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Momodou
Denmark
11644 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 19:19:33
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
SMALL INTENSIFIED HIS OGRANISATION OF THE MASSES
By Suwaibou Touray
Continued from: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3154
Immediately after his arrival from the conference in Gold coast where he delivered a paper on the right of West Africans to self-determination, Edward Francis Small established The Gambia chapter of the NCBWA (National Congress of British West Africa) and became its secretary.
Small who also pioneered journalism in The Gambia and who understood the importance of freedom of expression and the dissemination of information in raising public awareness, established a Newspaper known as “The Gambia Outlook.” Small became the editor of both The Gambia Outlook and the subsequent one “The Senegambian Reporter” whose first edition he produced in Dakar, Senegal. Small always took issues up that concerned the people of Bathurst in the pages of The Gambia Outlook and always criticized government policy. By 1929, Small again founded the first Gambia Trade Union; the Bathurst Trade Union (BTU). According to Dawda Faal, the union became strong enough to organise the first labour strike in Gambian history at the end of the same year. It was also seen to be one of the most successful strikes in Africa before the Second World War.
The strike took sixty days which was successful. The aim of the strike was to bring better wages for dockers amongst others. According to the Foroyaa booklet, the colonialists were so overwhelmed that they officially recognised the union and also increased wages. It then became clear that the pressure of an organised people could not be ignored.
At this stage, the demand for election of councils increased in 1930, and an Ordinance was passed, known as the Urban District and Public Health (Amendment) Ordinance. This created the Urban District Council and Board of Health and six members of the council were to be elected. Small decided to lead the Rate Payer’s Association in Banjul (RPA) which was considered as the first quasi-political party in The Gambia. This organisation was established by one R. S. Rendall, a retired ethnic Aku Civil Servant in July 1932, but was led and controlled by Small, through an informal political organisation he had founded in 1931 called “The Committee of Citizens”.
According to records, the RPA was designed to serve as a liaison between the people of the colony and the colonial Government and to provide a pool of interested men and women to stand for election for the Bathurst Urban District Council (BUDC). The pressure yielded fruit and by 1936, the Gambia witnessed its first election in history and the Rate Payers Association won all the six seats open to Africans.
Mark you at this stage; the Bathurst Advisory Town Council (BATC) was purely playing an advisory role. But the BATC served as the training ground for The Gambia’s first political leaders.
Small again in 1931, established “The Gambia Cooperative Marketing Association” to organise the farmers in the country-side. He saw then that the rural masses who carry the brunt of the suffering under colonial rule must participate in the political life of the country. The struggle then intensified and by 1934, the colonialists accepted representation to the colonial authorities for the protectorate town committees to be formed. A proposal was made such as election of members of District councils to serve as advisory bodies to the commissioners and carry out certain local functions. This was, however, rejected by the governor, stating categorically that “The suggestions are aimed at instituting traditional and long standing native customs for an imported system.” He also vehemently argued that “Introduction of committees and councils to the ideas of the protectorate people would destabilise both the people and the traditional leaders.
As it can be clearly seen, the colonialists were afraid of Democracy which was considered by them as an imported system. The fact of the matter however was that the colonialists wanted to remain governors, commissioners and did not want anything that would disrupt their exploitative system. Francis Small started his opposition to colonial rule in 1917 which was also the time when the axis of power and the Allied Powers got embroiled in the First World War
According to Robert W. July, an African historian, the British and French colonialist permitted little political activity on the part of those Africans seeking broader economic and constitutional advantages for the people.
He revealed that the destruction caused by the War on the British and French economies meant that Britain adopted a laisez- faire attitude in British West African trade, thereby favouring economic power to fall in the hands of British firms, whilst the French intensified the exploitation of the colonies to replenish their economy. This was so because it would help to propel the British economy to come out of its down trend.
Politically, it means the struggle was made all the more difficult for Francis Small and his colleagues in Africa, but, it instead induced renewed determination to uproot colonial rule through what was termed as Wilsonian Constitutional means.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 022/2007, 23-25 February, 2007
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