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Momodou
Denmark
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 Posted - 20 Oct 2007 : 22:22:03
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
1986-A PARTY OF A NEW TYPE ESTABLISHED, THE PDOIS “Empowerment of the People Is Our Goal”
With Suwaibou Touray
We have been focusing on politics in this column. We are now in 1986, which preceded an election year 1987. In the last edition, we dealt with the emergence of the GPP (Gambia People’s Party) led by Hon Assan Musa Camara. In this edition we will focus on the emergence of yet another political party, the PDOIS (People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence And Socialism).
Let us start from where we have stopped.
The mid 1986 also witnessed the emergence of yet another political party. The PDOIS (People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism). In July 1986 about 30 or so intellectuals and or interested persons were consulted to come together and discuss a draft manifesto for the new party. The discussion took two days to complete. The meeting that was considered as the party’s first congress took place at Kololi.
The draft manifesto was discussed, differences thrashed and eventually adopted. The participants also agreed to make it public the formation of the party. This day was the historic day of 31st July 1986. The election to various working positions was done and the following persons wee elected to start the operation and management of the party as from henceforth; Mr. Sidia Jatta was elected Chairperson; Mr. Halifa Sallah-Secretary General; Mrs. Amie Sillah, Secretary to women and Child Affairs and Mr. Sam Sarr, Secretary to the Information Bureau.
Immediately after this maiden congress, the PDOIS established a political Bureau in Bundung. The rest of 1986 was used to sensitize the general public on the reasons for PDOIS’ emergence. The second objective was to scout for members who would be trained as party militants for the onward transmission of information to the general public. By November 1986, the PDOIS commenced their first open rallies. The first rally was held at Latirkunda Yiringaya. The second one was held in Banjul. The Party spent the rest of 1986 having rallies in the greater Banjul area.
The PDOIS’ leaflets and speeches deplore the wretched conditions of the vast majority of the people of The Gambia in particular, Africa in general and the world at large. It deplores what it calls the torrential rain of unemployment and poverty, which they said, threatens to flood the globe. The economy they said was being subjected to what they called shock therapy to regulate brain waves, which had been over wound by difficult times. The PDOIS maintains that the world is moving but many of those at the helm do not know where it is heading. They said hopes are being dashed and clarity being suppressed. Confusion, despair and depression they said seem to rule the spirit of the people and noble ideas are shriveling like leaves at the mercy of the harmattan wind.
The PDOIS in explaining the reasons for their emergence continued to emphasize that fatalism has acquired new momentum as Nations, Regions and Individuals become more inward looking and self-centered. They felt that what was could no longer be and what is will not always be. The past they said must give way to the future.
The PDOIS in their maiden rallies emphasized that the people are left with the freedom to choose whether to ride like beasts on the winds of time and float from the past into the future that is just a void or develop our minds and skills and put them into operation to understand nature and society in order to produce our intellectual, material and cultural requirements and thus become the guardians of our own destiny.
The PDOIS maintains and agreed that it is true that human beings can live as wretched and hopeless beasts at the mercy of economic, social and natural forces, but argued that we also have the unlimited capacity to build a bright and predictable future of carving the earth into a beautiful home that can ensure our protection from all the ravages of life. They said in their leaflets that the problems of humanity seems to appear insurmountable, but only because we have not made the determined effort required to understand them. Knowledge is the key to the solutions of the problems of humanity, the leaflets maintained. Those who lack knowledge cannot guide the destiny of human kind. The misguided too, PDOIS maintains, are not competent to give guidance. “The uninspired cannot give inspiration to the dispirited”. What the world requires at that historical juncture, they said, are people who can give knowledge to those in darkness and inspiration to the disheartened. These, the leaflets say, are the demands of our times.
From the leaflets and earlier campaign cassettes of PDOIS, the party envisaged a long and arduous struggle to bring about the desired change. It was meant to be a protracted struggle, with the purpose of cultivating a highly informed populace who ultimately will be capable of transforming or changing information and knowledge into clarity and power to invest, design and build a society that can guarantee all the people liberty, dignity and prosperity.
According to the pioneers, their objective is to broaden the horizon of the minds of the people so that we can all become the architects of our own destiny. The empowerment of the people is not possible, PDOIS asserted, without making knowledge their property. “Ignorance robs a person of self confidence. Ignorance leads to a culture of silence and apathy. It makes a person an object that does not act to help develop their conditions; ignorance is a chain around the mind. Information and knowledge help to break the chains that keep our people as captives of ignorance”.
According to Sidia Jatta, the reason why they have embarked on such a protracted and somewhat torturous but noble national duty knowing that it could take more than one’s life time before its accomplishment is the fact that as human beings, we cannot live forever and ever but as he observed, some people come and go and are forgotten but as he said there are others who do not die, they stay forever. He said human beings who don’t die are those who serve humanity in the course of their existence. He said such people are always survived by their deeds; that their deeds continued to serve humanity even when they had gone. Such human beings he said are even better than those who may be living with us today.
According to Barbara Goodwin in her book “using political ideas” social scientists have long held the view that history is a dialectical process; that it proceeds through contradictions; that contradictions between economic and social relations, and the antagonisms between the two major classes is what develops in each new historical period.
Barbara analyzed the view that Revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but everywhere and at all times; that revolutions were the essential outcome of circumstances quite independent of the will and the leadership of particular parties and entire classes. She said a revolution would come when the conditions are appropriate. In her quotations, she opined that men make their history by themselves but only they do so in a given environment and often what emerges is something that no one willed”.
So the PDOIS set its own stage in 1986 and three eminent intellectuals have taken up the task on their shoulders that they would make their own contribution and leave The Gambian people to make their collective history. This is the first time since independence in 1965 that a party based on ideological clarity is established in The Gambia. With ideology, a party or its members become principled, and predictable.
Throughout the history of Gambian politics, politicians have been cross carpeting from one opposition party to the ruling party. Most of these people were not committed to any ideology whatsoever .The reason for that is because they lacked ideology and principle. Their ideology therefore is synonymous to their individual interest.
But these three intellectuals, Mr. Sidia Jatta, a linguist by profession, Mr. Halifa Sallah, a sociologist and Mr. Sam Sarr, a scientist and mathematician became the key leaders of the PDOIS. They said they are committed to what they called collective leadership. According to Halifa Sallah, no one sets a date for a genuine change.
See next issue as delve into 1987 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 102/2007, 31 Aug-2 Sept, 2007
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