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WHY OUR SINGAPORE DREAM STILL ELUDES US

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[quote][i]Originally posted by Momodou[/i]
[br][b][size=4]INDEPENDENT AFRICA PRODUCED TOO MANY MOSESES BUT NO JOSHUAS - WHY OUR SINGAPORE DREAM STILL ELUDES US[/size=4]
By Dembo Fatty[/b]

Since the days of Jawara, we have been sold the idea of Tesito, a word which means to tie one�s waist or simply to strive for hard work. As a young man in my teens, I remember Halifa and Sedia Jatta at many rallies around Bundung Borehole and especially around Serrekunda market heading towards Serrekunda Primary school where they organized events more frequently by a mango tree which I believe is believe has now become a taxi park, castigating the idea of Tesito.

�Judo chi chono, maggay chi chono, daye chi chono� were signature phrases of Halifa of his youthful years which I since memorized. The idea of being free and being masters of our destinies laced a lot of our conversations. Some of my friends even took independence too far by refusing to drink imported soft drinks. �Wonjo�, �Bisab� or �Dakharr� of �Tallo� were there drinks and in their absence, water was the only allowed official drink in their single rooms they rented. Others chose local shoes like �Padam Njahen� or traditional wears like �Kasi konyong� or �jam poot�. Youth years are interesting years of one�s life and looking back, one sometimes laughs one�s head off in surprise in the transformation.

Even without internet, I always knew when next another event was taking place either through like-minded friends or passing by the Bureau in Churchill�s Town. Later on, I would come close to an uncle who became a candidate on PDOIS ticket and some of us were rushed to a family meeting as being the instigators of the move and which I must admit never knew about it until I heard it on the radio. I was just an innocent kid perhaps with a radical inclination at the time.

Independence meant a lot me and some of my friends I grew up with like Habib Bah who I still respect and look up to especially his radical approach to governance imbued in the philosophy of Africans finding solutions to African problems and using our resources to generate wealth for the common good. He and I debated quite often in Primary School and although my senior by one class, we did a few bouts under the� tabo� tree at Kuntaur Primary School. I remember on one occasion, he spoke against a motion and I spoke for the motion and after we finished, we were asked to switch sides and each trashing his own earlier position, quite an uncomfortable experience but it built us to be critical in our thinking and I think since then, I have never been dogmatic in my believes. I saw myself as fallible and that a position I take can and should be abandoned if presented with alternate facts.

The reason why I brought up all these is because they all point in one direction. The need to usher our people to higher heights, provide them with better living conditions in dignity and respect for the individual to be who he or she wants to be without undue interference either from family or from the institutions of state. That request for self-propelling is the underling of every genuine struggle for independence.
Sedia would elaborate further on how �tesito� has gripped our waist lines to the point of severing our body into two yet we saw no improvements in our lives. His analogy of the frog who decided that he would live in a well all by itself and how that ended to its death when the well dried up, basically putting forward an argument of the symbiotic relationships and interdependence of man as a social being.  This kind of debate I must say predated both Halifa and Sedia as many student groups during the colonial time would gather to argue on the merits of freedom and independence giving highfalutin expectations.

Let�s not digress.

Years into our independence, the Jawara�s government came up with the idea of a Singapore Dream. A dream that we will one day be at par with Singapore in terms of technology (both the human software and the technical hardware), infrastructural development and a center of commerce unparalleled in our neck of the woods. Many funds were put into gear, many workshops, trainings, travels to conferences and back and to their credit some institutions like NIB popped up to provide the impetus for a more organized approach to development and a one stop shop for foreign investments both direct or indirect flow of resources.

We must ask why Jawara compared us to Singapore, and why, if I may use our local term, why did Jawara �yab� the people of Singapore to compare us with them. Here are some of the few reasons.

1. Singapore became a British colony in 1819 and we had ours in 1816.
2. Singapore gained independence in 1963, joined other nations to form Malaysia but broke off and became a sovereign nation in 1965. We also became independent in 1965
3.  Singapore is Just 277 Square miles and we are 4,361 square miles.
4. Singapore was believed to be a non-viable nation at independence and so were we.
5. Singapore was a British colony and were we.
6. Singapore was a poor nation at independence and so were we.
7. Singapore had a population of about 1.9 million at independence; we were just 330,000 in 1965.

These are perhaps what Jawara and his government saw and thought they could make us like Singapore. These are almost the only things we had comparable at independence. Why did we end up on different path in terms development?

Some people argued that Singapore benefitted from British infrastructural development more than we had but I would say in response that when the British left, they left an open gap in their GDP of about 40% which they needed to fill. We also had these same gaps at independence. File covers at the Prime Minister�s Office had the words �In Her Majesty�s Service� which civil servants would cross off and write �In the Service of the Gambia Government�- too poor to print our own file jackets.

These are two comparable countries given the same start and yet while one is almost landing on the stars, the other is still looking for fuel to start the engines.

WHY SINGAPORE IS WHERE IT IS

One key difference Singapore had which we don�t have is a committed citizenry. A citizenry, who are ready to sacrifice more today, despite all the pain and suffering in order to see a better future for themselves and the generations to come. That was why I posted the quote from Sembene Ousmane:

Benna Baaram bounge tallal, ab jokhonge la
Jooromi Baaram YoungeTallal, chi kooye romba, yelleh waan la

Singapore, since its independence never looked up to anyone for foreign aid. They were ready to work with any foreign partner but they have and for the most part avoided stretching their hands for help. They never depended on foreign policy that was aid based. Scratch my back and I give you support. That�s why Gambia kept switching between China and Taiwan depending on the highest bidder. At one point am told, Gambia voted against China�s admission to the Security Council if my memory serves me right. Both PPP government and the APRC governments towed the same strategy for 52 years. May be we can do business differently.

The Mandinka people say:

Al nang maakoye, yeh saatewo meng lo, maa nyaasoto, woleh kaa taye.

(The village that is built by Mr. Please Help Me, is destroyed by Mr. I am Worn-out�)

Rely on help only to the extent it can keep you standing for a moment but don�t depend on it as a lively hood.  Yesterday I posted that we each contribute D1000 and set up a fund to be used by NAWEC as a soft loan and all I hear is whining. We are broke, we cannot afford, what is the guarantee and so many issues.

But maybe some of us will not know that in many of the Asian Tigers, their governments instituted compulsory savings schemes where citizens are required to deposit part of their income with the state so that they could embark on development for the common good. They were too proud to ask for help and so everyone complied and now they are where they are. If we ask for compulsory savings, hell will break loose but we are eager to ask how much EU sent and how it was spent. Can we ask each other how much we contributed? Independence means self-reliance.

Singapore was lucky to have visionary leaders who were planning 200 years ahead. We had five year development plans which most of the time, lay dusty in some old cabinets dusted only when IMF officials show up in town so we have something to present to them and then ask for more loans or aid. The Singaporean leaders frowned on personal wealth and were not afraid to enforce the law.

We had all the laws we needed as well, but maybe we are still waiting for another law to be enacted which says, all laws must be obeyed.  For 52 years, state accounts are haphazardly audited and in some cases for years not a single audit report is provided yet we canonize those public officials who lived beyond their means as if development is only when you get a free ride in a Minister�s car while waiting for a school bus at Gambia High School or have some biscuits thrown at you from a benevolent public official.

Our tolerance for inequality is contagious to say the least.
Free trade and a corrupt free society became magnates for big corporations like General Electric to move to the seaside state with resultant effect of technology transfer and increased employment for citizens. Singapore�s per capita GDP rose from $500 in 1965 to $14,500 by 1991. Sadly, just around this time, Gambia was already in recession in which 25% of civil servants were retrenched due to a bloated public service choking the revenue base and with an inefficient public and private sector economies, it was just a matter of time not if, for the state to grind to a halt. A civil service that was not ready to catapult the Gambian economy beyond the Saaro Mill at Denton Bridge.

An assault on poverty and housing led to the establishment of the Housing Development Board and Economic Development Board much like our NIB and SSHFC. We are definitely good copy cats. The housing board transformed this space constrained seaside state to one of the metropolis of Asia. Oh our SSHFC and NIB  appear to have been sleeping at the switch since inception. Kanifing Estate looks like no one ever planned anything whilst Bakoteh Housing was nothing but designated slum with houses like igloos some of which have been brought down by owners to meet the challenges of the times.

Today, Singapore is seizing land from the ocean and building runways to accommodate more international flights. We have land, and we don�t even know how to use it. It�s become a burden for us whilst others are changing the laws of nature; by increasing their territorial land mass.

We are good at changing names but not strategy. NIB is no more and I don�t want to know what name we have now. �Mbooro foff ko forigne  ( all breads are made of flour) my Fulani brethren always remind me.

But we cannot attract direct foreign investment with the energy situation we have, and the suitcase financial transfer scheme we are witnessing at the Commission where millions of dollars are packed like sardines and couriered across town right before the noses of the poor and wretched stretching their hands for help in a hot tropical sun and yet these couriers cannot blink for a moment and feel sorry for the very people they swore to protect.  In the end, these withdrawals melt into thin air no one appears to know where and for over a period of 22 years we are just becoming aware.

Paper based education will not take us anywhere. We have to raise an army to institute technical education and reward those who learn trades. It keeps our demand on foreign exchange low. Today, even the nice �ganyila� or �fara fara� has to come from across the border. A nicely sewn dress is most definitely by a foreign national. Fish you eat is probably fished by a foreign national. We so readily retire our national security in terms of food security, human software and technical hardware  to outsiders while the dream of every child is to put on a suit and sit behind a desk and push a pen. 
We have to improve our intellectual property base by starting to at least make things, produce parts, add value to raw material and perhaps consume it ourselves. We export groundnuts and import vegetable oil. We export fish and give fishing licenses to foreign trawlers and import sardines.  We produce mangoes but import mango juice. It�s a pathetic situation and we cannot continue to do business as usual and expect different results.

We have created many Moses; the ones that take us away from one pharaoh to another. At what point must we start taking ourselves from one Moses to another Joshua and from one Joshua to another Joshua. Let�s create many Joshuas that will continue to deliver us to better Promised Lands each improving on the gains of the previous, hopefully getting us out of the doldrums of ineptitude. We are tired of creating many Moses jumping and dragging us from one crisis only to start another one. We want to have a situation where when one President takes office, the outgoing President stands by and have proper transfer of power. We are tired of sending our Presidents into exile as soon as one comes in. We have never witnessed a peaceful transfer of Office since February 18, 1965. In as much as I hate colonialism, that was the only peaceful transfer of the mantle of government.

The Singapore Dream is not only a deferred dream but an impossible dream given the current variables. So we must stop throwing money at it until we have a radical shift in our ways of doing business. May be we should adopt a new dream called The Gambian Dream instead; where we dream with our eyes open. Until we sleep, even the Gambian Dream will become nothing but a shadowy dream of a mad scientist in whose lab, the upheld standard practices are not valued which may send us the chambers of Self-Destruct.

It�s our choice. We can either be part of civilization and contribute or retire being consumers of other people�s civilization and our export will be nothing but how to teach others how to complain and we will soon run out of buyers.
[/quote]

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T O P I C R E V I E W
Momodou	Posted - 04 Nov 2017 : 08:14:47 INDEPENDENT AFRICA PRODUCED TOO MANY MOSESES BUT NO JOSHUAS - WHY OUR SINGAPORE DREAM STILL ELUDES US By Dembo Fatty Since the days of Jawara, we have been sold the idea of Tesito, a word which means to tie one�s waist or simply to strive for hard work. As a young man in my teens, I remember Halifa and Sedia Jatta at many rallies around Bundung Borehole and especially around Serrekunda market heading towards Serrekunda Primary school where they organized events more frequently by a mango tree which I believe is believe has now become a taxi park, castigating the idea of Tesito. �Judo chi chono, maggay chi chono, daye chi chono� were signature phrases of Halifa of his youthful years which I since memorized. The idea of being free and being masters of our destinies laced a lot of our conversations. Some of my friends even took independence too far by refusing to drink imported soft drinks. �Wonjo�, �Bisab� or �Dakharr� of �Tallo� were there drinks and in their absence, water was the only allowed official drink in their single rooms they rented. Others chose local shoes like �Padam Njahen� or traditional wears like �Kasi konyong� or �jam poot�. Youth years are interesting years of one�s life and looking back, one sometimes laughs one�s head off in surprise in the transformation. Even without internet, I always knew when next another event was taking place either through like-minded friends or passing by the Bureau in Churchill�s Town. Later on, I would come close to an uncle who became a candidate on PDOIS ticket and some of us were rushed to a family meeting as being the instigators of the move and which I must admit never knew about it until I heard it on the radio. I was just an innocent kid perhaps with a radical inclination at the time. Independence meant a lot me and some of my friends I grew up with like Habib Bah who I still respect and look up to especially his radical approach to governance imbued in the philosophy of Africans finding solutions to African problems and using our resources to generate wealth for the common good. He and I debated quite often in Primary School and although my senior by one class, we did a few bouts under the� tabo� tree at Kuntaur Primary School. I remember on one occasion, he spoke against a motion and I spoke for the motion and after we finished, we were asked to switch sides and each trashing his own earlier position, quite an uncomfortable experience but it built us to be critical in our thinking and I think since then, I have never been dogmatic in my believes. I saw myself as fallible and that a position I take can and should be abandoned if presented with alternate facts. The reason why I brought up all these is because they all point in one direction. The need to usher our people to higher heights, provide them with better living conditions in dignity and respect for the individual to be who he or she wants to be without undue interference either from family or from the institutions of state. That request for self-propelling is the underling of every genuine struggle for independence. Sedia would elaborate further on how �tesito� has gripped our waist lines to the point of severing our body into two yet we saw no improvements in our lives. His analogy of the frog who decided that he would live in a well all by itself and how that ended to its death when the well dried up, basically putting forward an argument of the symbiotic relationships and interdependence of man as a social being. This kind of debate I must say predated both Halifa and Sedia as many student groups during the colonial time would gather to argue on the merits of freedom and independence giving highfalutin expectations. Let�s not digress. Years into our independence, the Jawara�s government came up with the idea of a Singapore Dream. A dream that we will one day be at par with Singapore in terms of technology (both the human software and the technical hardware), infrastructural development and a center of commerce unparalleled in our neck of the woods. Many funds were put into gear, many workshops, trainings, travels to conferences and back and to their credit some institutions like NIB popped up to provide the impetus for a more organized approach to development and a one stop shop for foreign investments both direct or indirect flow of resources. We must ask why Jawara compared us to Singapore, and why, if I may use our local term, why did Jawara �yab� the people of Singapore to compare us with them. Here are some of the few reasons. 1. Singapore became a British colony in 1819 and we had ours in 1816. 2. Singapore gained independence in 1963, joined other nations to form Malaysia but broke off and became a sovereign nation in 1965. We also became independent in 1965 3. Singapore is Just 277 Square miles and we are 4,361 square miles. 4. Singapore was believed to be a non-viable nation at independence and so were we. 5. Singapore was a British colony and were we. 6. Singapore was a poor nation at independence and so were we. 7. Singapore had a population of about 1.9 million at independence; we were just 330,000 in 1965. These are perhaps what Jawara and his government saw and thought they could make us like Singapore. These are almost the only things we had comparable at independence. Why did we end up on different path in terms development? Some people argued that Singapore benefitted from British infrastructural development more than we had but I would say in response that when the British left, they left an open gap in their GDP of about 40% which they needed to fill. We also had these same gaps at independence. File covers at the Prime Minister�s Office had the words �In Her Majesty�s Service� which civil servants would cross off and write �In the Service of the Gambia Government�- too poor to print our own file jackets. These are two comparable countries given the same start and yet while one is almost landing on the stars, the other is still looking for fuel to start the engines. WHY SINGAPORE IS WHERE IT IS One key difference Singapore had which we don�t have is a committed citizenry. A citizenry, who are ready to sacrifice more today, despite all the pain and suffering in order to see a better future for themselves and the generations to come. That was why I posted the quote from Sembene Ousmane: Benna Baaram bounge tallal, ab jokhonge la Jooromi Baaram YoungeTallal, chi kooye romba, yelleh waan la Singapore, since its independence never looked up to anyone for foreign aid. They were ready to work with any foreign partner but they have and for the most part avoided stretching their hands for help. They never depended on foreign policy that was aid based. Scratch my back and I give you support. That�s why Gambia kept switching between China and Taiwan depending on the highest bidder. At one point am told, Gambia voted against China�s admission to the Security Council if my memory serves me right. Both PPP government and the APRC governments towed the same strategy for 52 years. May be we can do business differently. The Mandinka people say: Al nang maakoye, yeh saatewo meng lo, maa nyaasoto, woleh kaa taye. (The village that is built by Mr. Please Help Me, is destroyed by Mr. I am Worn-out�) Rely on help only to the extent it can keep you standing for a moment but don�t depend on it as a lively hood. Yesterday I posted that we each contribute D1000 and set up a fund to be used by NAWEC as a soft loan and all I hear is whining. We are broke, we cannot afford, what is the guarantee and so many issues. But maybe some of us will not know that in many of the Asian Tigers, their governments instituted compulsory savings schemes where citizens are required to deposit part of their income with the state so that they could embark on development for the common good. They were too proud to ask for help and so everyone complied and now they are where they are. If we ask for compulsory savings, hell will break loose but we are eager to ask how much EU sent and how it was spent. Can we ask each other how much we contributed? Independence means self-reliance. Singapore was lucky to have visionary leaders who were planning 200 years ahead. We had five year development plans which most of the time, lay dusty in some old cabinets dusted only when IMF officials show up in town so we have something to present to them and then ask for more loans or aid. The Singaporean leaders frowned on personal wealth and were not afraid to enforce the law. We had all the laws we needed as well, but maybe we are still waiting for another law to be enacted which says, all laws must be obeyed. For 52 years, state accounts are haphazardly audited and in some cases for years not a single audit report is provided yet we canonize those public officials who lived beyond their means as if development is only when you get a free ride in a Minister�s car while waiting for a school bus at Gambia High School or have some biscuits thrown at you from a benevolent public official. Our tolerance for inequality is contagious to say the least. Free trade and a corrupt free society became magnates for big corporations like General Electric to move to the seaside state with resultant effect of technology transfer and increased employment for citizens. Singapore�s per capita GDP rose from $500 in 1965 to $14,500 by 1991. Sadly, just around this time, Gambia was already in recession in which 25% of civil servants were retrenched due to a bloated public service choking the revenue base and with an inefficient public and private sector economies, it was just a matter of time not if, for the state to grind to a halt. A civil service that was not ready to catapult the Gambian economy beyond the Saaro Mill at Denton Bridge. An assault on poverty and housing led to the establishment of the Housing Development Board and Economic Development Board much like our NIB and SSHFC. We are definitely good copy cats. The housing board transformed this space constrained seaside state to one of the metropolis of Asia. Oh our SSHFC and NIB appear to have been sleeping at the switch since inception. Kanifing Estate looks like no one ever planned anything whilst Bakoteh Housing was nothing but designated slum with houses like igloos some of which have been brought down by owners to meet the challenges of the times. Today, Singapore is seizing land from the ocean and building runways to accommodate more international flights. We have land, and we don�t even know how to use it. It�s become a burden for us whilst others are changing the laws of nature; by increasing their territorial land mass. We are good at changing names but not strategy. NIB is no more and I don�t want to know what name we have now. �Mbooro foff ko forigne ( all breads are made of flour) my Fulani brethren always remind me. But we cannot attract direct foreign investment with the energy situation we have, and the suitcase financial transfer scheme we are witnessing at the Commission where millions of dollars are packed like sardines and couriered across town right before the noses of the poor and wretched stretching their hands for help in a hot tropical sun and yet these couriers cannot blink for a moment and feel sorry for the very people they swore to protect. In the end, these withdrawals melt into thin air no one appears to know where and for over a period of 22 years we are just becoming aware. Paper based education will not take us anywhere. We have to raise an army to institute technical education and reward those who learn trades. It keeps our demand on foreign exchange low. Today, even the nice �ganyila� or �fara fara� has to come from across the border. A nicely sewn dress is most definitely by a foreign national. Fish you eat is probably fished by a foreign national. We so readily retire our national security in terms of food security, human software and technical hardware to outsiders while the dream of every child is to put on a suit and sit behind a desk and push a pen. We have to improve our intellectual property base by starting to at least make things, produce parts, add value to raw material and perhaps consume it ourselves. We export groundnuts and import vegetable oil. We export fish and give fishing licenses to foreign trawlers and import sardines. We produce mangoes but import mango juice. It�s a pathetic situation and we cannot continue to do business as usual and expect different results. We have created many Moses; the ones that take us away from one pharaoh to another. At what point must we start taking ourselves from one Moses to another Joshua and from one Joshua to another Joshua. Let�s create many Joshuas that will continue to deliver us to better Promised Lands each improving on the gains of the previous, hopefully getting us out of the doldrums of ineptitude. We are tired of creating many Moses jumping and dragging us from one crisis only to start another one. We want to have a situation where when one President takes office, the outgoing President stands by and have proper transfer of power. We are tired of sending our Presidents into exile as soon as one comes in. We have never witnessed a peaceful transfer of Office since February 18, 1965. In as much as I hate colonialism, that was the only peaceful transfer of the mantle of government. The Singapore Dream is not only a deferred dream but an impossible dream given the current variables. So we must stop throwing money at it until we have a radical shift in our ways of doing business. May be we should adopt a new dream called The Gambian Dream instead; where we dream with our eyes open. Until we sleep, even the Gambian Dream will become nothing but a shadowy dream of a mad scientist in whose lab, the upheld standard practices are not valued which may send us the chambers of Self-Destruct. It�s our choice. We can either be part of civilization and contribute or retire being consumers of other people�s civilization and our export will be nothing but how to teach others how to complain and we will soon run out of buyers.
6 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)
kayjatta	Posted - 08 Nov 2017 : 11:14:53 quote: Originally posted by toubab1020 Welcome back after more than 3 years,hope to read your thoughts and opinions again very soon,you have been missed. Thank you Toubab !!
toubab1020	Posted - 07 Nov 2017 : 11:25:51 Welcome back after more than 3 years,hope to read your thoughts and opinions again very soon,you have been missed.
kayjatta	Posted - 07 Nov 2017 : 11:02:49 Great article Dembo. I think I remember you at 6th Form, Gambia High- please correct me if I am wrong. I find your article quite interesting and also informative. I just wanted to touch on two minor areas you highlighted in your paper. One is the suggested D1,000 contribution to NAWEC. I find that suggestion an interesting idea but it should perhaps be preceded by a robust accountability system in how NAWEC manages its funds. I tend to worry that with the current situation at NAWEC, those funds will equally go down the tubes without any improvements in the water and electricity supply. I think there are other managerial and financial strategies that NAWEC could employ beyond just piling on debt (or aid). The second point I wanted to touch on are the similarities you have pointed out between Singapore and The Gambia. Perhaps the PPP regime were well-intentioned in the crafting of the "Singaporean Dream", however, the architects of that development model may have failed to take into account the differences in the governance climates between Singapore and The Gambia. What I find particularly intriguing about Singapore, is that despite the high level of prosperity,the people are willing to accept limited political freedoms under successive regimes. Perhaps this has never been the case in The Gambia, under both PPP and APRC. Again thanks for a great article. Best regards !
toubab1020	Posted - 06 Nov 2017 : 17:00:12 I have no thoughts having never been to or lives in Singapore,however the following Blog (I think that's what it is !) location will show you some ideas Will Gambia ever be like Singapore ? join in this discussion and give YOUR OWN OPINION,I wonder if anyone will ====================================================================== https://thehearttruths.com/2013/08/02/how-much-do-you-need-to-earn-to-survive-in-singapore/ quote: Originally posted by Momodou What do you think?
Momodou	Posted - 06 Nov 2017 : 08:23:10 What do you think?
toubab1020	Posted - 05 Nov 2017 : 19:14:59 "May be we can do business differently." VERY WELL SAID,the question that should be asked is, Will it happen? ====================================================================== quote: Originally posted by Momodou INDEPENDENT AFRICA PRODUCED TOO MANY MOSESES BUT NO JOSHUAS - WHY OUR SINGAPORE DREAM STILL ELUDES US By Dembo Fatty

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