Rejoinder To Samsudeen Sarr’s Rebuttal

By Ebou Gaye

To start with, I would like to thank you for giving me some words of wisdom and advice as a sage with a wealth of experience in different domains. That is very kind of you, my dear bother. Now, I want to proceed to the nitty-gritties without digressing much as you usually do in your writings.

I am inclined to believe that you don’t understand why I referred to you as a spin doctor in my piece, or that you have simply chosen to equivocate and prevaricate. I called you a spin doctor based on the fact that you always try to defend the indefensible, justify the unjustifiable and deny the undeniable in favour of your master to the detriment of your compatriots. I mentioned your flip-flops to back my argument that you have no moral authority to accuse others of double standards, and this applies to your master. I am not averse to attitudinal change as implied in your rebuttal, nor do I believe in rigidity in stance. However, I disapprove of attitudinal change and change of position from better to worse, motivated by material or political gain, as in your case. To me, that is sycophantic, opportunistic and objectionable. Hence, I still regard you as a spin doctor. I hope this clarification has satisfactorily answered your question whether I would call Barack Obama a spin doctor for changing US stance and policy towards Cuba and reconciling the Americans with the Cubans. To be precise, I vociferate that I would not call him a spin doctor. I would rather extol and eulogize him as a statesman, unlike your master who has the nasty habit of alienating and abandoning his allies after benefitting immensely from them, as he has done with Iran, Libya and Taiwan.

I am disappointed that you have not answered the questions I posed and failed to address most of the issues I raised. You have digressed too much as a way of evading the questions. You have resorted to castigating the US which you ironically have adopted as your new home after fleeing from your master, claiming that the Whites in general are against your master and that they are the only ones denouncing him for his human rights violations based on racism. Judging by these complaints and your lamentation in your previous article that the African leaders treat your master unfairly by denying him the chance to head their regional bodies, despites his “vast experience” as a long-serving head of state, one can rightly conclude that there is something wrong with him. Would you dare tell us that the whole world is wrong and your master right? If you really love your master as you want to make him and his blind loyalists believe, you should advise him to change his attitude as you have advised me to do, rather than blaming people for condemning his atrocious behaviour. I think you don’t love me more than you love him. Anyway, I stand to be correct. Besides, you should advise him to stop going to the Whites and sending his family members to them for medical treatment, lest the Whites harm them as they “hate” him. Since he can cure all diseases- including mysterious ones- using traditional medicine, it is neither logical nor advisable for him to seek medical treatment from his “enemies”. Additionally, it would be of immense benefit and a great favour for him and his family if you could kindly discourage him from sending his wife to the US for delivery, as that is unwise and imprudent. As a “pan-Africanist” and a sworn enemy of the West, I wonder why he prefers having his children born on Western soil to having them born on African soil. That is the climax of inconsistency, hypocrisy and irony!

Even if the Americans violate human rights outside the US as you have indicated, that doesn’t give your master the licence to brutalize his compatriots whom he has sworn to serve without fear or favour, affection or ill-will, and doesn’t deny us the right to criticize him as Gambians when he goes wrong. If you are really fair with Gambians and wish them well as you always claim, you should do your best to dissuade your master from violating their God-given, inalienable rights, or at least keep quiet and refrain from defending him in case of human rights violation as you did recently, incurring the wrath of your compatriots. Do you value the lives of those you say the Americans have violated their rights more than the lives of your fellow Gambians? That is exactly what you have demonstrated with your attitude. You don’t care about the welfare of Gambians. Personal interest supersedes national interest in your book. The fact that you have the guts to criticize the US authorities while residing in the US but lack the courage to criticize the Gambian authorities while in The Gambia clearly shows that the Americans are much more tolerant than your master.

Your claim that the Whites are the only ones censuring your master for human rights violations doesn’t hold water. People of all races, tribes, religions and colours- particularly Gambians- condemn the human rights violations under your master’s reign. A prominent Gambian politician and human rights defender defied your master when he sent his sorcerers to force Gambians to drink concocted poisonous, hallucinating liquid in the name of hunting suspected witches and wizards. Many people lost their lives during the exercise, with many more falling gravely ill. Your master was infuriated by the defiant stance of that great man, who vowed to stop that abhorrent, repugnant witch-hunting exercise by documenting and exposing it globally, saying that he was ready to die to save the lives of others who might fall victim. He was arrested under the instruction of your master, charged with opposing a government policy on witch-hunting and taken to court. However, your master abruptly backed down and released him, cognizant of the embarrassment the trial would cause for him. Your master’s act runs counter to the concept of pan-Africanism which he claims to embrace. A pan-Africanist calling Africans witches and wizards in this century! Isn’t that ironic? I only hope that you will not try to defend him or justify this barbaric act of his. Your master used to throw biscuits on the road for children to pick while travelling in his convoy. Many children have been crushed to death by speeding vehicles in the convoy. Again, a Gambian newspaper with which the aforementioned brave human rights defender is associated strongly condemned the practice and wrote to your master’s office on several occasions, appealing to him to desist from the despicable practice. Many other Gambians voiced their anger and denounced the brutal acts but your master remorselessly and vaingloriously turned deaf ears and blind eyes, leading people to believe that his acts were meant to trap and kill children as human sacrifice. Hence, Gambians and other people- regardless of race and colour- are concerned about your master’s human rights violations and condemn them accordingly, contrary your claim that only white people criticize your master for human rights violations and do it out of racism. Your master, as a self-proclaimed pan-Africanist, should be ashamed of being told by the Whites to respect the rights of his people and treat them fairly and justly. What is your take?

You have asked me where I was when the Americans were planning to go to war in Iran in 2003, with the aim of eliciting my reaction on the matter and- at the same time- prove that the Americans don’t respect human rights. My answer is that I was in the United Kingdom. As for my reaction, I gave it at the time. I wrote a lengthy article on the issue, entitled War on Iran. To summarize that article for you, I proceed thus: I condemned the acts of the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair and those of the US President, George W Bush in the strongest possible terms, as both of them were unseasonably obstinate and adamant in their position of ensuring the removal of Saddam at all cost. I mentioned how they fabricated and doctored evidence in their earnest efforts to convince their people and the world at large that uprooting Saddam was a worthwhile venture, which I judged utterly wrong. I explained how Tony Blair’s spin doctors- your ilk- hurriedly lifted a huge chunk from the thesis of an Iraqi student of the University of Cambridge- without even bothering to rectify the grammatical errors in it- with a view to using it as evidence against Saddam. I analysed Nelson Mandela’s statement that Blair was behaving more like a US secretary of state than a British prime minister in his blind support to Bush, and why the British press branded Blair poodle (a kind of dog) for Bush. I also made it crystal clear that I was not the least convinced that Bush and Blair wanted to remove Saddam Hussein for the purpose of guaranteeing peace and security and salvaging the Iraqis as they claimed. I pointed out that they had set a bad, dangerous precedent by defying the United Nations and acting in isolation of the world, interpreting their acts as sheer arrogance. I went further to denounce Saddam who, like your master, had no regard at all for his people and as such treated them with utter disrespect and contempt, and brutalized them exceedingly. In addition, I condemned his querulous, aggressive behaviour towards his neighbours; he fought an eight-year long war with Iran and later invaded Kuwait, which I believe was the cause of his downfall. In both cases, he confessed to his wrong deeds after the colossal human and material damage had already been done, claiming that he was remorseful. Saddam once ordered his first cousin Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, who was nicknamed Chemical Ali due to his notoriety and use of chemical weapons against Saddam’s opponents and perceived enemies, to fly a helicopter over a densely populated area in Iraq to spray the residents (Kurds) with chemical. Thousands of people died like insects during that brutal operation, and many got seriously injured. I was filled with indignation after watching the horror video of the operation in a language lab in Saudi Arabia when the 1991 Gulf war was about to start. Saddam boastfully dubbed that war the mother of all battles at the beginning but ended up suffering a humiliating defeat in it, surrendering unconditionally after brutalizing the people of Kuwait, looting some valuable properties in Kuwait and destroying others, and sending missiles to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Although I totally disagreed with Bush and Blair in their stance and acts, I don’t believe they could or would brutalize their own people as Saddam used to do. As you can see, Mr Sarr, I believe in the saying that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, unlike you who condone, endorse, defend and justify injustice and cruelty in your own country but denounce them when they happen elsewhere.

You have hailed me for disclosing my identity in my piece, implying that you are surprised that I have the courage to do so and that many of your critics lack the courage to come in the open. So you cherish the illusion that people are afraid of you, just like your master. You have manifested your arrogance with your remarks. Why do you think people should fear you to the extent that they conceal or hide their identities when criticizing you? If people are brave enough to criticize your master openly, why do you think they lack the nerve to do the same thing with you? Point of correction: I am not the only one who has criticized you openly. Many other Gambians have criticized you verbally and in writing revealing their identities. People will continue to criticize you as long as you comment on issues affecting them. Make no mistake about that!

You have interpreted my feelings and personality negatively based on my photo. I have no comment on this. Those who know me personally are in a better position than me to judge whether your interpretations are correct or incorrect. However, your interpretations have reminded me of your master’s claim that he can tell a person’s character by simply looking at her/his photo. In an attempt to mystify himself as usual, your master claimed at a recent rally in Sukuta that he told one of his ministers during their salad days that his girlfriend was not a good person and advised him to ditch her, saying that he reached that conclusion just by looking at her photo. According to him, he was later vindicated, as the lady was caught messing around. Interesting! Isn’t? Everybody was astonished and dumbfounded. His audience expected him to address the pressing issues affecting his people rather than bombarding them with trivialities and implausible claims. Like I said in my previous piece, you resemble your master. People who can make such claims are capable of claiming anything, unmindful of how others view them. Your untenable, absurd and ridiculous claims have unmasked you, giving a clear picture of who you and your master really are. Let the readers be their own judges!

Ends