You only get one life to live...

I’m sure some of you’ll remember my bashing of those kids who fervently trust that “you only live once” (YOLO), mostly to feed their desire for reckless pursuits? You remember me saying the consequence is that “you’re (eventually) on your own” (YOYO)?

Well, I think I was wrong! I only needed to urge them to show moderation, not absolute abstinence and here’s why:

I don’t know what I feel about reincarnation, but I definitely know that no human is a cat; you only get one life to live, and it comes in phases. So, as you evolve, if you choose to skip that phase where it was okay to enjoy and amuse yourself with your peers, you may be able to relive it, but usually at the worst time possible.

I know… growing up, rather than get our work-play balance right at that phase, and possibly have the better of both worlds, we are taught that being assiduous in the pursuit of things that society finds uninteresting is the only way we can increase our chances of becoming successful, and an even merrier ever-after.

Yet we wonder why our former president loved toys (gadgets), or why the most insane birthday parties are hardly hosted by 21 or 18yos, but political and government figures, or why our “workchops” don’t leave leftovers and it is junk food, or why some disciplinarian who no way in hell would let me get his daughter a phone, can gift a girlfriend his daughter’s age, a Mercedes.

But I better put a brake on my fingers before I spill the beans about myself, like that notorious burglar that everyone spoke for, saying: “no, this isn’t his MO; not him this time.” Well, perhaps because of that, the idiot felt at ease to post pictures of himself on Instagram, with the stolen stuff.

Insecurity and Corruption

All the pomp and gauche display of significance in this country is a mark of insecurity. It's the only thing I know that craves distinction that much, and that's why here, even forgetting to call some people by their honorifics is a big deal. In fact, some prefer their titles to their actual names... like, instead of Omar, say Alhagie, or Director, or Doctor, or Honourable, etc. 

The thing with insecurity is that it produces rivalry, and where there's rivalry, people tend to envy success than be inspired by it. In fact, I want to argue that it's the root cause of corruption in this country, and it starts with say you landing a new job and wanting to be regarded as relatively accomplished, or that the time for everyone to look up to you is now. 

Like fate would have it, soon what you set your heart upon is all yours... like you wanted to feel and do better than those lazy brains who do no one any good, and now you have it; everything falls on you, like you wanted, right?

Well, until your salary is no longer enough, but you still want to keep up with the amazing feeling of being the tekki (successful) one, then you dip your hands into the proverbial cookie jar, rationalising each dip with the good you do, like helping pay a certain neighbour's medical bill, some kid's tuition, a cousin's travel expenses, while occasionally treating yourself to some of finest stuff money has to offer.

Henry Ford said 'givers have to set limits because takers rarely do.' But in your case, as exhausting as the demands have become, you may not have the luxury to do that, because folks don't react well to saying "no," and unfortunately, their validation is your most powerful currency.

It's an amazing feeling before it expires, but when it does, the consequence is usually a rude awakening - you know, you not getting to realise that nothing's actually simpler and enduring a reputation than being simply you, until you get caught with your hand in the unholy source of the philanthropy you're noted for.

Tact is a Social Skill

Tact, learn it and you can remove the stinger from any bee without getting stung, trust me! The say it’s ‘the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.’

Some think it’s gutless, so they become so gutsy that they offend others without knowing, or make sweeping condemnations and expect no one to object, and true, people hardly do, because the next thing is: banking on some vacuum-minded bandwagon, they'll nurture a sense of victimhood, putting a spin on your objection as either a sign of complicity or you’re intolerant.

Here’s a true story to relate – and reader discretion is advised:

Once upon a time, a friend, Paco, felt snitched on to the Drug Squad, and his suspects were the elders of his community. So he went bonkers: “Pa yi fi denj nuka ndeyam” (the elders here are all motherfuckers). Another friend, Bobo, took offense and retorted in Fula: a’konti baaba ma (including your dad).

Surprisingly, we all blamed Bobo for taking shit personal, and you know why? Because the generalised disrespect was done amid fellow stoners who don’t like the Drug Squad, for the reason that they make criminals outta descent folks, and these elders were seen to be getting in the way of that absolute liberty being sought fi di ganja herb.

Attitudinal Change

Everyone in The Gambia is crying out for “attitudinal change;” none is taking a hard look in the mirror. I will tell you what, ATEKELA! (it isn’t gonna happen), and that’s not me putting an evil tongue on, I’m just being realistic.

Attitude is not some software that you buy off the shelf, install it inna di piple and it ready fi use right away. Where I come from, they say it grows like Choka (pubic hair). So, one desires it to grow it, but also groom it, same way attitude is bespoke to fit the demands of one’s environment.

But that’s as long as the “demands of the environment” is keeping with reason and propriety, because today that what’s good is just what’s pleasurable, a lot is socially acceptable that doesn’t even care about the time-tested rules of right conduct

So calling for “attitudinal change” speaks to all of us, to become better versions of ourselves, as it goes even for (or perhaps particularly) those of us who tend to enjoin it on everyone else but ourselves, seemingly forgetting that a person's first responsibility is a person’s self.

Politics of The Gambian intelligentsia

Today’s political participation of the Gambian intelligentsia is like the intervention of the police in horror movies: too late and too loud to be effective, especially after the hero has taken care of the villain, in the same way regular Gambians used their years of in-the-trenches experiences to make the ascension of a supposed inferior possible.  

If you pay attention to movies you will see that when the police come, they only designate the place a crime scene, collect evidence to complete paperwork, and while at it, yelling all over the place: “Stand Back! This is a Crime Scene!  Move, Sir! Ma’am, We Got This!” But all that is after the fact, like maybe their coming late was good riddance to the mess they would’ve made.  

The only difference is, the Gambian “woke” squad doesn’t use those “Do Not Enter” ribbons to pretend activity, they profess know-how on panels - self-importantly seated, legs crossed, ankle over knee, flaunting problem-solving skills that only proffer problems for every solution, and now and then, they’d lean back to a more comfortable position, sip from their glasses to stay hydrated from dwelling on lost opportunities that only give substance to the question: “where were you?”

About criticism

My brother believes that I don't "wilt under criticism." I don’t know... but, if his observation is correct, I’m thankful for adulthood, and how I’m now more about understanding situations than reacting.

The more I get older, the more I realise that truth is irrelevant to people who only want to hear what makes them comfortable. They cannot tolerate the feeling of you saying anything that contradicts their self-justifying narratives. They’d rather keep apart from your views, even if it means unfriending you.

As far as I'm concerned, what to do about criticism should largely if not entirely depend on the source. People who care will always give constructive advice, and theirs may be hard to swallow but it’s coming from a good place; so it’s best that one listens.

When you get attacked by the same people who loved you for telling it like it is, but not this time that you described a certain situation honestly, remember: 'everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.'

If you’re sincerely promoting decency, yourself trying to be good, in the way you know best, yet always spoken evil of, like you’re no good, remember: bad people love company, so they naturally wouldn’t like it when you aren't like them.

If you’re a genuinely kind person, doing the good you do fī sabīli llāh, yet regularly accused of having ulterior motives, remember: self-seeking people judge everyone by their own inclinations. And because they seek nothing but the self, in their eyes, every charitable act is selfish propaganda.

The Paradox of Tolerance

Society cannot be tolerant without limit, says the paradox of tolerance... that "in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." 

Way to go, I guess... only that I don't know how practical it is, or whose place it is to set the limit, because the way I see it, today, tolerance or otherwise, like perfection and beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and that's why everyone sees their genre (of intolerance) as tolerable.

An example is how we give free speech a free rein only when people we characterise as bigots question the permissiveness of what they deem obscene, but not when those who consider themselves tolerant censor what they deem offensive.

Just do you...

Lady Mae (from the series “Greenleaf”) said: 'if we avoided every place where enmity and strife once confounded us, we’d all be stranded where we stand," and I believe she’s right.

I take LeBron for instance would've been "stranded" in Cleveland, and probably not have been the most recognisable face that he is in the NBA today, if he had worried more about the boos and hisses that followed his decision to take his talents to South Beach.

You see... sometimes, what makes the 'yay!' or a 'mom, I made it!' moment merrier is looking back at the disapprovals you endured from those who saw you as inadequate, even for what you're sure you can and just want to be the best at. 

So I say if you're going to be damned anyway, it's better to be damned for doing what you feel in your heart to be the right thing to do, than be damned for losing an opportunity that could've changed everything.

Democracy is fragile… handle it with care!

 When a democratic system lacks an enlightened citizenry, the electorate will more than likely be purchasable, and as a result, influencing majority decision is usually contingent on what a candidate is willing to pay or part with. 

It may not satisfy meritocracy, that's for sure, but it is still democracy; at least until it relegates to kakistocracy (a government by the least competent but willing to do whatever it takes).

Now, for unbroken support, a kakistocracy has to remain liquid, and that’s why many soon give their integrity the slip, and the system becomes a kleptocracy (a system marked by inability to resist embezzlement).

See.... what was once a democracy became a kakistocracy, then a kleptocracy, but that’s not all, because a kleptocracy soon creates new men with new money, naturally paving a road for plutocracy, even perhaps to some aristocratic destination someday. 

So, having a democracy is one thing, democratic continuity is another, and it requires everyone's participation in civic life, but not as blindly as it was during the dictatorship that enfeebled civics education in our schools yet gave us a 'notional' council for civic education.

Entangled With Cronyism, Socialism Is As Bad As Capitalism...

I don’t know which economic philosophy is a silver bullet, nor do I have the authority to fault any one of the varied isms as the problem, but what is definitely not the solution is cronyism, and the greed thereof.

Cronyism is like a parasitic plant, not the 'yirifaa sooto’ that only leans on its host for physical support and not necessarily affecting it negatively, but the type of plant that subsists on and sucks the life out of its host.

So the more it takes, the more it weakens the vigour of the host, costing planters their yield, or sometimes totally abandoning their harvest, because they’re sick of it. In the same way, with cronyism as its pest, no ism or system of wealth creation and distribution is out of fraud's way. 

For instance:

If cronyism latches onto capitalism, the only parties it serves are business leaders and public officials, like the Gambia’s once-remarkable Economic Recovery Program (ERP) soon created a mafia circle, along with new and interesting ways of making profits at the expense of public interest.

Likewise, if it were socialism to subsume cronyism, the limits of state power is soon transgressed by those it’s conferred on: the powerful few, tipping the scale of prosperity in their favour. And, before the masses realise that theirs was just an illusion of power, exploitation would’ve taken a heavy toll already.

Indoctrination

Sometimes, we advise against religious indoctrination simply because we are, ourselves, indoctrinated. So we mechanically accept our conservative values as errors we must put right, because that’s what our rote education made us to accept as true, and that's why we parrot accordingly.

But just like when you query a computer database and a response code pops up to indicate an error, all the machine is saying is that it has been conditioned to carry out a request that it probably wasn’t programmed to execute. And if you still think you could do with that information, you need to think outside the device.

As far as I'm concerned, indoctrination is when you allow notional ideas to override your actual experiences, when you take everything you’re taught for your reality, even when you can’t relate, like today’s progressiveness is coquetting with many to dabble in causes that meant more than what they’ve become, causes they’re only persuaded to join, by those whose livelihoods depend on their outspoken advocacy.

The progressiveness I know, aka open-mindedness, is supposed to inspire a non-judgmental attitude, an appeal to tolerance, not causing you to persecute people who do not agree with you or think outside your box, because that, aside from being dishonest, is making a mockery of what it really and truly means.

If you ask me, no one’s tolerance is as debatable as those who, when hell-bent on demonising a thing, they expect their position to be revered, and if you value your sanity, you dare not disagree or say anything good about that thing.

For instance, if a campaign is intended to brand my crew and I as idiots, anyone who uses their own frame of reference and sees us as not entirely idiots but misconstrued maybe, should be seen and not heard – because they’re perhaps privileged or immune to idiocy, and their indulgence is subversive of the struggle to expose my crew for the idiots we may not even be.

That’s why today, to disagree is to be disagreeable, to assert and aggress, and that’s to make conversations nearly impossible, because soon as the validity of a claim one makes is questioned with sound reasoning, and one has no decent argument left in the armoury, one assails, turning the argument against the messenger’s person and not the message.  

"Pompiterre mo ma genal patat" jarul hullo.

David J. Pollay wrote a story portrayed in a short film on YouTube that some of you perhaps saw. It speaks to positive and healthier ways to react when negativity comes your way, featuring some driver who almost bumped into another car, presumably an Uber, yet went berserk as if he did nothing, or that the man just killed his cat.

I share because I found the film inspiring, and the Uber driver’s graciousness about as cool as the resulting conversation he had with his passenger. I will attempt to transcribe as follows:

The passenger asked him: “how are you so calm and so friendly; this guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital?” He replied: “well, I’ll tell you something, man... people are like garbage trucks.” The passenger couldn’t get it, so he asked: “really, now... how, how’s that?”

Then he went on: “well, they run around with garbage – and they’re full of disappointment, full of frustration, full of anger, and when the garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And sometimes, they’ll dump it on you... but you know what, you don’t take it personal. You just wave, smile; you wish them well, and you move on. Don’t let their garbage spread to the people at work, at home, or in the streets. You love those who treat you right and you pray for those who don’t... life is ten percent of what you make it; the other ninety, is how you take it.”

Amazing, right? Well, I’m not as cool as this Uber guy. In fact, I don’t know if his reaction is as easier done as the clip suggests, but here’s what I know: life is too short, and the amount of fucks you’re gifted to give are as limited as humankind’s finite resources are insufficient to satisfy all human wants. Therefore, due to the scarcity of resources, or in my analogy, of the fucks available to you, a problem of choice and of efficient allocation arises.

Perhaps the moral of the video isn’t too fitting a reference to I want to say, but what I want to say is that I don’t think it’s even good for anyone’s health to belabour motives as to why people don’t like what you do. I think it’s best to keep building up a reputation that no one can overlook even if unacknowledged. Remember, the fox didn’t argue the grape's nature as being a grape; he only said grapes are sour, and that’s his problem.

But this suggestion is if you don’t want to end up with imaginary discoveries, or the conclusion that people just don’t like you because it's you - and that’s the part I’d act Dr. Phil and ask: did you care to find out why? Can you do something about it? Then why worry? What if you aren’t all that? What have you done to resonate with their interests or feelings? If you tick all the boxes to spark appreciation of the fact that you’re onto something, and still in some bad books, don’t sweat it; pompiterre mo ma genal patat jarul hullo.

The Relegation of Truth

The only one who derives advantage from your gullibility is the conman, if the shoe fits politicians too, or just anyone you allow to get into your head, for in understanding how you think, they may find a way to your heart, undermine your focus, even the values you rep, leaving you heartbroken, but that’s after realising that you’re perhaps one of the few people left in this world who mean what they say.

I guess that’s why I admire people who go through the discomfort of thought before passing an opinion or accepting a narrative, and people with the spine to question absurdities, even if it means failing to corroborate a prefabricated construal of the people or sect they seem affiliated to.

It just sucks that that trait is getting gradually few, and that’s why today, the greatest enemy of the truth we all seek is our unthinking attachment of credibility to whatever the day’s trending topic is, especially one initiated by someone we idolise.

Even journalists that you’d expect to ascertain the truth are increasingly tending to act on such impulse, and all it now takes to build a story is a catchy sound-bite from some page, without regard to it being possibly altered not for concision, but to mislead. So, usually, it’s either the headline and story don’t agree, or the story is incorrect and someone is demanding a retraction, or an apology, or both.

Mali

I don’t think there’s ever been a crisis within this bloc that just came out of the blue. Tell me, but I believe all budding crises have always been signalled by grievances aired by the citizenry, if only Ecowas was as driven before the fact. And I think Mali’s situation is yet another such lost opportunity to nip a problem in the bud.

I think, just as the way we in this part of the world build infrastructure for political points and no preventive maintenance thereafter, is the same way we create all the fine democratic structures, Unions and institutions but don’t use the summits to reinvigorate the values.

In fact, if the saying that “development is maintenance” is anything to go by like I think it is, our underdevelopment is because of the lack thereof.

So, like a once overvalued power station soon suffers power cuts, or a barely inaugurated work is soon in disrepair, just like relationships lack remediation, even renewal of vows for some, resulting in avoidable divorces, infidelity, and unaffordable polygamy, so can the consequences of the infuriating inefficiency and questionable ethics of politicians be linked to the lack of maintenance of the values they represent.

Maintenance is important, and that’s why in my opinion, that Extraordinary Ecowas Summit and the ordinary measures thereof was all yesterday's work... which meeting, by the way, consisting of some delegates who are as scheming as the root cause of the crisis, I never expected the civilian demonstrators nor the military to be understood, and I'm not saying justified.

A Person's First Responsibility is a Person’s Self

I don’t think our problem is lack of references to model our solutions on, but pinpointing the problems to fix, if everyone’s as unique as every child’s mother on Mother’s Day - a classic antithesis of growth, because nobody wants to swallow their pride when it comes to accepting their own wrongs.

Apparently, we all want to shape this country as considered necessary, just about as much as we all know we are largely the source of our own problems, yet everybody’s the outlier, because everybody wants to remember and retell events in a light most favourable to them..

That’s why everybody is suggesting “attitudinal change,” but always with somebody else in mind, and everybody has one such usual suspect, inviting the obvious question: how can anybody change when nobody feels flawed?

Now, "Gambian bi defa...” has become the clichéd lead-up to setting a stage from where anybody can venture beyond all bounds of respect and still justify their aggression as just an honest conversation, forgetting that a person's first responsibility is a person’s self, failing which trashes one’s impact.

The Gambia and the Politics of the Young

It’s encouraging to see our young people being painfully desirous of becoming political figures, but I wish the resilience thereto, was as remarkable as I love the ambition, for it sucks that each time they’re reminded to “earn” their spot as would every political participant, they suddenly feel “excluded” or “overlooked.”

I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption, because just as some young people think it's unprogressive to elect veterans to captain our ship, settling for a novice who intends to learn on the job is a stake some of us wouldn’t lay our bets on, especially sailing in unsafe waters.

But here’s what’s never too early to do: start getting involved, volunteer for a party whose values match yours, help further their cause, build a reputation that evinces the influential young leader you want us to see, and by “us’ I mean communities beyond your comfort zone, so that your name will require no introduction when it’s time to seek endorsement.

As far as I’m concerned, anything less is a shortcut and shortcuts cut short – it’d take only one conscious old lady to grill your insight into the realities of, say: Sarreh Dompho, or Touba Wapa, or Foday Kunda, or the Karantabas in Kiang and Sami, and the credibility of your specious platform and depressing slogans are done for, if relatively, your book-knowledge is a contrast with the serious issues experienced only beyond Brikama.