In this first installment of what promises to be a lengthy article, our analyst in Norway, Gbakanda Kamara, looks at mass deception, one of Sierra Leone’s intractable and most tormenting of problems.
By Gbakanda Kamara, Norway
A lot has been said about the state of the country called Sierra Leone and the way things
are.Well they have always been that way because the people want it that
way,naive though this may sound.
A state or nation-state like Sierra Leone should have developed a national
ideology,identity and programme by now, after more than 40 years of
independence, but that has not happened. Why?
There are many answers to this apparently simple question.The answers ,on a
democratic and intellectually liberal plane, may vary according to the
outlook of the responder, but on a strictly nationalistic plane can only
be one:Sierra Leoneans are apt and prone to be very or acutely selfish and
naive because they are always only concerned with what is in their personal
interest.This may sound naive also but it is the naked truth and it is the
endemic that the people must overcome for change to take place.It is the
endemic fator that brought war to that country because whatever may be the view ,if Foday Sankoh
did not get ready support from the HIGH and LOW ,there would have been no
war in Sierra Leone.If THE INTERNATIONAL COVERT SPONSORS( A VERY
QUESTIONABLE ISSUE AND ONE FOR DISCUSSION) of the war did not get the
READY ACCORD OF SOME GREEDY SIERRA LEONEANS, there would have been no
war.
So the first and foremost problem that must be addressed is how to
make Sierra Leoneans more patriotic and nationally proud.A nation without
pride is like a living man without a conscience because pride gives second
thoughts to anyone that has it.
The time is here for all to adopt a different modus
operandi.The country cannot afford the luxury of self inflicted and
destructive parochialism.If the present generation cannot be responsilbe
unto itself it must be unto posterity.Every Sierra Leonean must as a
matter of national interest and emergency do self examination.The issues
of ’nar me,nar we chap’ and all those related expressions of corruption must
be examined in the context of how everyone contributes to the endemic malaise
called corruption. The dog eat dog and grapes is sour attitude to the
country’s welfare must stop now.If not the people cannot continue to want
to eat their cake and still expect to have it in their hands-that is
absolutely impossible- not even God can make that possible because God is
not a joker.
If and only if the people are fed up with their self inflicted problems,
then they must begin to think first,collectively and as a nation,second
as masters of their own destinies because,presently it is master of one’s own
destiny and the nation second.
Next Sierra Leoneans must examine the present crop of leaders they have at
all levels from the national level to the chiefdom level.They must examine the
viability of the present politico- social infrastructure and how that is
going to help them in the future.The belief in and obedience towards the mystics and ’God-appointed’ leaders mumbo jumbo MUST STOP NOW because it is one of the
instruments of mass deceptoin used by the powerful minority to control
the masses.It is a relic of the colonial mentality of master -servant
relations developed and propagated by the schools and the religous
institutions viz-the Mosque and the Church brought to Sierra Leone by the
colonisers:_ first the emmissaries of the Arabs and later the
Europeans.
These were the very teachers of corrupton to a society that
was non- monetary and subsistent-the fiscal economy beng the symbol of Dog
eat Dog philosophy- the present world political economy.
For the sake of the weak and deprived can Sierra Leoneans think about
change in terms of the social philosophy?
Photo: Yoda, the Jedi master of mass deception.He resembles one of Sierra Leone’s prominent politicians. Can you identify that politician?
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