressive, too thirsty, and too tending to compete to not just belong, but to outshine. So, in time, it becomes narcissistic.

Some frog’s sense of entitlement soon beats the Amazon Rainforest in size, believing that it deserves to be given, unfairness and unreasonableness of its demands and expectation regardless, because it probably spent seven years in medical school (which was a choice). This typa frog is usually ungrateful, because it takes every privilege for an irrevocable entitlement.

Small and short-term thinking...

Small thinking creates small results, just like short-term thinking produces short-term results, and some big-arse sticky situation in the long-term. I know, SO US!

Look at Serrekunda for instance. The town is so 'serre' (congested) - like the name implies. Electricity and water a mess, because evidently, Serrekunda wasn't planned to grow this fast. This is why NAWEC is being caused to bite what it wasn’t built to chew. No wonder Generator Number 6 sounds like it’s choking.

No jokes, man! Look at our streets. We want to expand them so badly, but there's no darn space. When you go to some neighbourhoods, you wonder what weed the land allocator was on, because of the many dead-end roads and triangular homes.

It’s perhaps places like Janjangbureh, Mansakonko, and other former colonial dwellings that you'd see farsighted town plans. I don’t know - I’m thinking two: we are perhaps so selfish; we don’t care about posterity, or just too lazy to think, because thinking is a complex process.

To our dear Gambian doctors...

If the Health Minister's resignation is all what you are striking for, going by your profession's “first, do no harm" promise, and if putting innocent and poor patients at risk qualifies harm, I say there’s no pride for you in winning this strike.

If anything, this strike will only lower you in public esteem, and that's bad, because the government's alleged lack of respect is likely to be overlooked. So, strike all you want, but know that this is a defining moment; a test of ethics and of your compassion above your ego.

I thought I should say that.

Why divide and rule when you can unite and lead...?

In trying to prevent them from uniting in opposition to their excesses, or to maintain control over everyone just for the heck of it, some bosses encourage friction between their subordinates under the guise of giving each of them a heads-up.

By it, they inadvertently create a host of John Jattas (frustrated staff), thereby opening doors to enemies from outside. You know what they say: “flies never visit an egg that has no crack.” I know… it’s some messed up shit like, why would you divide and rule when you can unite and lead?

If you cannot do it, teach it....

You saying or writing a general observation that inadvertently portrays someone else’s character cannot amount to judgment. Judgmental is the one who reads your piece and makes it about himself or someone else.

Another thing I've observed on social media is folks using that cheap-ass 'walk your talk' punchline to discourage others from expressing themselves. To them I say not everyone is gifted with the means to walk their talk. So, while backing one’s talk with action is more powerful, it doesn’t mean that those who do not have the opportunity to act should stop talking their talk.

In fact, here’s my theory: if you cannot represent your words with action, teach it. You may spark some brain or inspire some walker into walking your talk. I want to believe that’s the reason why you see some protégés doing stuff that their mentors could only imagine.

So to those out there who wish they could, but cannot just pen their thoughts because they don't have the time or are mentally constipated, I say take heart and let those who can, employ their gift, except if theirs is but high sounding nonsense. I have seen those too.

Nuances...

INCRIMINATE sounds like IN-CRIME-I-ATE (in crime I ate). Well, perhaps the root, you know: making others appear guilty of wrongdoing so you can eat (be relevant). Like law enforcement is useless where there are no crimes, and a detractor’s distortions wouldn’t fly if there’s no one to lay blame on.

But like the Good Book says, don’t sit in the seat of such scoffers, they’re deceitful. Wow, nuances; talk about DECEITFUL: the word has three syllables: THE-SEAT-FULL, more like asking you to keep at bay. So, mi seh, wen dem bring come, know seh dem want fi carry go. Tell dem fi get outta yuh bloodclaat seat, caah it full already.

Misinterpret this all you want:

There's a difference between a genuine political "debate" and a "the-bait," as hinted by the word's two syllables. A debate presents to you the candidate you need, while a "the-bait," particularly mayoral, the candidate that the media want you to vote for.

Pay attention. Use the last National Assembly election debates as baseline. Contemplate like your mind is yours and see beyond the "bait" in the scripted promises intended to generate admiration.

Check if the issues that are being said are true and the promises well-reasoned. If Yes, that's plausible. Now, are there clear plans intended to accomplish the promises, you know: when, how, with what? No, not clearly expressed? Ex-act-ly, as fallacious as they come! Like a typical booty augmentation is so deceptively attractive.

"System Change", still...

I haven't heard folks throw these punchlines in support of executive excesses in months: "You would've done the same if you were in his shoes." Or, "who stopped Jawara from doing for Barajalli what the man's doing for Kanilai?"

I guess that too is another change indicator: improved public awareness. I remember one evening, I was so darn starving, and broke; I went to the shop to buy just anything I could afford.

Waiting in line, I had to watch GRTS against my will. It was their near everlasting screening of the former president's dinner in some foreign country, and so I went ballistic. Some guy who doesn't know book was like: ‘wye bro bul enyaan... mo mom telem bi.'(It's his TV; they can put him on view whenever the hell they want).

Well, fast forward, and as human fickleness would have it, that same moron is today a ‘barrow-meter' (a President Barrow watchdog). So, arguably, there may be no "system change," but some formerly improbable things are happening and that's change irrefutable right there. 

Refrain from being influenced by your emotions and prejudices and you will see the change. Trust that, dread!!!

Ours is a changing system...

The Point newspaper reported that the Minister of Health and Social Welfare had issued an apology to all who might have been offended by her statement regarding some doctors and corruption. No malice intended, she said and I hope the beef is now squashed?

This is what we talk about when we say even if there’s no “system change”, the system is changing, and that’s because change is a process, not a destination. What the doctors made the minister do, even Jammeh’s National Assembly couldn’t.

I remember when Sheriff, the Minister of Youth and Sports and team were asked to write and apologise to the Assembly through the Speaker for their stance/press release on the GNOC election, which they thought was a protest against the decision of the assembly's Select Committee on Youth and Sports, therefore contempt.

Hon. Fabakary was like: ’let them apologise and say why further action shouldn’t be taken against them.’ But that was before news got to Babili Mansa, Custodian of the Sacred Constitution of the Gambia. I’m sure he was like, ‘what the heck! How dare they ask a member of my Cabinet to deign like that? So, he also asked the National Assembly to apologise.

Who you know, what you know, who you are or about to be, and what you have: if these things about you don't attract envy, you gotta try harder to inspire me.

Really, what can someone so absolutely relieved to live in this obscure sojourn of a life unscathed possibly be if not a nonentity?

'Daygulen ma deh!' (You didn't hear me); let's recast that: is it possible for someone to stand for something worthy whilst been absolutely free from all of life's challenges, particularly envy?

Motivation or enticement...

In our part of the world, when workers talk about motivation, they mean enticement. I mean mostly.

So, the incentive or reason for their willingness of action has to be lucrative, you know, profit over compassion, and expediency above service and values.

But that's why most of them become easy preys of manipulation, because their sight is only on their personal benefits and base desires. So selfish and so slavish if you ask me.

Today, private doctors will tell you that saving lives is their primary motivation, yet consultations are more expensive than medications.

Journalists will say theirs is to keep the public honest. But are they honestly honest? I mean who misleadingly tailors news to fit a particular partisan agenda?

Is that type of teaching really noble where the teacher subjects his private and day students to different standards, and in favour of the private, presumably to attract more private students?

Most public servants say their job is not about the money. It's national sacrifice. But where's the sacrifice if some public servants are being served abounding privileges and they aren't serving as such?

Ish goes on...

Insecurity...

When insecure people cannot take you for granted, they alienate you. I started paying attention to this from when I was thirteen. When a supposed friend ditched me and tried to goad others into doing the same. You know what my crime was? I just had my wardrobe changed to everything fresh and irie, courtesy of mom’s return from America.

Real eyes recognise real lies....

Real eyes will realise that in any struggle, particularly politics, when the underdog manages to prevail, top dogs whose perceived statuses and hopes were but figments of bizarre imaginations soon develop what I believe is a mental health condition; call it the PUVC (Post Underdog Victory Complex).

It’s a manifestation of disgruntlement, and so, constant bitching, wholesale use of derogatory statements, character assassination, misrepresentation, harassment, violation of rights, prone to selfish thinking, stalking and raining vendetta on those who objectively say nice things about the underdog. 

By their conduct, you’re either with them or you're a hypocrite. This is not clinically known yet, but it’s like a Cluster B personality disorder. Ask those in the field of mental health and they will tell you, 'ouch, that’s bad.' It’s egocentric, and the compulsive tendency has only one aim: to wreak failure, so that they could say ‘we told them so.’

There’s always a reason for hatred...

Life’s too short. Let not what should make you better leave you bitter. Squash every beef you can and move on. Don’t carry any upsetting past into the present, or keep record of wrongs to continue to remember; that’s like nurturing animosity. Know that haters will always hate; you know what they say: 'new level, new devil.' 

I used to think that hatred can arise for absolutely no reason whatsoever - not anymore. I think I’m convinced that there’s always a reason for hatred, and where the cause of hate is unknown or unreasonable, it’s usually envy. Be motivated by it and be/do even better. 

Wait… some hate you because you hurt them so badly and that's understandable; don’t write off the likelihood. In fact, from time to time, appraise yourself and your dealings with people. If you have wronged anyone humanly, be human and ask for their forgiveness.

On here is where the hate is out of the ordinary; the entitled haters. They just have a natural contempt for anyone who doesn’t buy their almighty opinions. So, when you’re quick with sensible reactions during a debate with them and they lose, all hell breaks loose around you, and their vocabulary suddenly reduces to insults:

‘You’re an idiot. You’re so ignorant! Wake up, you misinformed sheeple! You’re so clueless… and of course not forgetting the favourite word “hypocrite” that’s almost done to death.’

The ‘me alone’ attitude sucks!

When technological, entrepreneurial, spiritual, or whatever giants collaborate, it’s amazing what they can pull off. That's how it should be. It makes life easier for the ordinary man. FaceMash might not have evolved into the miracle of Facebook if Mark Zuckerberg was reluctant to let Eduardo Saverin in on the project.

Here's a true story: coming out of Harry's Supermarket, I saw this mentally ill guy marvel at very nice ride. Scrubbing it in apparent desire, I heard him say: "ndeysaan, Europe, invention. Africa, intervention!" It didn’t only rhyme, it was lucid. I guess what he meant was, they pool resources to invent, and we compete so much that one can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.

I think we are unfortunately fortunate - fortunate because we are not destitute of people who possess extraordinary intelligence and skill, but unfortunate because those out there with pieces to each other’s puzzles would rather they all fail than contribute their knowledge to someone else's something of ingenious construction.

This is why our entrepreneurs, scientists (yes we have them), spiritual leaders, entertainers, even beggars along Kairaba Avenue can't stand each other, and why you can have numerous rich friends and still run into cash flow crises. But of course, you cannot bailout someone you envy. It's the reason we dislike each other for no apparent reason, and ready to go all out to make each other look bad.

Well, here’s to support what Bob Marley suggested: if we want to make way for a positive day, we must dead the negative way. 

To all deportees, here's to hope:

America and El Diablo may deport you. But without your permission, none of them can define your destiny. Here's who Tuy Sobil was:

He goes by the street name K.K., joined the Crips in Long Beach, California when he was 13, started smoking crack, jailed for armed robbery at 18, served two years in Taft Prison in California and another three in an immigration detention facility. The U.S. deported him to Cambodia in 2004 — he had never set foot in the country, couldn't speak the local language, and had a son back in California.

He said: "when I first came here I was scared.... you're always thinking you don't have anybody there."

A story about him written by Christopher Shay on the TIME,  Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009, said that day, the eve of his 32nd birthday, K.K. has become one of the most admired men in Cambodia, running an organisation called Tiny Toones in Phnom Penh that mentors and provides education to thousands of kids every year.

You see?

Sometimes when God rebuilds, it's like He's destroying. And that feeling between your trying to connect the dots to your arrival at a holistic overstanding of His plan for you is like watching your tailor cut your expensive fabric into pieces. If you're not au fait with the art of sewing, you'd wish you can just have your cloth back, but that's before the pieces are sewn together and your beautiful dress takes shape.

Some red tapes are a disservice...

Where intelligent civilisation finds a thing or process redundant or too ritualistic that it hinders action, that particular red tape is cut… that’s what a growing society does. 

In The Gambia, unless it involves someone we like so, so much, we would rather our progress grind to a halt than be that flexible.

Yesterday, it was a blueprint. Today, a manifesto’s the standard by which fittingness for mayor is measured in Banjul. And we know the target of that red tape represents a party that already has a documented direction of travel.

So, if you ask me, it’s as redundant as saying: Ma’am, your party’s cast-iron pledges are impressive (we just didn’t bother reading 'em). So, naturally, you don’t need one, but you need one for the heck of ceremony.

Jollof easy-wut...

Olof Njie neh tukki yokkul worssak, nya ko lekka ko fa nekkul. 

Here's the paraphrase:

Going overseas doesn't always amount to good fortune. You're able to save because your dependents are far-off. It's a different ball game when you're at home where you can work twice as hard and still unable to save, chiefly because of the dependency culture, the causesless demands, and your proximity.

And there's so much solidarity in poverty ayard that you cannot keep it hundred. You cannot say how some of us take advantage of the kindness of others, or talk about laziness lest folks will rebuke you as if you're mean.

We'd instead say: Santal yallah... denj la yaakar (be thankful for the hope they've in you). But we discount how some people find it hard to say no (mununyor gantu), and how persistent demands like that can lead to them giving against their will, and that's yaakar turned baakar right there.

Lolor takh fi, semester bu fi nyowe di jayi jomba nyaw, lu gayi johonj nga dorg, two weeks rek nga charlit. Jollof nekh na wye nak lee tamit mung fi.

It's civil service, not civil slavery...

Our Civil Service has two types of servants: the sycophantic ‘House Servants’ and the altruistic ‘Field Servants’. It’s like it was in the days of slavery, you know: ‘House Negros’ who will do anything to stay in good standing with the master, and the conscious ‘Plantation Negros.’ Perhaps history is repeating itself, or maybe some attitudes don’t go away.

Like the 'House Negros’, the House Servants are those with a false sense of higher status than the others, because think they’re closest to the master (boss), and perhaps so because they even dine with the master (boss). They get gifts like used suits and ties, and showered with promises unending, so they gotta look out for the master (boss). I have no problems with that. What I think is fucked up is doing it at the expense of hardworking ‘Field Servants.’ But of course, those with false authority are sometimes bigger assholes than people with real authority. 

It saddens me that in this 21st Century Gambia, with all the knowledge and college education, we have many who serve not the Service, but the master (boss), and as if slaves… all because they don’t want to face up to adversity. They’d rather surrender their independence, elect expediency over values, benefit above compassion, than go through the troubles and hardships of life. So vain and so devoid of sense of consequence!

This is why most of them become bitches, mitches, snitches, ultimately leeches to their ditches. Don’t ask me, I’m a plantation servant, often negatively branded, yes, but I love it. It means I have a mind of my own. Well, needless to say, coming from where I come from, I cannot bow down to any slave master.

Was she wrong... I mean the honourable minister, was she wrong?

The Standard Newspaper said the Minister of Health and Social Welfare said:

“When you talk about corruption in the health system we all know how it is…. These young doctors that will just go and practice pharmaceutics, some of them have opened their own pharmacies with the resources that we have. I am very sure of what I am saying because I was the PS.”

And then the justified furor. But also, let's contemplate:

If her allegation holds no water, how did all those 'Not For Sale' drugs get into private pharmacies?

Was she referring to all doctors? No? Are you the referent? No? Why are you angry?

Are you the referent? Yes? Is it true? No? Can you do something about it? No? Then why fret thyself?

Are you the referent? Yes? Is it true? Yes? Then change.

-

See, it's cute how we all want our public officials to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but funny how we go bonkers whenever we are, or ours is at fault for what's being kept real.

And because we take things too personally, the conclusions we draw are often negative, causing us to wear gloves for fights that aren't even about us.

If you ask me, the sooner we pull our heads out of the sands of self-deceit and acknowledge our shortcomings like we all have one, the better. Otherwise, the change we seek as a nation will remain as far-fetched as I know that Sona Jobarteh is off-limits to me.

"woe to a land where a slave becomes king...."

Dr. Myles Munroe said that King Solomon said: "woe to a land where a slave becomes king...." and his interpretation was: "don't allow a poor person to rise to leadership."

At a first listen, and perhaps being a brokeass myself, I was like: 'see academic arrogance; so slaves and poor people got no place in this world, eh?'

But that was before seeing the words 'poor' and 'slave' beyond their literal (financial and material) contexts, to being of principles and mentality: a slave or poverty mentality meaning lack of contentment, and so, an inordinate desire of gain - like, greediness even after so much wealth.

He said such leaders use power for self enrichment rather than empowering others. Relating his discourse to The Gambia's reign of Jammeh, I cannot agree more....  and Rasta said something like that too: catapult a man from the forest to the palace and he'd become the maddest.

About criticism…

In Nigeria, they say: "The bird wey go land for rope, must follow the rope dance."

If you know you can't take any criticism, don't start one. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you don't want to get knocked out, don't step in ring, simple.

Now to my point: there's absolutely nothing wrong with criticising a critic. You cannot exalt yourself up there and expect others to sit and watch you rain rebuke on them. You know, as if almighty in society.

Reasoning is nobody's monopoly. So, any argument could be turned against anyone. If, when your criticism is generally believed and recognised, you rejoice, it's only right to keep calm when you get served, otherwise, you're not fit to be a critic.

Banjul politics - the disservice...

Where intelligent civilisation finds a thing or process redundant or too ritualistic that it hinders action, that particular red tape is cut… that’s what a growing society does.

In The Gambia, unless it involves someone we like so, so much, we would rather our progress grind to a halt than be that flexible.

Yesterday, it was a blueprint. Today, a manifesto’s the standard by which fittingness for mayor is measured in Banjul. And we know the target of that red tape represents a party that already has a documented direction of travel.

So, if you ask me, it’s as redundant as saying: Ma’am, your party’s cast-iron pledges are impressive (we just didn’t bother reading 'em). So, naturally, you don’t need one, but you need one for the heck of ceremony.

The Crab Mentality…

Woe unto a place where a ‘me first’, ‘me alone’, ‘mbeh yeh fo’, or an ‘if I can't have it, neither can you’ mentality is communally held; where no one lets anyone in on anything, because sharing feels like overcrowding their perceived hierarchy or prestige.

It’s a very foolish mentality, because no one can have it all. ‘Nyuneh lo barrileh-barrileh, bo gayneh gis lo momul.’ However, by the power of association, sharing, and caring, you don’t need to have it all. Even Bill Gates whose net worth is 90.8 billion USD certainly sees things that he doesn’t own, so he networks.

Never see come see...

Just like some of us 'overstays' and Quadrangle civil servants behave after our first, especially unexpected trips abroad, a sudden huge benefit can cause one to start acting vain; so prone to bringing the thing up in every conversation.

My idren Spoonhead was like that after his first-time one week trip from the US. He cannot go a whole day without humble bragging about the stuff he got from some store on Madison Avenue, and the functioning of a Toubab community, or how he witnessed some harmattan in Manhattan.

It's a 'never see come see effect,' you know, that practice of casually mentioning what one has, the places one's been to and so on, subtly implying that one's made, or familiar and all, usually to impress others.

I know, it can be annoying being the audience of such. But if you ask me, just try and bear with them; it's usually a different tendency to when the travels become frequent, or when one becomes adjusted to the status or benefit.

Bad laws...

Duppy loved basketball. But he was destitute of elevation - he was about 5feet tall. Duppy had his own hoop because his dad was rich. So, in order to get game, Duppy barred folks like Omar by banning the dunk on his hoop. Like wonders always happen, Duppy grew a bit taller and was able to improve his verticals. Now because he could dunk, the ban is lifted.

And that’s how most contemporary laws are made. It’s usually the commanding few imposing their will on the many, either to serve self or to make criminals out of saints. I know, to ratify the ploy into law, they’d say it is “unanimous.” Divide unanimous into syllables and you’d get ‘u-nan-i-mous’ - more like ‘you know I must,’ your dissent regardless.

I say any selective law like that is a bad law. This is why when a situation arises and they cannot find a way around their laws, or a certain clause is about to be in support of the ordinary man, they go to the amendment table. I'm thinking that's perhaps one reason why the Constitution of The Gambia is amended 40something times since adoption and counting.