The Tragedy of The Gambia‼!(What happens next depends on you!)

The Tragedy of The Gambia‼!(What happens next depends on you!)

An unexamined life is not worth living(Plato) but what is that unexamined life? How does it look like? How do we know if a life is unexamined and unworthy of living?

Human history is paralyzed and partially a makeup with stamps of reality that never cease to astonish us, however, most of this irreversible bad stamps sadly continue to follow us all through our lives. This might not be a real test of hard life for those who dictate the flows of this hardship. My examination of my own life does serve to play good for others. For me, it is still a meta-road and cannot really tell if I have assumed well this question( an examined life). However, I cannot escape the question either and nor one can! Life is just more than living it. It's not what it's! I assume, it is what you make out of it. 

For many Gambians (including myself),“life is automatic and a matter of destiny”. The social, cultural political and religious interactions are typically solidified on this common beliefs and people’s lives are thought to be shaped automatically by some supernatural powers defined to be embedded in religions , traditions or social beliefs. This anthem of some god or gods in the power of what you would be tomorrow proves to do little good for our evolving society. Needless to say, that food on those tables never were set there by any such gods or supernatural powers. What we failed to interpret and utilized better is our natural human potentials embedded in every one of us uniquely and collectively. Individually we failed to define ourselves because we've failed to understand ourselves and thus seriously missed our goals. When our individual self-identification scheme was lost through our collective beliefs in bare destiny, we also lost in the same vain a positive and progressive identity. Gambians are naturally and heavenly interdependent on each other for almost everything (this is good to a limit) for the whole span of their lives and this is particularly why in such courses personal identity is fragile. But I would not have worried too much if such an intention was shaped to combat or avert failures. However, what is transparent to even those not sensitive to this self-destructive pattern is that many declined on the way never to be themselves anymore. This anthem of communing at all cost is internalized and reproduce badly. This is not constructive considering our present situation. I am not claiming individualism nor am I adding sugar to capitalism, but, we must craft a society where people are guided and not made to realize their potentials individually until when done collectively. We must wear our clothes of obedience to an authority we do belong. This authority is the changing world and not the cultural brainwashing of dependence on each other. Gambians must learn to abandon the bad old beliefs and follow the inevitable trend of changes to develop their ambitions and cultivate their goals. These new goals can be achieved through a good structural plan by institutions that are independent and upright with focus objectives of revamping out the bad old cultures of dependency first from the grassroots to the helm of power. Gambians will continue to borrow and open their mouths to be spoon-fed so long as the present culture of dependency continue. We need a radical orientation on living sub independently and independently from each other as our conditions will remain this very way if we do not afford to seek for a better life where our single lives will be judged according to their worthy and not collectively. This is not to say we must live a Western life. What we need is a better structural adjustment that will be followed smoothly by an attitudinal one. We need a serious interlinkage of all stakeholders who will be the flag bearers of this change. I will call this paradigm shift a draw from the dogma of dependency to a dogma of independence. This theory might be quite amazing and unpleasant to my readers. However, I am not apologetic. This shift is radical and motivational rather than providing an escape route for laziness. I call it laziness because there is no other adjective better than that in describing the Gambian tragedy. We have to call for an overhaul of the traditional transcendental nonsense in our social lives- born dependent, die dependent! 

This paradigm those not say our cultural world is per se all that nonsense or bad. It wants to cultivate a changing atmosphere where opportunities will be created rather than thought about as destiny. It wills for a society where individuals are accounted for their own actions and inactions rather than giving it a whole collective measurement. It calls for a shift from looking at the world as all constructed from beginning to the end of a world in which Gambians are able to dictate a pattern in which individuals are in full control of what happens in the nearest future. We must move from a Gambia of one paradigm to that of an interdisciplinary paradigm encompassing all types and kinds of systems that will rejuvenate a better Gambia. I advocate for a Gambia of free beings who will be the architects of their own political, cultural and economic worlds and not that assumed completely by religious or cultural beliefs. We need a political and cultural life that is well educative, sensitive to the changes happening around itself and not one that campaigns around putting blames on a collective failure. Yes! We might have to blame ourselves most often collectively to gear our insights into the future we want to cultivate together, however, individuals must first know their potentials before assuming collectivism only to bury them. A single elevated potential can pioneer a lot. An unprepared extended family livelihood is paramount among those problems. How can we be brave and bring about the change we wish when we continue to live under the wimps of an unstructured collective goal? Poverty can be buried when we all assume independent roles. It can be eradicated if we build a new paradigm of cultural lifestyles that will embrace the changing world. We can bring about quality life when we do know how much we need to raise and conserve. We should not blackmail our lives with raising children whose life we have not constructed. We should not begin to be religious until we are educated. We must be fair to ourselves and our surroundings. 

This view has never been popular because the majority of Gambians are totally parasitic. Although many extended families never brought about independence and quality life, ironically, most Gambians argue out that an extended family is a uniformity. I will argue that it's about poverty and control. It is not this century to embrace, or at least we must continue to craft a way out of this total dependency of an extended family system where every child's life will be planned so that he/she does not become a social liability. 

Independence is not a chance, it is created. Poverty is not natural , it is cultivated. In fact, Gambians have one of the worst family systems where an incapable man is born to marry  more than one wife and tailor more lives blindly. 

The issue at play here is for a whole shift from the drawing table of the unplanned family lives to the contrary for the betterment of The Gambia we all continue to dream for and this must start from homes- from   the most basic stage of our social lives.