Since I got up this morning, Thursday 19th, to write, I have had to work with four candles and one of those poorly manufactured Chinese lamp, wasted dozens of A4 paper, all in an attempt to get the mental pick-up required to do my work in Ernest Koroma’s Sierra Leone.
I guessed you’ve worked it out. There is no electricity, and I am writing on an A4 paper, because that is the only other option, I have a deadline to meet.
This however brings back memories of my old Smith-Coronas typewriter, thousands of miles away, somewhere in the loft of my house in London, where it has been gathering dust for some years now.
I remember my days, first at the Tablet Newspaper at Rawdon street, where the late Richie Olu- Gordon, Frank Kposowa, the Great P, I.B.Kargbo and of course the Guru, amongst many others, used to bash their way, with a fag in their mouth, and a bottle by their side as they littered the floor with pieces of scrunched up-paper, day in-day out as they struggled to clear their heads so as to get a proper, sonorous frame of mind to articulate either the sins of Siaka Stevens’ APC One Party rule or the burning issue of the day.
Of course, those days, you will find people like me, Momodu Adams, and Alhassan Sillah, now BBC correspondent in Guinea, plying the streets of Freetown and from time-to-time, with the blessings of Junior Rogers-Wright, getting to know the provincial cities of Sierra Leone. And, with the likes of Christian Williams, Donald John and Kabba Kargbo (all deceased), Munir Kallon presently in the USA, we had so much fun as reporters unlike today, when someone becomes an editor even before fully understanding the roles of a reporter let alone a cub-reporter, if we still have one in the country.
But a generation has passed since we journalists bashed out stories and articles on manual typewriters and sent them to the printers on sheaves of paper.
Indeed, in most other offices across the world, except the courts, it’s been well over 15 years since the loud clackety-clack of the keys, and the ping of the carriage return bell, could be heard from typing pool, where every mistake meant reaching for the Tippex or starting all over again.
I must confess, apart from the difficulties of writing with four candles and a Chinese lamp in Ernest Koroma’s Sierra Leone, and the strain of writing with a pen, as my lap-top is not charged, confirms that there’s nothing more boring than people jawing on about how everything was better in the old days. And if I made any such claim for manual typewriters over their computerized successors, I would clearly be telling less than the truth.
At the same time we cannot just dismiss the manual typewriter, after playing such central role in countless millions of working lives across the five continents since the first commercial model went on sale in America in 1874.
Call me what you like, but I reckon that among its much inferiority, the typewriter also had some advantages over the electronic machines that have driven it out of production.
For a start, there was something more satisfying to the senses about using a manual – the weight of the shift key, the ping of the bell, the glide of the carriage, the click of ratchet as you fed the paper in and the little screech it gave when you pulled it out.
Indeed, one can argue that the old manuals also encouraged people to write better, or at least in a more disciplined way. Since making changes half way through was such a palaver, there was a much stronger incentive to get the structure and phrasing of an article clear in the mind before committing anything to paper.
And though it was only marginal, the greater physical effort involved in typing the old way may have encouraged writers to be more economical with words. And for the absence of a spell-check, I grant you, it meant the inconveniences of keeping a dictionary handy to cross-check both spelling and word meanings. But it was also a powerful incentive to learn how to spell.
After all, since the arrival of the computer and mobile phone texting, most ten-year olds with access to a mobile phone have become familiar with the qwerty keyboard. But can anyone remember a time when standards of spelling were lower? BANG!!!And there is light.
I have to stop for a short while, to charge my mobile phones, get my lap-top out, and have a cuppa … But as I returned to my desk to continue with my work, I suddenly realized that we are now slaves to technology; no one can challenge the fact that everyone could easily understand the last generation of typewriters, and that man was the master of technology unlike today, when technology has become the master of man.
Did you say technology has become the master of man? Yes Old Boy. And this became clearer to me, as I went through my notes, a few minutes after we got light 6am on Thursday 19th. I was going through the notes I took during a press conference at the YWCA this past Wednesday organized by the Women’s Solidarity Support Group (WSSG) and the All Political Parties Women’s Association.
I wanted to quote Madam Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff, but I had not recorded her speaking. She had made a brilliant observation but I only took notes, suddenly, I missed my tape recorder. Many years back, I would have relied on my notes. Not anymore, because we are all now slaves to technology.
Thinking about what happened at Fourah Bay and listening to the SLPP Spokesman and the APC Minister of Presidential Affairs on radio this past week, finger-pointing each other like little children caught stealing, I was tempted to write about the delinquencies of the political class – a minority of people in this country who continue to dance around as leaders.
Believe me; the majority of Sierra Leoneans now see our political class as a self-centered and disgraceful bunch of mostly men, who want to slowly take this country back to the dark ages. BANG!!! And there was no light – just after 10.00am the light off again.
With the light off again, and the talk about Fourah Bay banging on, I once again, found it impossible to disagree with Madam Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff “THAT THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN SIERRA LEONE IS A DISGRACE; AND THAT OUR POLITICAL LEADERS ARE A DISGRACE” Indeed, I WILL ADD THAT WE ARE WITNESSING THE BIGGEST STATE FRAUD IN THE HISTORY OF SIERRA LEONE, by a group of people in both political parties who are desperate for power for their own selfish ends but not the betterment of Mother Sierra Leone.
Please take a good look at both the All Peoples’ Congress Party (APC) and the Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party (SLPP), what you will notice is that what started out as a glowing opportunity for an historic political leadership from both parties, some 10 years ago, first with the SLPP and now with the APC – has become a depressing display of desperation to either stay in power or to grab power, division and anger trumping reason.
Frankly, the policy differences between Ernest Koroma’s APC and Maada Bio’s SLPP are minor, the debate is not about substance; it’s been mainly about character and identity in an up-coming presidential and parliamentarian elections in a country that has been denied the basic ingredients of life by the same people – a minority who continue to dance around as leaders or saviors of our country. But we will talk about that next week….. In the meantime, just a quick word of advice…..the Special Court at New-England Ville is NOT going to CLOSE DOWN AS YET!!!!
HAVE a great weekend and God Bless Mother Sierra Leone.
By Winston Ojukutu-Macauley Jnr.
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