Undeniably, societies nowadays face many problems and challenges such as the lack of co-existence and social harmonisation between their members. This is more widespread in our part of the world. The lack of unity in Africa has been the recipe for underdevelopment. Reason for such state-of-affairs remains a mystery. Whatever the reason, there is now growing belief that the heartbeat of collective prosperity lies in unity.
Truly, unity promotes peace and love in a nation. It produces strength where united people can put efforts in elimination of vices like corruption and tribalism and also to fight diseases by adopting more hygienic standards of living. Unity also enhances political stability in a nation, minimises and eventually eliminates intercommunity suspicions where it gives people a sense of security for they are able to know each other better and understand each others’ ways.
Clearly, The Gambia’s problems are Africa’s problems. These problems may include power shortages, poor roads and poverty. But if we can create solutions to these problems, then they become Africa’s solutions. These are collective problems that we should all feel intensely. But you can see the work of unity in the collective prosperity of some of the world’s biggest nations.
Thus, when we all join together and work collectively as Gambians for the wellbeing of the country, we can solve our problems. The feeling of national unity is crucial and it will lead the nation towards further progress and prosperity. This feeling should not be taken for grant. The Gambia has reached a crucial stage in her development and only in unity can we conquer what is left of our problems.
But it should also be maintained that national unity is an aspiration of people in all societies, but in many cases it cannot be achieved on the ground and if so, it would quickly break down and starts to emerge among the same society members. The term development may vary in meaning but unity has earned its rightful place as a precondition in it.
It is true that The Gambia boasts of many qualities that bring about development. Many are always tempted to first point to the level of unity among us. This is commendable but more needs to be done to strengthen our togetherness and solidarity. It is especially critical because we have decided to take our country to the next level of development.
Nonetheless, today’s development challenges are well-known. Economies have found themselves in deep trouble and the level of poverty is rising in most parts of the world. Wars are being fought amid great injustice with income inequalities in some of these countries widening. It is now clear that we must advocate greater unity to solve these problems. It is only through this that the economic, social and environmental development implementation efforts would to be reintegrated.
As Gambians, it is vital that we prevent the tunnel vision that has the potential to create a glass ceiling for our accomplishments, such that they are limited to short-term success. For if all we aim for is solo endeavour that has no lasting impact on society, then we will never achieve true greatness. We have to choose to see things beyond The Gambia. You may be the manager of your company, but you will be much more than that if you are engaged in The Gambia’s challenges.
]]>
