Africa-Press – Gambia. Here is a highly charged piece by none other than our own erudite and smart journalist Saikou Jammeh about tribalism. He has not just gone personal and deep, but opens a conversation that could be both inconvenient yet very enlightening.
In this insightful piece ‘We are all guilty. But is there any leader at home?’, Saikou delves into the subject of tribalism – a malaise afflicting and strangulating our society since Independence thereby denying most of us personal and collective liberty and progress as it keeps locking our society in backwardness, anachronism and division at the benefit of a few who fuel this menace!
Are you from a majority or minority tribe or religion? What do you understand about that? Who truly promotes tribalism? How and why? Here’s a succinct view from Saikou.
“What binds us, practically, is the state: the institution that manages our shared resources, represents our collective interests, and through the rule of law and moral leadership, shows us how to live with one another. Call it outright socialism, but is there a better idea out there! The Government must be up to the task of uniting us.
But our leaders nowadays seem to think that governing is all about building new roads and bridges from foreign loans, and even when doing so, they destroy the social bridges that connect our peoples for centuries. We must change course. If that means dismantling our current governance structures, so be it.”
Everything revolves around this. This is where a national conversation and civic education is necessary. All this tribalism, religionism and regionalism not to mention sexism and intolerance and polarization comes down to the failure of leadership and the State.
Tribalism is a product of leadership and state failure. When the leaders are corrupt, they become unethical and disregard the law to satisfy their lust for power and wealth. In this agenda, division, manipulation and disinformation become their tools and modus operandi. In this regard, ethnicity, religion, region and class become their operating environments to exploit! Unfortunately, uninformed and poor people fall victims to this ploy hence the polarization and hate in society.
This means the solution to tribalism is the creation of ethical and accountable leadership and good governance. Not just in government but also in political parties.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
Source: The Standard Newspaper | Gambia
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