hultin - pure fabrication

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Niklas HultinSwarthmore College

Pure Fabrication: Information Policy, Media Rights,and the Postcolonial Public

This article interprets the debate over freedom of speech and the regulation of themedia in The Gambia as a debate over the calibration of the public sphere and itssubject. Rather than accepting the framing of the debate as one of human rightsversus the state (or versus culture), the article argues that it is a debate involvingcompeting visions of community, responsibility, and information flow. The author charts arguments about the role of information in society and the status of the

press advanced by Gambian journalists as well as government representatives toshow how these arguments pivot around a particular understanding of aninformed public subject and not around human rights. Rights are, however, upheld as a goal by both sides inasmuch as they are held as an abstract aspiration and not as a legal claim, a fact that points to the ways in which human rights mesh with(neo-)liberal modalities of rule and their simultaneously emancipatory and regu-lative impulse. [Human rights, public sphere, media, information, The Gambia]

Since 2002, legislators, journalists, and human rights activists in the West Africancountry of The Gambia have taken part in a national discussion cutting to theheart of the configuration of power in the polity. The debate concerns the creationof a National Media Commission (NMC), a regulatory body intended to overseethe press, but the discussion has turned acrimonious and civil society groups havedenounced the government for interfering with a fundamental human right. 1 Atthe same time, the debates rapid movement through different social settings andpolicy arenas indicates a concern much deeper and broader than the regulation of the press as such. Although the NMC debate may seem to be a clash between agovernment with an authoritarian bent and a heroic civil society, this paper arguesthat the debate points to the deployment of competing expectations of the publicsphere and its inhabitants. Whereas journalists and human rights activists framethe debate as one of the human right to free speech, in which a zero-sum relationis posited between this freedom and governmental interference, the governmentframes the debate as one over administrative and regulatory arguments alongsideappeals for solidarity. In contrast to both of these views, I propose a third framein which the debate centers on the boundaries of civic discourse and the consti-tution of an informed citizenry in a developmental state.

ARTICLES

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 30, Numbers. 1, pps. 121.ISSN 1081-6976, electronic ISSN 1555-2934. 2007 by the American AnthropologicalAssociation. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy orreproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissionswebsite, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: pol.2007.30.1.1.


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The following statement given during a debate on the NMC by a NationalAssembly Member (NAM) for the ruling party introduces this alternative frame: 2

A fifth former with an ordinary level certificate with a good pass inEnglish joins the press and says he/she can write well. How can thatperson perform when he/she has no qualification in journalism? . . .How can this bad paper write that I was found in an uncompromis-ing circumstance at the airport? This could mean that it was a verycrude circumstance, that I must have been found naked somewherewith people in the dark doing something that is very bad or indiscreet.This was pure fabrication. The reporter concerned called and askedme but I told him that this is not true and that if he knew what is good

for him he should not print it. [National Assembly 2002:162]This statement expresses not just hostility toward a particular journalist or publi-cation. The indignant tone and the call for the regulation and professionalizationof journalists point toward an expectation of what the role of the media in societyis and, more broadly, what kind of information should be put into the publicsphere and how. Set within a broader discourse of information policy, such expec-tations serve as a palimpsest in which a multi-layered discussion of the role of information in the political process, national development, and formation of apublic sphere and its subject can be read.

Following a line of argument that treats terms such the State and the publicsphere as constituted by governmental practices and technologies (e.g., Foucault1991; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Rose 1999), I argue that discussions about the properrelationship between journalists and the government, or journalists and the citi-zenry at large, are efforts to produce particular subjects, their rightful place in thepolity, and their duties vis--vis that polity. The public sphere associated with thework of Jrgen Habermas (1989), composed of rational, knowledgeable publicsubjects congregating to debate matters of common interest, is thus not preexist-

ing politics, but emergent in the discussions that presume this spheres existence.In fact, as Andrew Barry has suggested, the creation of such knowledgeable sub-

jects is a necessity in (neo-)liberal societies: the citizen must develop a commit-ment to the truth and the value of being informed (Barry 2001:48). 3 Argumentsover the media and the role of information in the polity are ultimately argumentsover the kind of public subject that should exist and the duties and obligations suchsubjects should see in themselves (Gaonkar and Povinelli 2003; Warner 1992).From this vantage point, even practices intended to restrict the circulation of infor-mation are, as Boyer (2003) notes with reference to censorship in East Germany,

productive as they help determine the kinds of information that are deemedpertinent for good citizenship and political participation.

There is an overlap between this liberal emphasis on rational subjects and the lan-guage of human rights (Speed 2005). The latter does not just presume the exis-tence of a universal, rights-bearing subject eager and able to be informed, but is

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increasingly an instrument of authority as governments face pressures to liberal-ize their economies, provide for transparency in public affairs, and establish pre-dictable mechanisms for the dispensing of property and settling of disputes (seeFerguson 2006:8388). In the context of this article, the Gambian governmentssimultaneous acceptance of human rights in general terms, sidestepping of sub-stantive human rights issues, and reliance on law and regulation in its responseto human rights activists suggest that the time-honored rights versus culture, orrights versus oppression, dichotomy has for the most part run its course. We liveas we are frequently remindedin an age where culture and rights are in their ownpeculiar ways propertized and pressed into service as referents for political action,indicia of modernity, and justifications for neoliberal interventions. The complex-ity and interconnectedness of rights claims and regulatory desires are underlinedby the Gambian debate over the NMC and information policy, a debate tightlywound up with a rhetoric of national development and implicit assumptions abouthistorical teleology and the formation of a postcolonial information society.

The Context of the Media in Africa and The Gambia

Debates over the role of information and the media in society and the making of a public sphere have a rich history in Africa. 4 Colonial and postcolonial govern-ments alike have sought to promote and regulate media to further agendas of con-trol and nation-building. With a few exceptions, the tendency has been one of governmental control over broadcast media. For colonial governments, radioservices were not just a means to provide entertainment for the elites, but also atool to bolster the legitimacy of colonial rule by creating a sense of solidarity andidentity with the metropolitan agenda. Postcolonial governments, too, have attimes exercised considerable control over the airwaves in the name of nation-building, and any potential pluralism has been limited by political circumstancesand the economic and logistical realities of broadcast media.

In terms of print media, several African countries, particularly in Anglophone

West Africa, have long traditions of press pluralism (Bourgault 1995:153159).Although restrictions on free speechsuch as sedition lawswere common,some colonial governments were supportive of the private press inasmuch as thecreation of a news reading public was part of their civilizing project. To colonialgovernments as well as sections of the African population, reading was emblem-atic of a Western-derived modernity and therefore to be encouraged (cf. Newell2002 on Ghana). Foreshadowing later day arguments about the role of the mediaand information in society, private and public colonial newspapers were encour-aged to advance what was deemed a modern sensibility and the practices of read-

ing and writing that were to go along with that sensibility.The advent of independence had an equivocal impact on Africas private media.Although the new governments often made the development of the professionalcapacity of the media a priority, this development was subordinated to the over-arching imperative of nation-building. The role of the media and information was

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turned from one of opposition to one of support: the medias role was typicallyseen as the transmission of messages of development and stability. These diffi-culties and the expense of training and production, the authoritarian bent of manygovernments, the continued existence of colonial regulations concerning freedomof speech, and the government-owned medias dominance in national mediamilieus, have all contributed to a relatively tame private press in many post-colonies (Tudesq 1999:4148).

This image of decline has its limits, however. In spite of the above difficulties,media are important elements of social life through which Africans engage andcomment upon their world (Ambler 2002). Todays African media milieu is aninchoate space for the absorption and refraction of political, social, cultural, and

religious concerns.5

The private media for their part engage, critique, and absorbtransnational ideas and images, including those of a liberal modernity and theinternational human rights movement. With an awareness of its anticoloniallegacy and having internalized professional and internationally legitimated normsof the media as the Fourth Estate, the private press in West Africa labors undera liberal ethos of free speech (Hasty 2005).

The history of the Gambian media largely follows the above narrative. At inde-pendence from the United Kingdom in 1965, the press was small but vibrant.During the colonial era, an African-owned private press had been allowed to existin spite of its criticism of colonial rule (Grey-Johnson 2004). Under the postinde-pendence government, the private media continued to develop although it was over-shadowed by the governments news outlets. The goals of information policy at thistime were economic development and national solidarity. An unrealized 1978 gov-ernment paper called for the establishment of a national television service to fosternational community (Government of The Gambia 1978:44). The 1970 constitutionalso enshrined freedom of expression and information, and the country ratified mostpertinent international treaties, helping The Gambia earn a reputation for an unwa-vering commitment to human rights in an otherwise turbulent region.

Matters changed dramatically in 1994. During the 1980s, the countrys economicdecline, a failed urban uprising in 1981, and the unpopularity of a confederationwith Senegal, had cost the government much of its popularity with ordinaryGambians. When elements of the army seized power in July of 1994, manyGambians greeted the coup with indifference. The Armed Forces ProvisionalRuling Council (AFPRC), led by Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh, promised a newconstitution, less corruption, and improvements in infrastructure. SomeGambians were critical of the government, however, citing the worsening human

rights situation. Using military decrees and dormant colonial legislation, theAFPRC suppressed the media and individual newspapers were threatened withbeing shut down (Wiseman 1996). The AFPRC did launch the countrys firsttelevision station, but it was placed under the national telephone company andeffectively worked as an extension of the state machinery (Bensouda 1998:6).



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Faced with increasing opposition from foreign governments and humanrights activists, the government moved up the democratic timetable. A newconstitutionwidely considered superior to the old one in terms of democraticsafeguardswas adopted in 1997. Jammeh retooled the AFPRC into a politi-cal party and successfully contested the presidency in a controversial electionin 1996 (Ibrahim 2004), and reasonably free and fair elections in 2001and 2006.

The inauguration of the Second Republic altered the terms of the medias rela-tionship with the government. Whereas between 1994 and 1997, the governmentwas mostly concerned with controlling the media in a heavy-handed manner withdecrees, the discourse of the media since then is increasingly taking place within

a discussion of the information society and through an idiom of collaboration,responsibility, and management. The imperatives of nation-building so strongduring the immediate postcolonial era have reemerged as a neoliberal program of constituting a well-informed citizenry able to labor for the countrys developmentas an information society. Even in instances of what to human rights activists aresigns of a chilly climate for the media, the governments measures are framed interms of administrative policies rather than political confrontation. The revoca-tion of the license of the private radio station Citizen FM in 2001, for instance,was ostensibly due to tax irregularities and not politically motivated as human

rights activists charge. Other incidents cited as examples of the governmentsheavy-handed measures against the media, such as the 2004 imprisonment of anopposition politician for sedition after publishing a letter calling for citizens todemonstrate against the government, are justified by the government with refer-ence to stability and responsibility.

The NMC: In Search for Information and Responsibility

The facility with which the government has incorporated the media debate intoa discussion of responsibility and administration is in part due to the small size

of the Gambian media. In 20034, when the research on which this article isbased took place, there were five independent and one government run newspa-per in circulation. Save for one daily, these papers are published only a few timesa week, have small press runs of less than 3,000 copies, a geographically limitedcirculation, and are completely dependent on advertising for revenue. 6 That theyare all in English further restricts their audience. The size of the private mediahas a direct bearing on the professionalization of journalists in The Gambia.Only a few senior journalists have degrees from abroad and there is no school of

journalism in The Gambiawhatever training is available is ad hoc and short-

term. 7 This lack of professionalization of the media is decried by the governmentand journalists alike, and the Gambian Press Union (GPU) was therefore initiallysupportive of the effort to establish the NMC and a code of conduct for themedia. The GPU quickly soured on the initiative, however, after it was deemedtoo restrictive.

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The 1997 constitution mandated the establishment of the NMC and a code of con-duct for the media to ensure the impartiality, independence and professionalism of the media which is necessary in a democratic society (quoted in Bensouda1998:8). Over protests from media practitioners and human rights groups, theNational Media Commission Act was passed in 2002 (it was amended in 2003). Thesubstantive provisions are of less interest than the debate surrounding the Act, butthree points need to be underlined: first, the Act established judiciary powers for theNMC, empowering it to levy fines or order the imprisonment of violators. Second,the composition of the NMC gives an indication of the centrality granted the issueunder its purview. In addition to the GPU, the following groups are to have a repre-sentative: the Gambian Teachers Union, the Supreme Islamic Council, the GambianChristian Council, the Womens Bureau (part of the Office of the President of theGambia), the National Assembly, the Gambian Bar Association, the Gambia Radioand Television Services, and the countrys youth. 8 Third, while the Act regulateswho is allowed to transmit information, through what means and in what context,the meaning of information is left undefined and objectified. This treatment of information as something concrete but yet of an unproblematic nature is, as will bediscussed below, a constant in the debate over the information society.

Almost all journalists resisted the NMC because it requires the registration andlicensing of journalists and is endowed with judicial powers. The GPU chairman

explained that these things were too draconian for us to accept and that is whenwe started [to fight] (interview, March 15, 2004). When I asked the chairman toelaborate on the medias relation to the government, he responded:

Our problems have been compounded by the fact that the governmentis now . . . aware of the existence of the media as opposed to that time[the 1970s and 80s] they didnt care much about what these peoplewere writing because they knew that [the journalists] didnt have thecapacity . . . to challenge the government on a lot of things. The situ-ation is quite different now. . . . the government was not comfortablewith what the private media were writing about so they probablythought [the NMC] the best way they could control [us]. . . . [It] is verydraconian in nature, it can have the power even to force journalists toreveal their sources and all other things. [Interview, March 15, 2004]

This historical trajectory points to the reemergence of the media as a politicalactor that needs to be held to some standards. 9 Both the press and the governmentappear to agree on this point, but they differ on what the role of this political actorshould be. The key point of divergence is the issue of regulation, which in turn

pivots around access to information. The GPU chairman continued:Access to information is our main problem. Hardly anybody in gov-ernment is willing to talk to the private journalists . . . so in certainsituations the journalists sometimes resort to speculation . . . you geta lead about a particular story and then you try to get someone in



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government actually to confirm or deny it and nobody is willing totalk to you. [Interview, March 15, 2004]

Not only is access to information a problem, but the GPU chairman here makesthe government complicit in one of the major issues of disagreement between themedia and the government: the lack of access to information almost forces jour-nalists to speculate. There is a subtle reification of information here, as it is takento have a reality on its own, only to be confirmed or denied, but not to be context-dependent.

Another senior journalist, Deyda Hydara, expressed a similar sentiment. I askedhim how he envisioned the media in relation to the public at large, the govern-ment, and the NMC. He responded that the NMC rules are one-sided (only con-taining provisions for complaints against journalists), do not ensure the mediasaccess to information, and contain no guidelines to determine if a governmentemployee can speak to a journalistit is based on the whims of the permanentsecretary (the top level civil servant in each department). Exasperatedly, Hydarafinished his explanation: they will rather tell you to wait for the press release.The press, by contrast, is presented as a guardian of the public interest with a dutyto transmit information, even if potentially unsettling to the government: we[Gambians] . . . believe that if people get too comfortable things will get out of hand. Answering directly to the charges of inaccuracies and slander frequentlyleveled by the government at the media, he explained that our corrections areminimal if not non-existent. We check it, we check it, and we check it, God helpus! (interview, July 12, 2004).

The notion that the task of the media is to make sure that people in power are nottoo comfortable was frequently emphasized in different ways by journalists. Oneof Hydaras reporters told me that the press has a sacred duty to protect theweak and fight abuses (interview, July 9, 2004). Similar comments were made byother journalists in the private media. In fact, almost all journalists I met told me

that the medias role in promoting human rights, in implied opposition to the gov-ernment, was something that first attracted them to this line of work. Hydarasummed up this view in an editorial, published the week after the private news-papers had self-imposed a blackout to protest the NMC, in which he stated thatjournalists are given a role in what is known as a democracy and we want touphold that role because it is a contract that we have entered into with the people(Hydara 2004).

The picture of the public sphere emerging out of the journalists self-representationis that of a fragile institution, needing the media as a watchdog to remain vibrantin the face of an uncooperative government. This rhetoric of the media as a bul-wark against governmental abuse resonates with the medias colonial history, thecontinent-wide emphasis on the positive role of the media in democratizationand development, and the central tenets of the international human rights move-ment. 10 According to this view, the governments failure to provide information

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is morally suspect, and the civil servants reluctance to share information isirresponsible cowardice (Hasty 2005:134). This is in marked contrast to theGPU chairmans indignation over the possibility of journalists having to revealsources. There is here a normatively coded directionality to the flow of informa-tion. Information must flow from those in power to the citizens (via the journalists),not the other way around. This image of free speech and democracy is, somewhatcounterintuitively, antipolitical (Hasty 2005:164). By painting the default state of society as one where the government keeps no secrets from the citizenswherethe informed citizenry is, in effect, sacrosanct and prior to the governmentanydeviation from that norm can be critiqued as capricious and draconian and not amatter of legitimate political differences. 11

A very different slant on what the media should be is given by the government.President Jammeh gave the following statement at a press conference after the dead-line to register with the NMC had been extended by the Secretary of State for theDepartment of State for Communication, Information and Technology (DOSCIT):

We believe in giving each fool a long rope to hang yourself [ sic ].After three months, there will be no compromise. We are here touphold the rule of law. . . . If vehicle owners decided not to registertheir vehicles, do we have to give them three months? No, we donthave to set [a] bad precedent. . . . You either register or you dontwrite or you can go to hell. . . . Nobody will hold the government toransom and we are not negotiating. [quoted in MBai and Faal 2004]

Here, the disagreement with the media is framed as a hostage-taking situation,reversing Hydaras point from above. The contract is not with the people butwith the government, and it has been torn apart. The implication here is that the

journalists, rather than being stewards of the public, are a part of the administra-tion of public life and need to be regulated accordingly.

A similar, but more conciliatory, statement was made in the National Assemblydebate. Fatoumata Jahumpa-Ceesay, speaking for the ruling party, suggested that

the very people [international human rights groups] who are debatingthis Bill on behalf of the Gambian media are not telling the Gambianmedia how the media are regulated in their own countries. That isvery unfair. They also do not know our African values and customs;the way we live, the extended family system, etc. We are all brothersand sisters. My standing here today to debate on this media bill doesnot mean that I am an enemy to my brothers in the Gambian media.

No! I laugh, I joke and talk with them as friends and brothers.[National Assembly 2002:126].

The image is at marked odds with that of the journalists. Whereas the latter speak of a contract with the people in implied opposition to the state, Jahumpa-Ceesay evokescommunal solidarity, or, as Zygmunt Bauman puts it, a warm circle . . . [with] no



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room for cold calculation and rote-learning of whatever society around, frostilyand humorlessly, presents as standing to reason (2001:10). Baumans juxtapo-sition of reason and warmth neatly captures the common sense that invocationsof rights rupture a communitys bonds of trust and solidarity (Hastrup 2003). 12When deployed by the NAMs, it is a compelling vision wrapped in an argumentof African cultural difference vis--vis an unspecified other (presumably theWest). This vision resonates with a pervasive sense that the discourse of humanrights is often a way for Europeans and Americans to tell Africans what to think anddo. Jahumpa-Ceesay also implicates patriotism: if journalists side with the humanrights groups, they are not just siding with foreigners but letting foreigners speak on their behalf, signaling both the journalists weakness and their breach of soli-darity (Englund 2004; Whitaker 2005). Equally important, however, is what is notsaid: at no time is there a denial of the journalists having human rights, or thathuman rights are a good thing. Human rights as a hazy aspiration are untarnishedand it is the act of claiming rights, of making them justiciable, that is a violationof cultural norms.

Although these comments take place within a larger discourse of regulation andthe information society, the language of transparency and auditing that usuallyaccompanies such discussions, is directed toward the journalists, not the govern-ment (see Power 1999; Strathern 2000). The role of the journalists is not to be a

watchdog of society, but a purveyor of information, a node in the network of soci-ety. Addressing journalists gathered in the audience to a National Assemblydebate, the then Majority Leader explained:

Your profession is a profession that we need, that we want to makebest use of. . . . No one is against any media society . . . but there mustbe regulation. There must be a sense of direction . . . the problem hereis because you are an intermediary in the form of transmitting infor-mation. So, here is a problem of representation. . . . If you want torepresent me, you have to feel, write and think like I do. That way,you are correct, otherwise you will offend me. [National Assembly2002:150]

Journalists are here reduced to be conduits of information, and the chief criteriafor success are fidelity and authenticity. To be an effective conveyor, the journal-ists must share or conform to the ruling partys vision of government and acceptthe latters parameters of what an informed citizenry entails. Ramzia Diab, whointroduced this article, argued in a similar vein that:

We have a culture in Africa and that is the extended family systemand it calls for discretion. Most things that happen are normally set-tled in the family homes. . . . We cannot afford to be like the pressin America, our cultures are different. They can expose their presi-dent. They exposed Bill Clinton . . . and turned him into a little per-son despite all the good he did for their country]. . . . There is no

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controversy in [the NMC] bill. We are not like Europeans. [NationalAssembly 2002:162]

Diab here implies the redundancy of a public sphere, or, at the very least, theredundancy of media-as-watchdog in the public sphere. Any overt manifestationof dissentsuch as claiming justiciable rightsis contrary to cultural norms.Rather, disagreements should be resolved in the family home.

These speakers thus paint an image of the polity different from that of the jour-nalists, and while it would be easy to assimilate the difference to one betweenthe language of rights and civil society on the one hand, and a language of com-munal solidarity and African culture on the other, such assimilation would bemisleading. It is true that the language of rights has been increasingly adoptedby the media professionals in The Gambia, but the government, too, relies onlegal language for its argument, and the debate is fundamentally a legal squab-ble over the limits of the constitution and the NMC. 13 Arguments about cultureare in fact blended with regulatory arguments and programmatic statementsabout the importance of rights to offer a counterpoint to the journalists self-rep-resentation. The argument is not about rights, but about cultural propriety andfidelity to the governments plan of developing society. Rights in an abstractsense are never denied or dismissed, but if they are acted upon or made explicit,they are deemed out of place, as not fitting the bounds of communal solidarityand civic discourse.

Information Policy and the Creation of an Informed Citizenry

But the story of the NMC does not end here. It is but one small part of theNational Information and Communication Initiative (NICI). NICI began as theNational Communications and Information Policy (NACIP) in 2000, but was sus-pended in 2003 after extensive consultations with different sectors of Gambiansociety and support from the UN Economic Commission on Africa (that the NMCprocess continued while the rest of the initiative was stalled hints at the impor-tance granted it by the government).

Although billed as a continuation of NACIP, NICI takes a bolder view of infor-mation in society. NACIP essentially considered information as one of severalequal components of the governments development plan. NICI, by contrast,locates information at the heart of society: the document offers the reader a chartin which NICI is put in the middle, with arrows going out from it to several pri-ority areas: Infrastructure, Regulatory Issues, Local Governance, Education,Gender, Trade and Commerce, Media, Agriculture, e-Governance and Health

(Islam 2005:30). Whereas in NACIP information and communication was a dis-creet, albeit important component of society that could be addressed in isolationfrom other sectors, under the NICI, information and communication is not justdeemed to be pertinent to other sectors, but considered to be superior to and havea transformative effect on those sectors.



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The regulation of the media is thus considered just one part of an increasinglyimportant initiative with the stated aim of transforming The Gambia into a tech-nologically advanced and information rich society by the year 2020(Government of The Gambia 2000:10), or simply, as the Secretary of State forDOSCIT put it, the realization of an information society (quoted in Kargbo2004). The developmental teleology is unmistakable. A Gambian agronomistinvolved in the drafting process of the NICI put it more starkly. He argued thatAfrica jumped from an agrarian state to an industrialized state and could catchup to the West by quickly embracing digital technology. This jump would entaila wide-ranging transformation of society (and thus not just the addition of anindustry or business sector) and could only be directed by the government (inter-view, March 25, 2004).

NICIand the NMCis not a fringe element in the overall development plan of The Gambia, but a centerpiece. The National Governance Policy, which predatesNACIP, posits the flow of information (or the ability of information to flow) as oneof the key factors necessary for the development of good governance in terms of afree and independent media, a citizenry able and willing to engage in civicactivities, and a transparent public service (Government of The Gambia1999:12). Donor activity paints a similar picture of the priority given to informa-tion and communications (as the material embodiment of information policy): the

growth in foreign aid between 1998 and 1999 alone (the most recent years forwhich aggregate statistics are available) was 145.3 percent in the telecommuni-cations sector, higher than the increase in all other sectors save for transportationand humanitarian aid (UNDP 2001:23).

There are two issues surrounding the NICI that are relevant here: the fact that thepolicy is drafted to begin with, and the subject of information. Policies are con-stitutive (Shore and Wright 1997): demarcating a domain of information policycontributes to both the constitution of that domain and its subject (information).Equally important, and not unrelated, is that the formulation of a comprehensivepolicy signals a commitment, not just to the citizens but to the donor communitywhich has made information and communication technologies a priority. Thus,the vision statement of the draft locates it firmly within the global economicsystem: its purpose is to leverage the benefits of [information and communica-tion technologies] for a people-centered, free market based and export-orientedsocio-economic development strategy built on principles of public-private part-nership for wealth creation (Islam 2005:8). The regulation of informationor,rather, the appearance of the regulation of information consistently with globalnormsis considered central to the development agenda and to The Gambiassuccess in the global economy.

The second point (information) addresses directly the configuration of the polity.The underlying assumption is that in a society in which all sectors and people areconnected, you get a better educated population, more informed debate, and a

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higher-quality democracy. But as a range of scholars have pointed out, informa-tion is by no means an innocent label. It is rather the product of social relationsand actions (Barry 2001; Day 2001; Strathern 1999). The labeling of somethingas information is itself an evaluative exercise that turns social ephemera into bitsof data that can be indexed, managed, and distributed. This distribution, more-over, comes with a moral message: information demands attention and actionand, above all, responsible care. In other words, learning how to receive and takeproper care of information is part of citizenship.

This theme was picked up by the previous Secretary of State for DOSCIT: theNMC bill is a manifestation of the commitment Government shows towardsensuring access to free flow of information by creating an enabling environment

for a well-informed population through representation of divergent views andopinions in the media (National Assembly 2002:124). More pointedly, he addedduring a later debate that information is very powerful and that power, if notproperly used, can destroy a nation, it can misguide a nation (National Assembly2003:53). This linkage between information and an appropriate public is by nomeans unique. A government civil servant in a different department commented tome in a different context that once you get information, you get a well-culturedpublic (interview, June 25, 2004).

This managerial vision of information espoused by the government in regard tothe NMC and information policy exists in some ways independently of the tech-nological, economic, and social realities of The Gambia. That the vast majority of Gambians lack the literacy, electricity, hardware and desire to go onto the web-site of, say, the Central Bank of The Gambia is immaterial. What is material isthat the website exists. 14 Similarly, an e-government initiative launched in 2003appears mostly oblivious to the factors rendering reliable Internet access a fantasyto many Gambians. This initiative is one component of NICI and has among itsaims to ensure that each government department has an on-line portal. Accordingto the UNECA sponsored African Information Society Initiative, the portal mustprovide all necessary information of public importance like latest Price Index,Reports on public issues and other statistics. Broadbased headings that . . . covertopics of interest for the general public (African Information Society Initiative2003:6). The websites are also intended to convey a sense of the range of activi-ties undertaken by each government departmentall part of the notion that peo-ple should know their government.

The recurrent theme here is that the release or disclosure of information presumesa public ready to partake of that information. A public is, in effect, hailed into

being if only as a rhetorical subject. Whether or not there is a staggering numberof individuals ready to log on to the website and download government informa-tion is less important than the assumption that those individuals are out there. Atthe same time, the flipside of this construction of a public is the sphere of obscu-rity (Didier 2005:639)the disclosure of information is a delineation of the



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private, opaque space where the data is generated as much as it is a production of a public ready to absorb and debate the information.

My introduction to the e-government program is illustrative of the kinds of processes and attitudes toward information at which this discussion is driving.I had arranged a meeting with the civil servant serving as the Department of State for Finance and Economic Affairs focal point for the e-government initia-tive. Our meeting was short. After introductions the civil servant simply said Ishould read the official files and offered to transfer them to me via flash mem-ory, which we did. He commended our solution as being fast and efficient. Whatis notable here is the assumption that a particular constellation of documentscapturein his wordseverything one would need to know and that a min-

isters speech and an action plan would be sufficient. The information containedwas self-explanatory and the moral burden of understanding was placed on therecipient.

The intense focus on ideas of an information society and an informed citizenry inGambian politics puts the NMC debate into a somewhat different light. Ratherthan being about African community and similar notions, as seemingly indicatedby some of the NAMs above, the NMC appears as one out of several possibleparts of a managerial strategy to quicken the pace of neoliberal development andbring about an information society. The NICI document itself links the media andinformation policy together for that elusive goal of societal transformation. Itsgeneral objectives include to place media in a pivotal role for information dis-semination in spreading mass awareness about the importance of advantages of the information revolution and to use traditional media like Newspapers, Radio,and Television to provide an easy, accessible and cheap means of carrying infor-mation to people (Islam 2005:53). 15

This staging of the NMC debate within a larger discussion of information policyis significant. The internationalization of the issue via the use of foreign consult-

ants and UNECA funding, and the explicit references and comparisons made tosimilar policies under development in Ghana and other African countries, pointsto the emergence of a transnational policy narrative that draws its sustenancenot just from a growing list of national examples but broader processes of neolib-eral reforms and democratization (McCarthy 2005). This narrative is, of course,matched by those who resist the NMC in the name of international human rightsbut whereas the latter portrays itself as mostly reactive to developments, the for-mer is very explicitly regarded as an intervention of optimization (Ong 2006:6)to have concrete, measurable effects beyond restoring what is considered to be a

default state of society. The remarkable thing is that this difference is a lot moresubtle than it first appears. As much as the program of information policy calls aninformed public subject into being, the journalists representation of their role insociety similarly pivots around the notion that it is their work, enabled by accessto information, which creates informed subjects.

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talk of responsibility is not a cynical ploy. A more attractive answer may well bethat the question of the informed citizen serves as a focal point forand the NMCdebate a symptom ofthe recurring tension between emancipation and regula-tion in modernity. 16 The intensity of the debate may thus stem from the propen-sity for liberal regimes to do many things at once, to simultaneously include andexclude, reward and punish, to control and set free. A glance at the history of colonialism in The Gambia and how the terms of this debate reverberate againstthe colonial and postcolonial background of the use of information and media toengineer a public, reminds us of this propensity. 17

In this article, I have suggested that the debate over The Gambias National MediaCommission is not simply a debate over human rights, but rather a struggle over

the use and direction of information in the polity and the constitution of a partic-ular kind of subject, the hallmark of which is not that it is a rights-bearing one(though it is) but an informed one. I hasten to add, however, that behind thisarguably esoteric reframing of the issue lie severe and tragic consequences for the

journalists who have found themselves imprisoned, exiled, or, in the case of Deyda Hydara, killed. 18 My proposal of a third analytical frame could itself betaken as an antipolitical strategy, a way to problematize away what to some peo-ple in The Gambia and other countries are dire circumstances. That is not my aim;rather, I hope to have shown how the language of rights is caught up in and

becomes part of parallel concerns, and how those concerns are motivated byagendas that do not always fit neatly in one analytical box or another. Above all,if we accept that the creation and transmission of information, efforts to makethings public (Latour 2005), and the invocation of an audience for those thingshave constitutive effects and motivate further action, the stakes in regulatorydebates such as that over the NMC are raised immensely.

Notes

I am grateful to Sandra Barnes, Megan Tracy, Fariha Khan, and Rita Powellfor their thoughts on earlier versions of this paper, and Annelise Riles andPoLARs two anonymous reviewers for extensive suggestions for improve-ment. Any errors of fact or analysis are my own. Research in The Gambiawas supported by the National Science Foundation (Award #0318305).

1. See, for example, Reporters Without Borders report on the murder of DeydaHydara, editor of the private Gambian newspaper The Point, in December of 2004 (Reporters Without Borders 2005).

2. The Gambias National Assembly is a unicameral body. Forty-eight of the53 National Assembly Members are elected by their respective district, andthe remaining five are appointed by the president.

3. Throughout this article, I collapse liberal and neoliberal. While this collapsemay be analytically imprecise, it is ethnographically faithful as the latter term

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is not in frequent use in The Gambia. The kinds of transformations associatedwith neoliberalism, such as privatization, structural adjustment programs, andthe whittling down of the state, are commonly discussed in unlabeled terms orsimply as liberalization.

4. For overviews of the media in Africa, see Bourgault (1995), Nyamnjoh(2005), and Tudesq (1999).

5. Brian Larkins studies of media in Northern Nigeria offer an illustration: cin-emas are ambiguous as concrete manifestations of modernity and possibly asite for engagement with culturally and religiously inappropriate thoughtsand beliefs (Larkin 2002). But the Indian films shown in these theaters alsooffer an intertextual and intercultural play of moral significations and socialrelations that generate new, locally produced media such as cheaply pro-duced market literature (Larkin 1997).

6. Private radio stations are similarly constrained: they are subject to govern-mental interference, and their reach is limited by the lack of electricity inmany parts of the country as well as the expense of generators and batteries.

7. The Gambias only university was established in 1996, but it does not have a journalism program. Short courses for journalists are run by The GambiasUNESCO Commission.

8. Youths are frequently referred to as a collective actor in The Gambia, andtheir participation in organizations is common.

9. Judging by the GPU chairmans statement, the private press appears to haveplayed a comparatively minor role in politics during the period between inde-pendence and the early 1990s (see also Grey-Johnson 2004).

10. See Hasty (2005) and Olukoyun (2004) on Ghana and Nigeria, respectively.

11. The reliance on the language of human rights only serves to underline theantipolitical nature of this position, as human rights are often presented asinalienable, natural, and morally unquestionable. The construction of humanrights knowledge, furthermore, brackets local contexts as immaterial toglobal standards, and therein turns political debates into technical ones of thecompliance with this or that standard (cf. Merry 2005; Riles 2001).

12. Legal anthropologys record of course suggests that the disjuncture betweenthe claiming of rights and community may be cross-culturally salient and notunique to situations where international human rights are considered in

opposition to local norms (cf. Greenhouse et al. 1994).13. At the May 2004 session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples

Rightsa pan-African human rights body based in The GambiaI observedGambian journalists huddle with representatives of human rights groups suchas the Media Foundation for West Africa.



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14. The launch of the Banks website was announced in newspaper advertise-ments: The Bank recognizes the importance of public access to information,and accountability and transparency to the conduct of effective public policy.Therefore, the Bank welcomes the opportunity provided by the Internet tobroaden public access to information (Central Bank of The Gambia 2004).

15. The author of the NICI document does not, however, ignore the concernsvoiced by media practitioners (who were consulted in the drafting process)or human rights activists: media pluralism and professionalization are high-lighted as goals, and political interference in the media is cited as a problem.

16. See, for example, the discussion of modernity as containing both anemancipatory-reconciling and a repressive-alienating aspect in Habermas(1987:336341).

17. This reverberation is at times explicit. Many Gambian journalists refer to journalists of an earlier era with admiration and use that history to legitimizetheir position. The government, however, does not claim any continuity withprevious governments, even if the language used is similar.

18. It is not clear if the government is behind the violence carried out against journalists. Although the government denies any involvement, many thirdparty observers believe otherwise.

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hultin - pure fabrication

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