By Baba Galleh Jallow
Former Executive Secretary, TRRC
One of the most damaging legacies of the Jammeh dictatorship is a politics of make-believe, a politics which does not recognise the importance of truth in framing and conducting our national discourse, or in preserving our healthy social norms and values, or respecting our sacred religious obligations which forbid lying in pursuit of worldly gains. Inherited from two decades of both political and moral impunity on the part of the ousted dictator and his minions, this nefarious politics of lies continues to distort our national discourse, sugarcoat our difficult national realities and erode the moral fabric of our society.
After suffering two decades of imposed silence and brutal suppression of the truth in areas of our national discourse where it mattered most, the time is ripe for us to openly and frankly debate national issues, to openly criticise our political leaders – both in and out of government – when they go wrong, and to express our dissent from government policies and actions that are inimical to our national interest. The freedoms we enjoy today were not handed to us on a silver platter; they were won by the sacrifices – the blood, sweat, and tears – of the Gambian people. We cannot allow them to be swallowed by a politics of lies and cronyism that claim perfections that never were and can never be. In post-Jammeh Gambia, truth cannot be monopolised by political power. It must be spoken and lived in real public life in as civil a manner as possible.
We all must understand that disagreement over political and governance issues may only effectively be normalized through an uncompromising if measured politics of truth. Only this matches the reality of our existence as a human society, as a society of fallible human beings, and as a society still reeling from the effects of political cruelty. We must accept that as citizens it is inevitable that we hold different truths, and that we must allow for the co-existence of competing narratives. Within this context of competing narratives however, we must insist that false narratives or narratives that privilege parochial selfish interests over collective national interests do not go unchallenged. The era of might is right is no longer with us. May it rest in peace.
By practicing a measured politics of truth, we will move our country further away from a condition of enforced consensus to a condition of intelligent pluralism. Gambians must refuse to be treated as passive recipients of government service or political patronage in exchange for numbness to narratives of denial and blatant falsehood that insist on donning the colours of truth and do-goodism. We must insist that our utterances, the utterances of our leaders in government and our representatives in parliament must be characterized by unalloyed integrity, guarded by an ethos of accountability, and marked by unmistakable devotion to the common good. Only by being committed to speaking the truth TO each other and FOR each other, regardless of our differences and divergences of opinion can we build a political culture that will move this country in the right direction and stand the test of time.
Most leaders often want to be judged entirely by how well they perform – the projects they initiate, the roads, schools, and hospitals they build. These are certainly important yardsticks for the measurement of leadership. But they are by no means the only criteria by which leadership is judged. It is equally important that leaders are unfailingly truthful and trustworthy. Without truthfulness and trustworthiness, leadership becomes a theatre of fake performance that cannot stand serious scrutiny and that is bound to fail in the medium to long term, with disastrous consequences for our country. We cannot afford such failure in post-Jammeh Gambia.
The politics of truth promotes a culture mutual respect among all political actors, and between citizens and the state. The culture of rational compromise generated through a politics of truth will encourage civility, act as a form of preventive public diplomacy, mitigate conflict situations, promote peace, security and stability, and harness the creative potentials of the Gambian people. A politics of truth will strengthen democratic accountability by ensuring that leaders are scrutinised in a civil manner, public policies are debated rationally, and government and all political actors’ decisions are questioned judiciously. This will reduce the prevalence of unchecked political authority and persistent government and public service failures that go unchallenged and therefore unremedied. A politics of truth will ultimately develop politically conscious and empowered citizens and a society that actively engages in healthy national conversations where civility is observed but the truth is told without fear or favour, affection or ill will.
As a country emerging from two decades of brutal dictatorship and gross human rights violations, practicing a politics of truth in post-Jammeh Gambia will challenge and diminish the abuse of political authority and prevent the return of political impunity and despotism. When power is questioned in a truthful and civil manner, narratives of personal political entitlement are challenged and emergent authoritarian tendencies are nipped in the bud. Importantly, a politics of truth will encourage honest leadership and the growth of effective public institutions whose legitimacy will depend on their capacity to act in a transparent and responsible manner. Ultimately, our leadership and governance systems will be strengthened and public trust in the state’s capacity to deliver restored.
Of course, practicing a politics of truth will not be as easy as it sounds. As we are already seeing in post-Jammeh Gambia, some people will challenge any and all truths that threaten their positions as top government officials or question the credibility of their patrons. They deny any and all charges of wrongdoing by themselves or their patrons and support any and all actions by themselves or their patrons. They will castigate and malign one political actor today only to turn around and insist that same political actor is the best thing that ever happened to Gambia. We also see political actors uttering selective truths designed to mobilize support or discredit opponents. Only a politics of truth can help us effectively navigate this rather messy political landscape of competing narratives of legitimacy, the unabashed furthering of dubious claims to power and privilege, the ugly phenomenon of political chameleons that take on the colour of the nearest political patron, and the ever-present danger of creeping authoritarian tendencies seeking legitimacy through a show of public do-goodism. The politics of truth will help us establish, as a general rule, that some lines may never be crossed by any citizen, as crossing them poses an existential threat to the collective good of this country. The truth that set us free from the Jammeh dictatorship must keep us free in post-Jammeh Gambia. #NeverAgain!
