By Sarjo Brito
Presidential aspirant Marie Sock has joined the rest of Gambia to condemn Hamat Bah’s ‘rat’ remarks. Sock on her Facebook page said it is frightening that such a comment is coming from someone holding public office, particularly a Tourism Minister whose every word is suppose to be a prism through which the Gambian people are viewed by the outside world.
“If our Tourism and Culture Minister believes that Gambians are rats, what message is he sending to the outside world?”
Sock went further to liken the Tourism Ministers comment’s to when Adolf Hitler described the Jews as rats to justify his impending acts of genocide, and to when Tutsi’s in Rwanda were described as cockroaches in order to justify their extermination. Marie said Gambia and the rest of the world must learn from the lessons of history because any nation that refuses to, puts itself on course to repeat painful lessons.
Whilst condemning the Minister’s comments, Sock took the opportunity to remind Hamat and the rest of Gambia who the real rats are.
‘’Let me remind him, and hopefully all Gambians, that the real rats and cockroaches among us today are not our fellow Gambians, but they are the rats of corruption, nepotism, ethnocentric manipulation and incompetence in public office, and other ills that must be eradicated from our society for good’’.
Minister of Tourism and Culture Hamat Bah has come under fire for what many describe as tribal comments. Minister Bah during a political meeting at State House on Saturday, warned Gambians against voting for the ‘rats’.
