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Momodou
Denmark
11713 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Feb 2011 : 21:22:37
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DailyNews Editorial: Devaluation of Our Democratic Treasures
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The increased diminishing of the values of democratic treasures in the world is breeding economic, social and political crises and this should be a cause for concern for all those interested in building and safeguarding a peaceful and democratic world.
The democratic treasures – the fundamental human rights – form the core foundation of any civilise society. What is more displeasing now is that dictatorship is in the process of writing its own history, making an illogical idealism of its defiance to democracy in the world.
Some greedy and myopic intellectuals are backing dictatorship, telling the people that democracy is an imported ideology, describing human rights activists, journalists, and opposition politicians as stooges of the West.
These intellectuals are suffering from intellectual hallucination. Genuine intellectuals with the interest and welfare of their people at heart cannot betray their conscience in that manner.
At home, The Gambia, what we need now is the emergence of the intellectuals of the people, whose focuses are on the nation and the people, aside the few already existing.
The clarion call by an erudite Gambian writer, veteran journalist, historian and lecturer in English Literature at the University of The Gambia, Nana Grey Johnson that intellectuals should come out to engage in intellectual intercourses should be responded to by all Gambian scholars.
Intellectual discourses are more than a necessity for our society, as many intellectuals are interested in careerism, but they would not pioneer or invent.
The Gambia needs intellectuals who are ready to restore value to the democratic treasures of society and share their knowledge without personal or any ulterior motives, but only for the enlightenment of the citizens and the advancement of society.
Room for Intellectual Intercourse
In a lecture series organized on the Roots Festival, shown on GRTS, where a political science lecturer at the University of The Gambia, Dr. Alieu Badara Saja Taal, foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Mamadou Tangara, lecturer of English Literature at the university of The Gambia, Nana Grey Johnson, a social science lecturer Dr. Pierre Gomez, and others is a clear example of the intellectual intercourse Nana is trying to encourage among Gambian intellectuals.
Any viewer interested in Gambian scholarship and by extension African scholarship would not get to his or bed without being inspired by at least one of these lecturers. If this is done, arm chair intellectualism, judging intellectuals by their degrees or the university they graduate from will no longer enslave the minds of the people. And this is how we can make our intellectuals to deliver.
People, especially young people should be allowed to learn from these people by organizing more of such lectures or discourses.
Young people who are disconnected from the intellectual of their time may lose the right source of inspiration in seeking knowledge.
We hope that such intellectual gathering would continue. It should not only be restricted to lecturers but extended to other sectors including the police, army, politicians, university students, the media, doctors just to name a few.
Intellectuals are everywhere in different walks of life and they should all be brought on board for society to hear from in ranging and varying subjects.
Source: Daily News
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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