By Da One
I tremendously enjoy putting my thoughts on paper. More so, if the topic is of interest to me. I feel the passion oozing out of my mind if I am confident my words and paragraphs will make the difference to someone out there.
On this particular day, I was wondering if I should write my opinion on the pronouncements at the meeting held by Adama Barrow in Sarreh Bojo and Hamat Bah’s utterance that Adama could contest the next presidential election on an NRP ticket. Before I could make up my mind on a title and an approach, I saw a post on Facebook of the testimony of Omar Jallow (OJ) at TRRC.
I dragged the play cursor on the video just to get the gist of his testimony. The cursor precisely landed where OJ said the following: “….because I use to say Afrikka has two enemies and they are the army and our intellectuals”. I paused for a moment to reflect on his words. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt. A silence engulfed my thoughts that left me struggling to find the bearings on what I wanted to write about. This most have gone on for close to two solid hours before I could make sense of what was going on in my mind that is preventing me from joining the words that were obviously circling in my brain eager to come out to form coherent sentences.
All of a sudden, it dawned on me that all the issues, the challenges, and the opportunities our country faces are complex and intricate in nature. And history uses us as tools to produce, reproduce and archive its contents. So, my mind was asking for a break when I would not listen, it shut down itself.
As it came back, the words of Omar Jallow emerged again. But then I ask myself how could the people we entrusted with securing the territorial integrity of our nations become the enemy. And how can those morally obligated to create and share knowledge to make sure we as human beings and Afrikkans live in happiness and prosperity turn to become the enemies. Omar Jallow was ranting at the TRRC, however, these words he uttered should ring a very loud bell. An elite class of politicians, including Omar Jallow himself, has held us hostage in perpetual poverty and ignorance for six decades. All over Afrikka, when the exploitation and the subjugation of the masses reaches a crescendo, it so happens that a small group of military men take it upon themselves to change the political and social orders with promises of milk and honey, in a land of endless freedoms and opportunities. And then they end up becoming entrenched through corruption and naked brutality.
That was what Omar Jallow should have said. But also that amongst the lot of the Afrikkan intellectuals and soldiers, there were and still are men and women of impeccable character and unquestionable morals. The caliber of these men and women like Thomas Sankara of blessed memory, Kwame Nkurumah, Julius Nyerere, Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, Tukolorr Sey, Winnie Mandela, etc., are what we need to be producing more of. Men and women, young and old, who understand that the process of liberation from mental chains of colonization and neo-colonization has still to be intensified through dedicated conscious work.
My mind goes blank again. This time around, I’m giving it a long break.