By Isaac Massaquoi
Let's even agree with the people of Makeni that a modern day Prospero, from Shakespeare's The Tempest suddenly appeared in their backyard, waved his magic wand and Ebola was gone; should that really be the cause for the kind of wild singing and dancing that rocked the town a few weeks ago? Well, the whole country celebrated one way or the other when Foday Sankoh finally agreed to lay down his weapons after 10 years of killing and maiming. But the nature of what happened in Makeni tells clearly that this Sierra Leone habit of dancing and clapping for every little thing that looks like success even on the face of it only, is still very much around.
I expect that even when the president declares victory over Ebola sometime in the future, an exhausted and broken nation should go through another three days of deep reflection and prayer over the loss of so many innocent souls and the serious damage to our country - our pride as a people, our economy and the future of our children. Reflection over how we managed the whole Ebola problem and how to prevent another Ebola attack a few years from now. It's that kind of reflection I am talking about.
I wouldn't be surprised when that day comes (I hope soon) to see triumphalism and mask devil parades with the inevitable political undertones taking centre stage. This article is pegged on the incident in Makeni, but it's definitely not a Makeni question - it's a Sierra Leonean thing.
A few people - mostly Okada Riders - have gone on trial in Makeni for allegedly masterminding the whole incident. Let's face it, motorcycle taxi riders who many say spread the rumour and created the atmosphere for the dancing on the streets, are fed up with being restricted to working for only a few hours a day because they are used to going about it non-stop and, frankly, making a good kill; apart from those few days when criminals attacked and killed a few of the riders. They are losing money.
Also, the people of Makeni found it a little hard coping with being quarantined. It's not easy. Even those who are now coping well in Kailahun and Kenema had serious concerns about how they would cope but they are now into their third month in quarantine. We were fine with a lockdown in Freetown for three days but when it was suggested the process could be extended, many complained loudly. So I understand why Makeni is desperate to kill Ebola. We are not there yet, please.
I am looking forward to my next weekend break in Ebola-free Makeni. I haven't been there since June but as a frequent visitor to the place I can understand how much damage Ebola has done to the life, economy and confidence of the new Makeni. One particular incident comes to my mind every time I talk about how life has changed in Makeni. It happened at a restaurant during one of my many visits.
My colleagues and I arrived in Makeni at about 8:30pm on a Friday. Rain clouds had gathered and it looked as though there would be a downpour any minute as we entered one of the restaurants in a chain of new shops at the entrance to the town from Freetown. We were very hungry, having left Freetown late in the day, struggling through unnecessarily heavy traffic at Calaba Town. Three of us ordered some food - chicken and something. But just as the waitress turned to go, the lights went out. I whispered to my colleagues that we should immediately cancel the orders and leave, obviously with the electricity situation in Freetown on my mind.
Apparently, the waitress heard what I had said. She turned sharply and asked us to wait a few minutes because "light dea cam back jisnor" - electricity will be back soon. But how does she know that, I almost asked her. Then she continued, "we nor get light problem nar yar" - we don't problems with electricity here. And in less than two minutes the lights came on again. This is the new, powerful and confident Makeni I am talking about.
Under President Ernest Bai Koroma, Makeni has grown, infrastructure has improved dramatically, there's some cash going round from the many mining companies around who permanently occupy rooms in some of the most expensive hotels outside Freetown. Many young people have flocked into the town from other parts of the country looking for jobs and other opportunities. Night life, pre-Ebola, was just fantastic with some disposable income available to middle class people in the town who regularly spent time at Apex night club and that sleazy alcohol joint on the highway, called Mems. There's no age restrictions or dress code at Mems. Every self-respecting visitor must expect the unexpected. The Ebola outbreak has slowed all of that down dramatically.
Let's forget about the dancing in Makeni for a moment and deal with this clapping and dancing business in the whole country. And I believe this attitude is a product of the one party mentality of Siaka Stevens.
Sometimes I wonder why politicians don't stop in the middle of an important speech and tell sections of the audience to stop clapping and give other people a chance to listen carefully to the points being made, or, better still, tell the audience before the speech that they should remain quiet throughout and not punctuate every sentence with a loud and uncontrollable applause. I am thinking about the conditions under which US presidential debates are conducted.
But I am not a politician, so I probably don't appreciate what the consequences of being so crass with an audience would be on the ballot box after five years. But there's just too much sycophancy in such unnecessary display of love for the big man.
The point is, it's so difficult to sit through a long and important speech when a significant section of the audience believes they must applaud every line. It's a real nightmare for broadcasters in particular. For while they appreciate some applause to give the listener a sense of the atmosphere at the event, clapping at every turn drowns out a killer sound bite that could be the only reason the whole media were there in the first place.
I will understandably make exemptions for political rallies but we have this habit in Sierra Leone to turn every big political speech, including the state opening of parliament, into a rally for members of the party in power.
In public places they cheer the big man on daily, then after the event, we call journalists to some corner and grumble about the state of affairs in the country. When that grumbling and those of others crystallise into a newspaper story they are the first to condemn the journalist for being critical of the government. In countries that have developed, people have stood up to ask serious question about the way their country was being run.
Recently, Scotland had a referendum over a possible independence. There's no Sierra Leonean who followed that event as covered by the BBC, who doesn't know what the issues in that referendum were. It was fought on issues - the Representation of the People as it relates to the devolution of more powers to the Scottish government from Westminster, the Economy, Defence, the National Health Service and the place of an independent Scotland in Europe. Yes there were a few rallies but the whole thing didn't become an occasion for carnivals and free-for-all punch-ups mediated by biased policing. No!
What issues was the last election in Sierra Leone fought on? It was about party colours, regional strongholds and tribal interests. This has always been the case in Sierra Leone. If we had prioritised health care delivery service in 2012 and told the president his free health care project was too targeted towards scoring political points hence vulnerable - considering what is required to have a healthy nation - we probably wouldn't be where we are today with Ebola.
Here, we dance for everything - when fuel arrives in Freetown even after a three-week crippling shortage, when the company having a monopoly over the rice business brings in a new type of rice, when NPA gets a second-hand thermal plant or when we get 10 ambulances, we dance wildly - sometimes in uniform. (I hear the Kenya Red Cross alone has 50 ambulances).
So I understand why the first thing our people in Makeni did when they heard from somewhere that the dreaded Ebola disease had ended in Sierra Leone was to take to the streets dancing and singing. Between that Makeni carnival and now, I understand Gbanbgatoke has also had an After-Ebola jam splash where people paid the equivalent of One US dollar as entrance fee. If people who are supposed to be living on less than a dollar a day can afford to do that, you get the feel of what dancing and singing means to us in poor old Sierra Leone.
(C) Politico 16/10/14
