Dear Editor,
Some of us are truly inventive when making excuses for our family members, friends, and colleagues. The average person in this colonial space can sound principled, honest, and rational until a family member, friend, colleague, or political ally comes under public scrutiny. Then principle gives way to sentiment or emotions, truth becomes conditional, and accountability is recast as a personal attack or insult. No nation can progress while its people demand virtuous leadership from others but offer shallow excuses for the spinelessness of those closest to them. Stop the duplicity. Feed one another the truth, no matter how bitter it tastes. Meanwhile, let us go through some of the asinine excuses being made by their political friends, family members, or colleagues.
“Everyone has a right to join any party of his choice.”
Ummmm… I call this the SET: the Shallow Evasive Tactic. It is shallow because it dodges the substance of the criticism, and evasive because it replaces a question of integrity with a question of freedom. No one disputes a person’s right to join Satan and worship him/her. However, the freedom to join any party does not mean freedom from judgment. If someone worships Satan for money, others are equally free to describe that choice as greed and to call the person a Satan worshipper. The issue is not whether the person has the right to worship; the issue is the motive and character revealed by that decision. Similarly, politicians are free to join any party they choose. But when they embrace a party, they once condemned in the harshest terms, people are also entitled to recall their words, question their consistency, and expose their duplicity. Invoking “the right to choose” does not erase the charge of hypocrisy, spinelessness, betrayal, and greed. So stop the evasive tactic. While at it, stop portraying legitimate criticism as an insult. That is a very desperate attempt to exchange accountability for victimhood. Rights protect your freedom to choose, but they do not shield your choices from scrutiny, memory, or moral judgment.
“It’s the nature of politics.”
Nature? Really? As though politics is something that God created. As if politics has a conscience, makes decisions, or commits wrongdoing on its own. It does not. Your family member, your friend, the politician makes choices, good or bad. No honest definition of politics grants anyone a license to lie, betray, or act without shame. If those poor qualities define your politics, then just say so, but do not insult our intelligence by blaming “the political system” as though it were a distant, faceless force. The nameless political system you want to blame is made up of people, including your friends, relatives, and allies, and their choices sustain it. To condemn the abstract system while shielding those who perpetuate its failures is cowardice at best and hypocrisy at worst. Tell your friends and family the truth!
“Politicians in the USA and Kenya do it too.”
What a desperate and infantile defense of your friends and family. The fact that politicians elsewhere engage in greed, betrayal, licking their vomit, dishonesty, corruption, and deception does not make those practices acceptable. Greed, dishonor, shamelessness, and opportunism do not become right because they are widespread or because others do them too. I’m sure you’ll be the first to condemn Adama Barrow if he were to say that politicians in America and Kenya are also corrupt, so it’s okay for him to be corrupt too. Hamgen lanla, stop trying to shield your family and friends at all costs! By continuing to dig in, you are not only projecting a visceral tribal nature, you are displaying your mindlessness for all to see!
“Older Gambian Politicians shifted allegiance too.”
Seriously? Now we are invoking the history of older Gambian politicians shifting allegiances, as though yesterday’s opportunism can justify today’s. It cannot. Political opportunism does not become honorable through repetition, and selfishness does not become virtue simply because it is common. Self-preservation does not excuse greed, corruption, or betrayal. If you are capable of any reflection at all, ask yourself: if this were Seedy Njie or Mai Fatty, would I hold the position I do on this issue? And try to be honest with yourself!
I understand this is The Gambia: ku raccha taii sa kanam! Support your tribesman. Support your family member. Support your friend. But note that when right and wrong shift depending on who the subject is, loyalty becomes complicity. The hypocrisy we condemn in others does not become honorable simply because we remain mindlessly loyal to our friends, family, and colleagues. The Gambia will not change until we stop treating accountability as something meant only for “the others.” If we truly want better politics, we must begin with the courage to hold our own people and ourselves to the same standards we demand of everyone else. This Raccha taii sa kanam business will not take us anywhere!
Alhagie Saidy Barrow
US