This is what prejudice does...

I read a story on funny.com about an 83 year old widowed pensioner who wrote a letter to God claiming that her purse was stolen with £100 in it - the only cash she had to manage until her next pension cheque. Christmas was coming and she had invited two of her friends over for dinner. With no family to turn to, she had to resort to God for help.

The postman processing her mail found the address illegible. So he thought he should open it to see. Reading it, he was touched, and decided to show it to the other workers, asking them to dig into their wallets for the old lady. Together they raised £4 short of £100 (£96), enveloped it and sent it to the woman.

A few days after Christmas, a letter of appreciation came from the old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened, and it read:

“Dear God,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was £4 missing. I think it must have been those thieving bastards at the Post Office.”

This was intended to be a joke but I found it deep. It is what prejudice does; it will cloud your judgment, prevent the discovery of truth, cause you to be ignorant, misguide you into error, and lead you to an involuntary lack of gratitude like it did the old woman. Because of her predisposition about postal staff, she thought she was emptying out the bathing tub, but she ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Misunderstanding...

Misunderstanding is a natural human defect. But once one is willing to communicate, like talking to the other instead of talking about the other, an opportunity to understand each other will naturally arise.

However, when you’re doing all that and the other party cannot get over him/herself, like it is your loss anyway, I say screw it…! Move on and cut your losses. They say you cannot hold your head high with your hand out begging for acceptance.

Our post-election sentiments are so side-splitting at times...lol

When great changes occur, some thoughts will be overwhelmed by emotions of what was, some minds woken up, and some hearts broken. That’s how it is! But because events in life are unlike a recording that you can playback, fast-forward or rewind anytime you want, press the play and savour every minute of the moment, of course not losing grip on the degree of focus required for the future.

That said, I believe that Jaliba Kuyateh like every other Gambian has the right (earned or otherwise) to celebrate a happy occasion. If I choose to cry my emotions out, and he uses his trade to sing a song in praise, I cannot assuredly claim that he’s ego-feeding, nor can I not allow him the privilege. What I can at the very least do is to be civil. If you ask me, I believe there’s a difference between an opportunist and someone seizing an opportunity to do what he was dying to do the whole time.

The progress of the process of democracy is not in building too many walls; one doesn't have to be a career politician to know that; it’s about ending differences and building bridges. Yes, it is natural to feel disappointment that he kept his tongue behind his teeth when he was expected to talk, but it’s also wise to ask: was talking really all that there was to be done? In fact, President-elect Barrow was UDP (so I was told), yet most of us didn’t know him like we knew the rest. But just because he wasn’t all over the place doesn’t mean he did nothing or was indifferent; he was perhaps differently active.

We need to overstand that change is a cumulative effect of many small actions (covert or overt). In our case, from that straw that stirred the drink, including those who paid the ultimate price, to those combined straws that broke the camel's back, i.e. the political alliance, the go-funders, the advocacy groups, youth leaders, voters, hood popes, etc.

I am sure those who feel entitled to accolades will be recognised in due course –the ORGs and all. But in the meantime, if you have a pre-election chapter that you wouldn’t want to read out loud, stop reading out someone else’s. Some of us have been on social media from I don’t know when, and have seen enough to state that If we should do a ‘sosolaso’ and dig up some memories from a few years back, some people doing the apathy-bashing on here will be shamed, but that will be as petty.