Bra Yusuf:
Once again, you have got me to spend sometime on the net in order to answer your short (!!) list of questions. It is only now that I have had the time to check my mail since the last posting to you. I will be taking a five-day vacation to "chill out" in Chicago.... Read my response below. Your greatest asset on the net has been the polite manner in which you engage everyone, irrespective of their disagreement/agreement with your views.
That’s the reason that got me to revisit the issue with you in a respectful and , I hope, honest manner. Those who, like me, have an epistemological grasp of theemerging history of radical discourse in the eighties but have chosen to dressthemselves in the thick blanket of silence on the net are, I presume, hoping thatAlie Kabba disappear in the rubble of invented "explanations". Well, I figuredout a long time ago that those who can best write history are those who make thehistory. It’s really too bad that comrades like I-Rash who got to play arelatively central role during the period under consideration have left it to meto do the work of formulating a framework in which a meaningful perspective couldbe developed.
1. Whatever Cleo did after our last friendly and memorable encounter in Accra back in 1989 is beyond my comprehension. I have not received a note from him in six year, but that has not diminished my respect for him as a concerned Sierra Leonean who put his job and future at stake for the sake of social justice, academic freedom and pluralistic democracy at home. On Brandon and Jumu, it came as a pleasant surprise to me that they were so much a part of the NPRC. It is possible that there were sub-texts to our relationship that I was not aware of. I could perhaps understand the return of Jumu after the military conquest of power in Freetown, for he was always a "mythic" figure in the army. Brandon was the brother who helped us out with 2000 cedis ($15) when we first
arrived in Accra with nothing to our name but hope. We were very lucky to have had an assistance from the UNHCR, which puts to rest the great "Libyan Plot" in helping us get to Accra....
2. The two comrades voted against my appointment for reasons I cannotexplain. In a way, it was good that I was not elected unopposed once more (afterFBC), for a democratic culture can not thrive when leaders demand 100% supportfrom their constituency. The others, including Ebe, Buza, Bawulay, and Gibril, felt that I had what it took to be the liaison between the home base, Accra, and Tripoli. You see, it was logical for them to have one designated person to do the tasks rather than the usual amorphous manner in which PANAFU operated. This was the reason I could not be with them in the camp, although I had the theoretical grasp and intense desire to be among them.
3. On Taylor, it is possible that he had a grand design beyond Liberia, but my own view is that capturing Monrovia was more central to his strategy than launching an adventure elsewhere. I do know that Dr. Man) (Kukoi’s nom de guerre) was often in Ghana between 1985-87, and visited even more often during the 1982-85 period before our arrival there. Here is my psychoanalytic portrait of Kukoi: A paranoid schizophrenic opportunist who was parroting any ideology that would boost up his fragile ego and fantasy to "liberate" his fellow Gambians from autocratic rule!! This is not fundamentally different from my portrait of Taylor. Kukoi never went beyond the GCE (you know there is not college in The Gambia!) and his rudimentary reading of Marx always reminded me of some old comrades back in Freetown who loved the sound of "bourgeoisifica -tion" and "proletarianization" without any deep appreciation of the Marxist dialectics. To say, therefore, that Kukoi and Taylor worked together—even though I have no evidence since I was already in Nigeria on one leg of my eventual coming to America—sounds to me like birds of the same feather flocking together.
4. From what I can see in my diary notes, Sankoh refused to return home after the 3-month sojourn in Tripoli with the excuse that he was ill. The comrades mentioned something about the poor state of health care in SL, and expressed little reservation. It later became clear that there was another unfolding agenda beneath the sham of ill-health. In other words, there was a conscious attempt to establish an independent contact with the folks in Tripoli that would ensure that the movement/cell that Sankoh belonged to could have their own "underground railway". This became clear to me later when Cleo mentioned something to me during our last encounter in Accra to the effect that Sankoh had some "guys" from two districts in the northern province. He said, according to my diary notes, he gave them a few copies of the Basic Doc., for "we were all Sierra Leoneans." I could not return to Tripoli to confirm or deny his claims,for I was too bent on moving ahead to do graduate studies. I wish I could interview him before the publication of my book.
5. I did most of the writing not because I was the best brain or most articulate ideologue. Those who know Cleo can tell you that his handwriting is , to put it politely, not the best in the world. I think he also expressed no reservation that a former student of his at FBC was doing the work,for he always appreciated my mind from the very moment he got to know about me up on Mount Aureol. Without blowing my own small trumpet, there were few students at FBC who could rival my grasp of radical political theories in the early ‘80s. Those on the net who were at Aureol and later voted for me unopposed—the first and only time that has happened in the more than one hundred history of the college! -- will substantiate that statement. Writing the Basic Document of the Popular Democratic Front owes a great deal to Ishmael Rashid,too. We were friends at the time and understood each other in a way that I still can not express in words. His problem has always been that he is ever content living under the protective wing of the older comrades, rather that strike it out on his own. Alie Kabba was never anyone’s "little boy"!!
6. The idea behind the PDF was to transcend the limitation of a struggle that was led solely by radical students/youth. We envisioned that a broad political movement that would include workers, peasants, progressive elements among the intelligentsia,etc could lead to a NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION in Sierra Leone. I have two articles on the subject in my old notebooks from Accra.
Other fragments of pieces I wrote at the time could be found in the old files I left with my eternal friend Dr. Yvonne King in Nigeria. I have another old article "On the Internal Dynamics of Revolution" which aimed to move our focus from external assistance to building the structures of a home grown revolution, self-reliant and popular. It was when I arrived in the US that my interest in "revolutionary" writing gave way to other interests. But the thrust of my prose has not changed!!!
My dear brother, I hope you can understand if I stop here for now. I will definitely like us to continue the exchange. You have the right juju to get me in the mood!!! Oh, on an autobiographical note, I am a humble child of Kissi Bendu chiefdom and attended the Roman Catholic School in Koindu before going to the Government Secondary School in Kenema and Bo. I am only 35 years young!!!
Best wishes to your family in the new year to come!!!
Respectfully,
Alie Sanjhan Kabba
p.s. The structure of PANAFU changed little even after the expansion of the branches outside Freetown. Each branch tended to reproduce the same amorphous structure, although the Freetown-based ideologues like Olu Gordon and Sidi Jalloh portrayed themselve as the leaders. I recall no congress or meeting in which certain individuals were named to specific positions. The same thing happened in Accra, and I guess that was why Julaba and Khanja felt "cheated" after they were not even nominated as the coordinator (everyone had been accustomed to the illusion of grandeur that went with the ill-defined organizational structures in the movement!). It is perhaps this appointment as the coordinator that made ibrahim abdullah assert that I was trying to "Castro" the revolution....