Posted by Chez Winakabs Europe on August 30, 2008 at 11:32:36:
Conflict, we all know, is normal in human relationships, and conflict is a motor of change. If this motor of change, I now call, conflict, is not greased properly in order for the other components of the motor to function properly, the future is bleak.
The party conflict happened for a reason and what did we do to address the conflict? I was not in Sierra Leone to have gotten firsthand information on the matter. To this day, know one has given me a response on the issue to show that the matter was over. It is still brooding. Everyday, I here aggrieved party members pointing fingers at one another. I am equally guilty of this attitude, as I had to reject Joe Will’s call of support for the forthcoming SLPP UK/Ireland Chairmanship just on the face of flimsy evidence that Joe Will did become a PMDC sympathizer. The difference in my rejection was only to the highest office at our chapter and not his membership. Such prejudice is harmful to the party. The party should focus on developing a body that will help in its conflict transformation. Just as I said above, “conflicts happen for a reason”. How far have we gone to give-up the idea of covering up the changes that are really needed? Quick solutions to deep social-political problems usually mean a lot of good words but not real change. What have we learn from the conflict that saw the breakaway of a great number of our membership.
Many of us point the fingers at Kabbah and Berewa. In part we are right in doing so but on the whole, we are dead wrong. To allow the few to pull the wool over our faces means, we were BIG FOOLS. For party’s sake some of us could not turn our back on the party. Yes I tried to influence another concern but for lack of a strong inner circle, I unashamedly, went back into the fold.
Kabbah we all know is a treacherous character with the prejudicial undertones of disgust for every good Sierra Leonean. Kabbah, we all know, saw the vacuum in the SLPP leadership. The late Abdul Hassan Kabia (RIP) was the ideal candidate but for his trust in Kabbah, we came to have the greatest con game ever played in the history of Sierra Leone politics. Kabbah was a big con!
Yes we had peace, that was inevitable – with or without Kabbah, the Sierra Leone People were ready for peace. Peace has to be embedded in justice. Justice was not done to us by bringing a selfish thief back to run the affairs of our state.
I have always respected the Robin Hood, an outlaw in England, type of thievery! As a child, I fantasized being a Robin Hood. As one of the romantic heroes of the Middle Ages England, the people adored him. Whether he was a living man or only a legend is uncertain. Old ballads relate that Robin Hood and his followers roamed the green depths of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham, in the centre of England. There they lived a carefree life, passing the time with hunting the king's deer, and robbing the rich. They shared their spoils with the poor and never injured women or children.
Kabbah and his cohorts on the other hand were shamelessly engaged in robbing the poor to satisfy their ego. To hear that Kabbah whinges for a pension to the extent that it brings about a national scandal is not surprising! Kabbah’s greed and selfishness makes him the worst leader of out time.
The SLPP needs to focus on a perspective that understands peace as embedded in justice. This perspective should emphasis the importance of building right relationships and social structures through a radical respect for the views of one another. The party needs a revamp – I mean a thorough overhaul to benefit from constructive responses. The grievance of members should not be taken lightly and a form of non-begrudging policy be adopted to enable us seek constructive change.
The PMDC breakaway was treated with complacency. What lessons have we learned from their breakaway? The party needs to engage in constructive change efforts that include, and go beyond, the resolution of specific problems. The party needs to understand the verifiable realities that conflict is normal in human relationships, and conflict is a motor of change. So we need to transform ourselves to provide us with a clear and important vision. We need to do this to bring into focus the horizon toward which journey – the building of a healthy party by way of having healthy relationships even with dissenters. This goal is very important to propel real change in our current ways of relating.
The idea of pointing fingers at dissenters should be transformed to bring sanity into the party fold. No one is free from the experience of conflict. Two young siblings with no experience of social independence encounter a disruption in the natural flow of sibling relationship. They notice and feel that the other is not doing right. I have seen this sort of conflict firsthand! The party has to start looking as well seeing the transformational process involved in uniting the party.
Only last week, I became a victim of bigotry from a so-called ‘true’ member of the party questioning my loyalty. I say bigotry because as an enlightened human being I can sense any prejudicial undertones from a bigot. The so-called ‘true’ member really angered me. As a Temne, I felt offended but with equanimity, I placed him in, what I would term, the right frame of mind he should always try to be in – the reasoning frame. This so-called ‘true’ member has always irritated me. Even in times of crisis, he would openly distract my suggestions and not replacing them with anything. He sends the signal that I did not belong and whatever you do makes no difference. How low-minded this so-called ‘true’ member is?
The party is a national party and those who think their devilish and divisive minds can win us an election, better start packing their bags to secede from the national politics and go into their tribal lobes to run Sierra Leone. Such people like my so-called ‘true’ member sicken me. Do I ignore this individual? No!! I confronted him where it happened and made it known to him that he should learn to look as well as see from others’ standpoint. Our party needs to reach out to those that have gone away and explain to them the risk of bringing them back into the fold into high offices. We should reason with them and let them reason with us; that coming back is a very joyful thing but to usurp by stealth is inappropriate for the transformational process.