The dialectics of African despotism

By Baba Galleh Jallow

Recently, a Nigerian judge of the Gambian High Court convicted and sentenced six journalists on charges of defamation and sedition. After one month at Gambia's notorious Mile Two prisons, President Jammeh broke under immense national and international pressure and "pardoned" the journalists. They were released from prison at a stage-managed ceremony in which the interior minister and other stooges - with TV cameras flashing - praised the Gambian president for his magnanimity and made the usual call for journalists to be careful what they write about His Infallible Excellency.

The conviction of six Gambian journalists by a judge of the High Court was not an imposition of justice. It was a denial of justice. People who rightly commit crimes may justly be convicted and sentenced in a court of law. But the six journalists jailed by Emmanuel Fangbele did not commit any crime. They were merely victims of a political dispensation that is totally and absolutely under the control of one individual who has made himself synonymous with all the institutions of state, all the arms of government, and the very law itself. These six innocent people - including a nursing mother with a seven-month-old baby - were put through the formal motions of trial, but they were presumed guilty the day they were arrested and were presumed guilty throughout the process of their so-called trial.

The kind of situation under which these six journalists were put on trial and sentenced can only happen in an environment of despotism where there is absolutely no regard for the rule of law, the constitution, and human worth as far as these run counter to the whims and caprices of the despot himself. Sending six innocent persons to jail for merely criticizing remarks by the president represented the height of judicial hypocrisy and a demonstration of extreme contempt for the Gambian people, the Gambian nation, and the sensibilities of human kind in general. It was a classical manifestation of the nature of African despotism, which is guided by neither ideology nor vision, but merely by the greed for power and an obsessive desire to impose by force what has been called "a culture of monolithic uniformity." A uniformity of views, opinions, desires, actions, and aspirations that must all be co-terminus with those of the blind-minded and blind-hearted despot himself.

In an African despotism such as we now have in The Gambia, there is a great deal of empty talk about patriotism, about enemies of the nation, about the determination of the despot - who pretends to love the country more than anyone else - to fight and subdue all so-called unpatriotic forces in the country. The label of traitor - which the despot rightfully carries - is instead slapped on all who dare to question the words or actions of the despot. All citizens are expected to crawl on all fours, to be willfully blind to the dictates of truth and justice, and to swallow all lies and injustices uttered by the despot. Those self-respecting citizens who refuse to do so are summarily brought before emasculated judiciaries and sentenced to jail terms or heavy fines. If they are particularly critical of the despot, they are brutally murdered or made to disappear. Such was the fate of the students of April 2000 who were brutally mowed down with blazing machine guns, and whose case was conveniently swept under the carpet in the name of national reconciliation.

Such was the case of The Point newspaper's editor Deyda Hydara (pictured above) who was brutally murdered in a drive-by shooting on the night of December 16, 2004, and whose murderers are still at large. And such was the case of reporter Chief Ebrima Manneh (pictured below), who disappeared into thin air after his arrest by secret police operatives of the notorious National Intelligence Agency, which reports directly to the president. The African despot is a fascist without even the benefit of a fascist ideology to guide his actions. At least the kind of fascism that existed in Italy under Mussolini was built around a set of ideas which could be analyzed and exposed for what they were. In an African despotism, all there is to analyze is the dark and evil personality of the despot himself, which is so empty of substance that one is hard-pressed to find a point of analytic departure.

In an African despotism, the frontiers between penal and non-penal deeds are totally effaced. The law becomes not an instrument for the punishment of crime, or an institution for the maintenance of order, but a bogey for the frightening of the population and a sword for the slaughter of principles and human dignities. African despotisms turn the law into a malignant instrument of remote control and surveillance in the service of the callous despot. The law watches out for wrong smiles on the faces of people looking at an image of the despot, listens to wrong words spoken in reference to the despot, and browses the pages of journals for wrong words directed at the person of the despot. In every case, the law, now transformed into a monstrous public enemy number one, is ready to pounce on perceived offenders and tear them into shreds for the benefit of the despot.

In an African despotism, society becomes reduced to a giant masquerade of lies and pretences. All who wish to survive are compelled to keep their minds dormant and their mouths shut. People are compelled to deny their true opinions and to express only fake opinions in praise of the despot. An atmosphere of general mistrust is created in work places and public places because unprincipled liars make it dangerous to express any opinions that are not complimentary to the despot. Unscrupulous and callous individuals take advantage of the high premium placed on sycophancy and lying to cook up stories of unpatriotism against innocent folks and deliver them up to the monster despot. Jealous individuals eying top positions in work places can have their colleagues removed by telling lies about them to the despot.

In such a society, the despot divides the people into two factions. Those who negate their humanity, ignore truth and justice, willfully lie and torture innocent individuals are considered the good and the loyal. Those who cling on to their humanity, who insist on telling the truth, who speak up for justice, who refuse to lie and to crawl on their stomachs like miserable reptiles - those are considered the criminal elements. The natural order of things is therefore stood directly on its head: Truth becomes lies, lies truth. Injustice parades around as justice and the law is rendered an instrument of illegality and criminality. Criminals are glorified and the innocent harshly punished. These are the dialectics of African despotism, the dialectics that have dragged many African societies into the hellhole of violent conflict; the dialectics that the Yahya Jammehs and Robert Mugabes of Africa have imposed upon the citizens of their countries; the dialectics that must be understood and neutralized before it is too late.

Baba Galleh Jallow is a former editor of the Daily Observer and Founder Editor of the now-banned The Independent newspaper in Banjul, Gambia. His books include Mandela's Other Children, Angry Laughter, and The Anatomy of Powercracy and Other Essays.