Hindolo Trye — An Immortal Proposition: A Remembrance

Hindolo Sumanguru Trye (Guru to his buddies) died on Thursday July 26, 2012. Although dead, Guru bequeaths an immortal proposition to Sierra Leone.  (Photo: The day Guru was appointed Secretary of State of Information in the NPRC government in 1992.)

Undeniably, Guru’s name will be forever linked to the popular “No College, No School” students’ demonstrations of 1977 that started at Fourah Bay College where he was Student Union President and engulfed the entire country. His lasting impact on Sierra Leone’s politics of national consciousness and mass mobilization will also be forever tied to that protest. With that rebellion, he headed the first national mass democratic protest in post-independent Sierra Leone, for there was no region untouched by the demonstration.  With ’77, Guru and his contemporaries contemplated and actuated the opportunity that Sierra Leoneans can confront despotism, in this case APC misrule, and in doing so transform their country for the better through their own initiative, will, and action.  He emerged from that historical moment an outlaw-hero, charismatic and cunning, adored and romanticized by generations of Sierra Leoneans. Many viewed him as a secular saint for radicalizing generations of youths who became his ardent admirers.

After FBC Guru further solidified his outlaw-hero credentials among Sierra Leoneans when he, along with Pios Foray and others, founded The Tablet newspaper, which articulated the ideologies of resistance to APC misrule that had spawned the ’77 demonstrations. Edited by Foray The Tablet became, in the eyes of President Siaka Stevens and his corrupt APC, legitimately acidic and toxic in exposing Stevens’ megalomania and the Kleptocracy it fostered.  But in the eyes of many Sierra Leoneans, however, The Tablet became the outlet that expressed their desires and voiced their helplessness and disempowerment in a ruthless APC political machinery.  The Tablet expressed profound contempt for APC misrule, and unleashed an effrontery to Stevens’ power that had not been seen since he established one-party rule in 1978. In one-party Sierra Leone, The Tablet became the voice of the opposition. It was fearless and bold, radical and uncompromising, combative and acerbic—qualities that described Guru as well.  Stevens and the APC were unforgiving, and they unleashed a violent attack at the newspaper that nearly cost Guru and Foray their lives.  Their escape from it found them in the USA where they spent close to two decades in exile. The last edition of The Tablet, published when Guru and Foray were in hiding, remains, in my opinion, one of the best prophetic journalistic pieces ever written in post-independent Sierra Leone: It predicted the Civil War.  They warned then that the state violence Stevens had nurtured could be countered only by further acts of violence that would engulf the nation.

‘77 and The Tablet articulated Guru’s emerging ideology of radicalism, Pan-Africanism, and commitment to democracy and its possibilities of change and freedom for Sierra Leoneans. Guru’s ideology was grounded on the prerequisite of change as a national obligation, and he was unwavering in that belief. He disavowed all politics based on regionalism, ethnicity and tribalism as well as paternalism and male chauvinism. He advocated for a national heritage rooted in a common national history and identity, common institutions and structures, egalitarian social ideals and political activism. He favored a cosmopolitan citizenship based on common, shared values like liberty, freedom of thought and association, coalitions and cooperation, political integrity and social justice.  If there was maturation in Guru’s ideology, it came in what he always called “The Struggle.”

To Guru “The Struggle” is ideology and more; it is a religion (aren’t all ideologies like that anyway?), a spiritual force, almost god-like, which he worshipped with devotion.  For him, it’s the Alpha and the Omega of a liberating national consciousness.  His undying belief, faith, and conviction was that Sierra Leone can be positively transformed only by sacrifice through The Struggle.  For that reason, he would evangelize on behalf of The Struggle, which he fervently believed must be at the center of our national redemption.  With Guru, all conversations and speeches started and ended with “The Struggle.” Whether you’re talking to Guru in person or by phone, he’d always remind you to be committed to The Struggle: it must be the guiding principle and the motivating force for the individual and communal renewal necessary for a better Sierra Leone. To him The Struggle guarantees the means to right social wrongs; the path to embark on constant reform; the site to dream new and bigger dreams; the base for an egalitarian transformation of the country; the bold imagination that guides social justice and fairness, etc. Above all, however, Guru always reminded himself and us that The Struggle must be based on the trust and belief in popular sovereignty.  He believed deeply that our conceptions of nationhood and citizenship must emerge from and be grounded in The Struggle, which in turn must facilitate democratic openness and transparent procedures and institutions that are accessible and available to all Sierra Leoneans.

Guru returned to Sierra Leone in 1992 just after the NPRC coup that toppled the APC. I vividly remember his first weeks in Freetown after his return.  In his passion to reconnect with kindred souls, he was like a dog who cannot let go of a bone.  He felt renewed and re-energized. We caught up under the auspices of the National Reconstruction Movement, a civic rights body some of us in Sierra Leone had formed in 1990. He was elated to see me and to reconnect to his Moyamba-Rotifunk roots. (Guru’s uncle, W.B. Trye, was a very, very close friend of my dad.)  I remember another moment of reconnection (captured in the group photo) at the office of Nat Cole, then the Comptroller of Customs, at Cline Town. Guru was visibly emotional at that meeting which he said reawakened the memories of ’77.  (Nat Cole was the Minister of Finance and Dennis Bright was the Secretary General in Guru’s ‘77 Student government. CJ Cole was there for it all in ‘77, Guru said. I was in early secondary school in ’77, and Guru joked that I had grown too fast to be in that picture.)

For Guru, the NPRC was just a manifestation of The Struggle.  He reminded the military leaders (echoing similar sentiments by the late Olu Gordon) that the NPRC accomplished what ’77 would have achieved if students had had weapons. For him, the military government was an opportunity to address the destruction that came out of APC misrule and to lay the foundation toward a new, broad-based civilian government. As Secretary of State Information, two of his initial actions were to bring to the air the SLBS-TV (which had gone off-air during the APC) and restructure the press laws; the latter was controversial among some journalists who strongly opposed it.  He was not illusory of the undemocratic scope and nature of military power even as his political capital added legitimacy to the NPRC.  The military Junta was being pressured to set a deadline for returning the country to civilian rule. Acting on an advice given to them by Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, the NPRC constituted a Youth Secretariat, separate from the military structure and headed entirely by civilians, to be the future platform for the transition from military to civilian rule. (Rawlings successfully used the same strategy in Ghana.) Acting further on his advice, Rawlings “loaned” the Sierra Leonean Muctarr Mustapha, son of politician and businessman Sanusi Mustapha, to the NPRC to organize the Secretariat and lay the grounds for the return to civilian rule. Muctarr, known as “Solida” (short for solidarity) to his friends, was legendary for his radical opposition to the APC. He had been in self-exile in Ghana where he played a phenomenal role in the youth and civilian mobilization that was pivotal to Rawlings transformation from military leader to civilian president. So, Rawlings sent Solida to the NPRC with high recommendations.  (Rawlings gave what amounted to a state funeral when Solida died in Ghana some years later.)

The NPRC military leaders had stated from the day they took power that none of them had intentions to head or join a civilian government after they left power.  But they definitely were interested in influencing any process that would choose their civilian successor. To realize both views, they hatched and put into motion a closely guarded secret and agenda known only to the very top military leaders, and a very few civilians, to start thinking about a future civilian government. The Youth Secretariat was tasked to play a central role in that regard. Guru’s profile was high among those military members privy to this plan and agenda.  And some of them did not hide their preference for Guru as the potential next civilian president. They traveled around with him all over the country.  Of course, there were other civilian members of the NPRC with leadership ambitions as well who were being promoted by the other military leaders who viewed with suspicion the workings of the Youth Secretariat.

Once in Freetown, however, Solida made it clear, in his brash and patrician manner, to all who cared to know that Guru is the next president of Sierra Leone.  Solida respected Guru highly, and would tell dramatic stories of their struggles against the APC going back to ‘77.   To Solida, the only Sierra Leonean with the vision and radical dispositions to rule Sierra Leone after the NPRC was Guru.  And he was committed to see that happen. From then on, his reference to Guru was “His Excellency in-waiting.”  Solida envisioned that the structural layout of the Youth Secretariat should have only one focus: make the way so that Guru becomes the legitimate leader of Sierra Leone after the NPRC.  (I left Sierra Leone in 1993 when this project was still unfolding.) For his part, Guru was busy trying to save the NPRC from self-destruction.

It was Guru who played a vital role in averting what was the first leadership crisis among the NPRC boys, a crisis that could have resulted in bloodbath in Freetown. About eight months or so after the 1992 coup that brought them to power, the Chairman and Head of State of the new military government Valentine Strasser had, along with some of his closest NPRC men including Charles Mbayo, departed Freetown at the dead of night for Antwerp (or Amsterdam) via a private jet made available by a well-known Lebanese diamond dealer. (It was later revealed that they had gone to sell diamonds.) The serious thing was that Strasser left Sierra Leone in secrecy without informing the other members of the Supreme Military Council and the NPRC. That seriousness was compounded by the fact that he did not follow the protocol of officially naming and having his military council approve an Acting Chairman and Head of State in his absence.  (Just as they did when Strasser was in the US for medical treatment in the first months after the coup.) In short, the country was leaderless. US and British intelligence agencies had tracked Strasser and his entourage the moment they landed in Europe and transmitted that information to their respective diplomats in Freetown. The following morning, and constantly thereafter, the US Ambassador and the British High Commissioner called Guru inquiring about the whereabouts of the Head of state of Sierra Leone. Guru replied that the Chairman was at Kabassa Lodge to where he was headed because of a pre-scheduled meeting with him. Guru arrived at Kabassa only to learn that Strasser was not there. On further inquiry, he learned that the other members of the military leadership were also unaware that Strasser was not at the Lodge. In fact, they were not aware of his whereabouts. Period

A crisis was looming, and the members of the Supreme Military Council were alerted and summoned to an emergency meeting in Freetown concerning the “sudden disappearance” of “Chairman.” NPRC Military members in the provinces and those at the war front fighting the rebels abandoned their posts and drove to Freetown with urgency with their mini battalions. (This was the time when all the military members of the NPRC had their own mini military units.) For some of them the first task at hand was to prevent the Deputy Chairman of the NPRC S.A.J. Musa whom they suspected of having something to do with Chairman’s “disappearance” from assuming the leadership of the country.  Even when they later learned to their disgusting surprise that Strasser was in Europe with no explanation for why he was there, some were still opposed to the option of SAJ acting as Head of State, fearing that he would use that to usurp power. They suggested one among the original coupists, other than SAJ, to act on behalf of Strasser. But seeing the potential trouble in that option, which in itself could have been perceived as a coup against SAJ, they agreed that SAJ should step in to act as Head of State. SAJ refused adamantly, saying that it was utterly disrespectful for Strasser to leave the country without informing him as his deputy and the other members of the Junta. There was a stalemate.

As the pressure from the US and British diplomats mounted on Guru to account for the whereabouts of Strasser, so continued the wrangling among the NPRC military leaders. (The US ambassador insisted that Guru as Secretary of Information must be able to tell at all times the whereabouts of the country’s Head of State. Guru’s response to him will remain a secret.)  It was fast becoming a diplomatic embarrassment for the nation; but more seriously, the national security of the country was at stake because there were already rumors in the public of a coup in the NPRC. However, there was another dimension, even more serious, to this for the NPRC: they did not want the information to reach the rebels that the NPRC and the country were leaderless at that moment.   As this played out, Guru emerged as one of the primary negotiators who solved the impasse that convinced SAJ to agree to act as Head of State, which he accepted only with certain conditions, which the others assented to.  (About two weeks after Strasser returned from his trip, the top players in the NPRC drove to SAJ’s official residence at Hill Station and disarmed him and his security details.)

In all this, Guru was calm, loyal, and self-effacing.  In general, he was a charming person with youthful convictions. His presence was bewitching, but surprisingly disarming. He was one of the strongest advocates for women’s and youth’s right in Sierra Leone I ever met. He was helpful, and used his NPRC connections to provide airfares for struggling students who are Ph.D. holders in the Diaspora today. He was an incorruptible patriot.

When Guru declared his membership and support for the APC in 2006, he left many of his admirers, who’d always seen him as their outlaw-hero and secular saint, bewildered and deflated.  They condemned him for joining a political party that had stifled all that he fought and sacrificed his life for. Some accused him of betraying and compromising his principles and ideals. To others, he was guilty of political opportunism.  Guru the revolutionary had become Guru the reactionary, they claimed.  Guru defended those charges by arguing that joining the APC was a change in politics but not a change of values.  He said he was transforming from a dissident to a politician.

Whatever your opinion of Guru is: the assertive and combative dissident, or the pragmatic politician, there is one immortal proposition he bequeaths us, which is: Inaction is not an option in the face of oppression.  This proposition is neither novel nor unique to Guru. But for post-independent Sierra Leoneans in search of a functional and functioning state, it was Guru who fearlessly and valiantly articulated this proposition as a benchmark and an awakening force in our national consciousness in ’77. It will continue to echo eternally as long as injustices prevail in Sierra Leone. (Just days after his death, the now perennial problems erupted at FBC which resulted in the rustication of 31 students. As Guru taught us in ’77, disturbances at FBC are symptomatic of a larger, deeper national malaise.) And as long as successive governments since ’77 continue to shortsightedly view students’ concerns at FBC as existential threats, Guru’s immortal proposition will not disappear.

Hindolo in Mende means “man-child,” with emphasis on the inseparability of the two. In the epigraph to his poem “Intimations of Immortality”, the English Romantic Poet William Wordsworth states: “The Child is the Father of the Man/And I could wish my days to be/Bound each to each by natural piety.”  (Guru the Gardener, my apologies for not quoting Walt Whitman.) Wordsworth may be expressing the view that the child is superior to an adult in his or her appreciation of the beauty of nature as a reflection of the celestial realm. If we substitute Wordsworth’s nature with freedom in Hindolo’s man-child nexus, Guru becomes our intimations of immortality.  Hindolo means that the child is indeed the father of the man because the child teaches the father, and what we are when we are young gives birth to what we are when we are grown. And that cycle is immortal. Adieu Guru.

By Patrick S. Bernard, Lancaster, PA, USA

Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!

© 2012, https:. All rights reserved.