This is a documentary of a rural transformation
that was beginning to take shape in the Gambia in 1988, six years before Yaya
Jammeh seized power illegally in 1994.
If you want a visual conformation of a society that was independent and
free of political coercion and intimidation of rural (as well as urban)
dwellers, just watch this video.
It was a Gambia that had a president who
presided over public policy and the necessary moral leadership to see through
policy implementation, and not someone who governs by diktats or what is
euphemistically referred to as 'executive orders'.
One thing that strikes you immediately from the
video is the absence of a single menacing military personnel of any kind, no
law enforcement or national security personnel or enforcers who call themselves
Governors, to keep citizens in check.
A look at the faces in the video, you see
happier and determined faces, who were free to pursue their lives, as they see
fit, independent of the government.
Gambians were freer and happier then than they are now under a very
repressive dictator. The NGO community
then comprised of Freedom From Hunger Campaign and other NGOs worked with local
communities with little or no government intervention or interference.
Even though we understand not a single word of
the narrator, the visuals alone carried a strong message of independence and
hard work of our rural women who have now been turned into slaves toiling in
Yaya Jammeh's private farms across Gambia.
We must drive Jammeh out of State House and return
Gambia to Gambians.
Please help us with a translation and a voice
over from an expert videographer.
