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Momodou
Denmark
11512 Posts |
 Posted - 19 Jun 2021 : 17:13:36
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GAMBIA-L Digest 75
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) RE: Alledged Torture
by TSaidy1050@aol.com
2) Re: culture (fwd)
by "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
3) RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
by "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
4) RE: Alledged Torture
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
5) RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
6) Re: culture2 (fwd)
by C_JAGNE@HUSKY1.STMARYS.CA
7) re:culture (fwd)
by Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
8) re:culture (fwd)
by Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
9) E-mail to gambia college
by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
10)
by S Njie <S.Njie@commonwealth.int>
11) New members
by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
12) RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
by "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
13) re:culture (fwd)
by "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
14) Progress on Internet connectivity.
by ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu>
15) lost factoids
by Ylva Hernlund <yher@u.washington.edu>
16) Fwd: DEVELOPMENT-FINANCE: World Bank Promotes 'Effective' State
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
17) Fwd: HEALTH: Africa Winning the Battle on Meningitis
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
18) RE: New members
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
19)
by nahak@juno.com (Michael J GOMEZ)
20) RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
by Yaikah Jeng <YJENG@PHNET.SPH.JHU.EDU>
21) UDP's statement on tortures of supporters.
by "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net>
22) RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
by Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
23) re:culture (fwd)
by Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
24) Fwd: ENVIRONMENT-UN: Failure of Rio Foll
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
25) New members
by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
26) Re: lost factoids
by "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu>
27) Fwd: Unending Woes For Kabila`s Harare Embassy
by mmjeng@image.dk
28) RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
29) Fwd: HEALTH: New Scientific Research Body, a Bridge to the Poor
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
30) RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
by Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca>
31) Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
32) Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by "Numukunda Darboe(Mba)" <ndarboe@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu>
33) THE 11th GAMBIAN CUTURAL WEEK 19-26 JULY 1997 OSLO
by "Ba-Musa Ceesay" <Ba-Musa.Ceesay@Oslo.Norad.telemax.no>
34) RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
35) Gambia-l shadow list
by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
36) Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
37) RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by Laura Ellen Munzel <lem10@columbia.edu>
38) Re: THE 11th GAMBIAN CUTURAL WEEK 19-26 JULY 1997 OSLO
by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no>
39) New member
by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
40) VB: RE: New members
by sahir.drammeh@bok.bonnier.se
41) miningitis belt !
by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
42) Fwd: ENVIRONMENT: Shifting Sands of Dese
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
43) Fwd: ENVIRONMENT: Media Doesn't Get the
by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
44) Culture and the cancer of language and tribe .
by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
45) RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
by "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
46) July 4th celebration!!!!
by Salifuj@aol.com
47) New member
by "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
48) re: culture2 (fwd)
by Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
49) New member
by "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
50) Sierra Leone army chief backs female circumcision (fwd)
by "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
51) Re: New member
by "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu>
52) Sissoho Update
by ASJanneh@aol.com
53) New member
by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
54) new member introduction
by "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
55) RE: new member introduction
by BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 06:48:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: TSaidy1050@aol.com
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Alledged Torture
Message-ID: <970629064855_-2064612105@emout20.mail.aol.com>
Gambia-l,
As first reported by Latjor, allegations of torture were made by some
supporters of UDP who were arrested for wrongful gathering (Political
rally/congress without a permit).
These are allegations that the Government is taking very seriously and
investigations are being conducted. When the Observer Newspaper first
published the allegations, President Jammeh was on a state visit to Turkey.
Reacting to the allegations, the State Department of Justice and Attorney
General's Chambers released this press release: -
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
The Government of the Republic of The Gambia has noted with concern the
allegations of alleged torture of some supporters of the United Democratic
Party. The Government wishes to assure the General public that the matter
will be fully investigated by the police whose findings and recommendations
will be submitted to the ATTORNEY General's Chambers for appropriate action.
The general public is being further assured that the Government is here to
protect them and will not condone torture of any form whatsoever. This matter
is being taken seriously and the public is urged to be co-operative during
the investigations.
The Gambia is a country of law and order, peace and harmony. All persons
living in this country shall be treated equally before the law be they
members of the opposition or not. The Government is here for the people and
it is thus natural that it is here to protect the interest of the people, to
this end the Government pledges to work assiduously towards full enjoyment of
the fundamental human rights as enshrined in the Constitution.
26th June, 1997
State Department of Justice
Marina Parade
Banjul, The Gambia.
The APRC Government does not encourage torture, would do all within its power
eradicate it if it is really being practised by some members of the
disciplined forces.
BUDGET SPEECH DAY, JUNE 27, 1997
Friday was the Budget Day in The Gambia, similar to the State of the Union
address given by the President of the US. In The Gambia, instead of the
President, the Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs delivers
the speech at the National Assembly.
This year's budget is unique in the sense that it is a transitional budget or
a mini budget to cover the next six months. The Gambia is changing from a
fiscal year (July-June) to a calendar year (January- December). There is
nothing new or surprising in the mini budget. There are no new taxes, no
increase in fees, or reduction in taxes. It is the same as last years
provisions, extended to cover the next six months.
It has been a while, Peace!!!
Tombong Saidy
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 13:19:43 +0100 (BST)
From: "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: culture (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.970629113959.20750A-100000@whale.students.stir.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I quite sympathise with Latjor's feelings about African
culture and language. Let me assure him that many Afrcans all
over the world share similar sentiments. Let us hope that one
day our dreams will become reality. I just have certain
comments to make.
The first is that Gambian / African culture is indeed
included in the curriculum, in Social and Environmental Studies
and in the socalled 'silent' curriculum. Cultural events also
frequently take place in schools. Teachers do their best to
inculcate the 'ethics, mores and values of the nation', but in
many cases their efforts are not complemented by parents and
guardians. Many parents do not bother to visit schools to find
out about their child's progress except when there is a serious
problem. There are times when parents openly admit that they
are powerless to do anything about their child's behaviour.
Parent/Teacher meetings are generally poorly attended, and this
reflects the general attitude of the public to teaching.
The fact is about 80% of teachers in our senior secondary
schools come from other West African countries; from, if I may
say so, other cultures. A teacher can come from another
country today and start teaching cultural issues the following
day. Heads of school do their best to monitor what goes on
in the classroom but cannot stop them exalting their own
cultural values. These teachers in many cases are not willing
to learn the way we do things, and leave as soon as they
make enough money to go to the west.
Gambians - how can one put this? - do not like teaching. And
we do our best to discourage our kids from taking up the
profession. If we are to be successful in inculcating our
values on our children we must be prepared to do it
ourselves. It is that simple.
The other point raised by Latjor is also important. Namely
the position of English vis a vis African languages. While I
do not believe that Gambian schools are still teaching the
'mores, ethics and values' of the white man, I think more
needs to be done to encourage the use of African languages,
especially in the primary schools. Ngugi has written a lot on
this subject and his ideas appeal to many Africans, including
myself. But in order to get a balanced view we need to put
Ngugi ideas side with those of other African intellectuals,
mainly from West Africa, to see what we can learn from both
positions. Ngugi is himself aware of the type of problems and
difficulties we are likely to face: 'Problems of literacy.
Problems of publishing. Problems of lack of a critical
tradition. Problems of orthography. Problems of having very many
languages in the same country.'
Once we have identified possible solutions to these, we will
have solved more than half of the problem.
Thanks for reading.
MOMODOU
On Thu, 26 Jun 1997,
Gabriel Ndow wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 02:36:45 -0700
> From: latjor Ndow <ndukuman@avana.net>
> To: gndow@spelman.edu
> Subject: culture
>
> Greetings:
>
> Let me join the discussion on culture by sharing part of an article I
> wrote in the magazine I used to publish "Tey Mu Lerr" about two years
> ago. The article was entitled "Culture: The Foundation and Guide of a
> People".
>
> ... despite the fact that culture permeates all areas of human activity,
> relatively little attention has been given to the issue. The leaders of
> the day (post-independence) were apparently satisfied (and continue to
> be) with the idea that by creating a 'Ministry of Culture' (usually an
> appendage of another ministry) they have done their duty towards their
> cultural heritage. A commentator once jokingly stated that the day
> African governments created 'Ministries of Culture' for the propagation
> of African culture was the day African Culture got into deep trouble!
> The seriousness and validity of this 'joke' cannot be ignored.
>
> When one scrutinizes the performance of African governments regarding
> Culture, they for the most part have reduced it to a National Troupe
> with acrobatic dancers and fire-eaters to entertain the public on
> aupicious occassions as well as for tourist consumption. The
> consequences of their actions obviously escaped the minds of many
> regimes over the decades.
>
> How insincere African governments are towards African culture is best
> demonstrated by their non-inclusion in the educational curricular of
> school-going children. Instead they continue to propagate the cultural
> ethos of their former colonial masters. They continue to maintain the
> status quo as they had inherited it with minor cosmetic changes to
> confuse the people.
>
> The educational apparata of a government are generally designed to
> guarantee the future of the nation by inculcating the ethics, mores, and
> values of the nation to the nation's young. Since one finds these
> principles in the cultural domain and since in Africa, African Culture
> is not taught in school, the question that begs to be asked is: 'What or
> whose ethics, mores and values are being taught to the millions of
> Africans passing through the educational systems devised by respective
> African governments?' Of course the answer to this question is many
> centuries old.
> ...
> Towards a National Cultural Policy
>
> To discuss what a national cultural policy must entail, it is absolutely
> necessary to dig deep into the bag of history and bring out answers to
> questions raised similar to the above mentioned one. Others are: 'How
> did European Imperialism attempt to destroy African Culture?' What was
> the Missionary (Christian/Islamic) input?', etc...
>
> When one studies the history of imperialism carefully, one soon
> discovers that there is a definite pattern/method utilized to subjugate
> the dominated societies. It matters not whether the invader is from
> Japan, Greece, France or where ever. The invader quickly realizes that
> by denying the dominated complete control of their language they are
> better able to entrench themselves. This is done by the imposition of
> the invaders language on the subjugated. The 'new' language becomes the
> language employed in government, in education and in the technical
> disciplines. It is a trivial matter for me to sight examples of this
> occurence. Africa is the stirling example. The great giant of a writer
> Ngugi wa Thiong'o describes the alienation this does to the colonized as
> taking two interlinked forms:
>
> >an active (or passive) distancing of one self from the reality around; >and an active (or passive) identification with that which is most >external to one's environment. It starts with a deliberate >disassociation of the language of conceptualization, of thinking, of >formal education, of mental development, from the language of daily >interaction in the home and in the community. It is like separating the >mind from the body so that they are occupying two unrelated linguistic >spheres in the same person. On a larger social scale it is like >producing a society of bodiless heads and headless bodies.
>
> The colonized African is now completely vulnerable to exploitation since
> his/her actions are now dictated by a mentality that is completely
> foreign to his/her environment.
>
> ...
> In my next posting I shall discuss the 'Vernacularization of African
> Languages'.
>
> In peace,
> LatJor
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 13:20:07 +0100 (BST)
From: "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.970629124239.20750B-100000@whale.students.stir.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I must first of all commend Bass for the way he is
dealing with such a complicated and sensitive issue. Everything -
well, almost- he has said so far is clear and to the point.
It is not my desire to distract him from the main issue
under discussion, but I do not really understand what he is
trying to say in the paragraph beginning, 'Duke William's
conquest...', especially the part which says, 'the Grammar and
syntax followed the Anglo-Saxon pattern whereas the
vocabulary(words) would be provided by French and Scandanavian
and sometimes Latin.' Does this mean that there were no more
Anglo-Saxon words? Or does it simply mean that English came
under the influence of other languages? Let me just add that
Latin, in fact, influenced both English grammar and syntax, as
any traditional grammar book will show. We were told not to
end a sentence with a preposition, not to begin one with a
conjunction and so on. These were all Latin influences. In
fact, Latin so dominated literary life that virtually all
writers wrote in it. Until people like Chaucer came and
started writing in the VERNACULAR( in this case referring to
English). These are only my thoughts and may be quite
different to ( I normally use different 'from' but some English
intellectuals have argued that it is a Latin expression, and
that the Anglo Saxons said different 'to') what Bass had in
mind. I am sorry if I have gone off the rails.
Thanks for reading.
MOMODOU
On Fri, 27 Jun
1997, BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH wrote:
> *** LANGUAGE AND THE ENGLISH TRIBE ******
>
> Now that we know what Tribe and Tribalism are and how they differ from
> Ethnic and Ethnicity in terms of what they refer to,we will now define our
> second term,namely,LANGUAGE.It comes from the French word LANGUE which
> initially meant Tongue, but gradually expanded to mean A System Of Words
> And Combination Of Words Used By A Particular Group Or Community To Express
> And Communicate Thoughts And Feelings.It can also be a sign of group
> solidarity esp. for a community that feels threatened or marginalised.And
> if one of several languages spoken in a given community is considered as
> Socially Prestigious ,those who do not command it have limited
> opportunities for political or economic advancement.Language is also the
> external expression of the totality of the culture of a given community:
> its geography, food, shelter,dress,transportation,customs,beliefs and its
> understanding and interpretation of physical and social enviroment.So,in
> addition to being a tool for communication and an intrument of power ,
> Language is also the vessel that contains the past,the present and the
> dreams of a given people.
>
> It will be become apparent as soon as we have started talking about our
> subject proper why we need to define these Terms above as they will be used
> here,but in the meantime we want to look very quickly at the Tribal and
> Language development of the very TRIBE that has not only given us the
> English Language, but also played,for better or for worse, a pivotal role
> in our intellectual development.
>
> Fifty-Five years before the birth of Christ,the Emperor of Rome,Julius
> Caesar, told a group of his expeditionary soldiers to cross the channel to
> the Britsh Isles.The Emperor wanted
> Corn,Cattle,Gold,Silver,Iron,Hides,Slaves and Hunting Dogs to help maintain
> the Roman standard of living.When the soldiers got there,the only tribes
> there then were the Celtic Tribes(the original inhabitants of the
> Isles).Some of the tribal chiefs and their followers who resisted were
> killed and others were caught and sent to Rome as slaves.As for the tribal
> chiefs who either did not resist or actively cooperated with the
> Colonizers,they were rewarded lavishly by the emperror.Their
> foods,drinks,furniture and household equipments would now come from
> Rome.And Special Roman schools were set up to teach their children Latin
> and Roman history, culture and the Roman way of life.And in a space of just
> a few years,an efficient system was in place to ensure the flow of human
> and material resources from the British Isles to Rome. Thus was the
> beginning of Colonialism for this Island.
>
> In around 500AD (after the birth of Christ) three German Tribes (the
> Angels,the Jutes and the Saxons) invaded and occupied much of this same
> territory,killed lots of its Celtic inhabitants and took much of the land;
> and because of the brutality in which this invasion was conducted,the
> languages of the invaders became the means of communication on the
> Island,so that in just few generations down the line,the entire Celtic
> language(the language of the Original inhabitants) was almost dead except
> for a handful of words.And so began the long and bloody history of the
> Tribe the world now calls the AngloSaxons.
>
> In 870AD,about three hundred and seventy years later,the Danish King by the
> name CANUTE,invaded and took control of much of the Island.He also imposed
> his language as the official language and the language of the upper
> class,even though Latin continued to be taught to the children in
> school.And the Danish control also continued for about two hundred years.
>
> And in the famous year of 1066AD,the Duke of the French province of
> Normandy,Duke William,Conquered the entire island and declared himself the
> King of England and Duke of Normandy simultaneously.Duke William was a
> descendant of the Scandanavians who had conquered and taken control of this
> french province.The word NORMANS means the people from the north (north of
> Europe).So,Duke William and his followers also imposed their language,which
> was nothing but a mixture of french and Scandanavian known in France as the
> Northern dialect.So,the Norman control also continued for another four
> hundred years,during which French became the language of Government, Law ,
> the Aristocracy,the Royal Circles,Arts, Literature and Philosophy,even
> though schools still continue to teach the children in Latin.
>
> Duke William's conquest is considered as the real beginning of what we now
> call the English Language.And it works like this: the Grammar and Syntax
> followed the AngloSaxon pattern whereas the vocabulary (words) would be
> provided by French and Scandanavian and sometimes Latin.
>
> This, in short, is the Tribal and Language history of the AngloSaxons; and
> understanding it will be become very handy for us when we start to look at
> our own somewhat chaotic Tribal and Language history,which is what we will
> try to do in OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT. And until then?
>
>
> Regards Basssss!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 17:09:09 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Alledged Torture
Message-ID: <01BC84AF.2E8F0780@digp.qatar.net.qa>
Tombong!
Welcome back,Mr.resourceful! We have been enormously orphaned here in
terms of getting factual information from the ground,Gambia.While you were
silent,we were hoping the OBSERVER would be able to fill the information
gap you have left behind,but that was not to be.So,I am very happy that you
are back.And thanks for the News.
Regards Basss!!
----------
From: TSaidy1050@aol.com[SMTP:TSaidy1050@aol.com]
Sent: 23/OYN/1418 09:48 O
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: RE: Alledged Torture
Gambia-l,
As first reported by Latjor, allegations of torture were made by some
supporters of UDP who were arrested for wrongful gathering (Political
rally/congress without a permit).
These are allegations that the Government is taking very seriously and
investigations are being conducted. When the Observer Newspaper first
published the allegations, President Jammeh was on a state visit to Turkey.
Reacting to the allegations, the State Department of Justice and Attorney
General's Chambers released this press release: -
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
The Government of the Republic of The Gambia has noted with concern the
allegations of alleged torture of some supporters of the United Democratic
Party. The Government wishes to assure the General public that the matter
will be fully investigated by the police whose findings and recommendations
will be submitted to the ATTORNEY General's Chambers for appropriate
action.
The general public is being further assured that the Government is here to
protect them and will not condone torture of any form whatsoever. This
matter
is being taken seriously and the public is urged to be co-operative during
the investigations.
The Gambia is a country of law and order, peace and harmony. All persons
living in this country shall be treated equally before the law be they
members of the opposition or not. The Government is here for the people and
it is thus natural that it is here to protect the interest of the people,
to
this end the Government pledges to work assiduously towards full enjoyment
of
the fundamental human rights as enshrined in the Constitution.
26th June, 1997
State Department of Justice
Marina Parade
Banjul, The Gambia.
The APRC Government does not encourage torture, would do all within its
power
eradicate it if it is really being practised by some members of the
disciplined forces.
BUDGET SPEECH DAY, JUNE 27, 1997
Friday was the Budget Day in The Gambia, similar to the State of the Union
address given by the President of the US. In The Gambia, instead of the
President, the Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs delivers
the speech at the National Assembly.
This year's budget is unique in the sense that it is a transitional budget
or
a mini budget to cover the next six months. The Gambia is changing from a
fiscal year (July-June) to a calendar year (January- December). There is
nothing new or surprising in the mini budget. There are no new taxes, no
increase in fees, or reduction in taxes. It is the same as last years
provisions, extended to cover the next six months.
It has been a while, Peace!!!
Tombong Saidy
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 17:53:46 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <01BC84B5.CF26BA20@dife.qatar.net.qa>
Mr.Njie!
Thanks for your response.Yes,I just meant to say that English was
influenced by other Languages.No,I am not denying the Latin influence,but
we are here talking about the years immediately after 1066, the OLD ENGLISH
era, more than hundred years before the first university was built,or
Aristotle (his Logic and Philosophy)translated,or the Latin Classics
(including its grammar and syntax) was understood and used by the ruling
class.
Regards Basss!
----------
From: M. Njie[SMTP:mn015@students.stir.ac.uk]
Sent: 23/OYN/1418 04:20 a
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
I must first of all commend Bass for the way he is
dealing with such a complicated and sensitive issue. Everything -
well, almost- he has said so far is clear and to the point.
It is not my desire to distract him from the main issue
under discussion, but I do not really understand what he is
trying to say in the paragraph beginning, 'Duke William's
conquest...', especially the part which says, 'the Grammar and
syntax followed the Anglo-Saxon pattern whereas the
vocabulary(words) would be provided by French and Scandanavian
and sometimes Latin.' Does this mean that there were no more
Anglo-Saxon words? Or does it simply mean that English came
under the influence of other languages? Let me just add that
Latin, in fact, influenced both English grammar and syntax, as
any traditional grammar book will show. We were told not to
end a sentence with a preposition, not to begin one with a
conjunction and so on. These were all Latin influences. In
fact, Latin so dominated literary life that virtually all
writers wrote in it. Until people like Chaucer came and
started writing in the VERNACULAR( in this case referring to
English). These are only my thoughts and may be quite
different to ( I normally use different 'from' but some English
intellectuals have argued that it is a Latin expression, and
that the Anglo Saxons said different 'to') what Bass had in
mind. I am sorry if I have gone off the rails.
Thanks for reading.
MOMODOU
On Fri, 27 Jun
1997, BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH wrote:
> *** LANGUAGE AND THE ENGLISH TRIBE ******
>
> Now that we know what Tribe and Tribalism are and how they differ from
> Ethnic and Ethnicity in terms of what they refer to,we will now define
our
> second term,namely,LANGUAGE.It comes from the French word LANGUE which
> initially meant Tongue, but gradually expanded to mean A System Of Words
> And Combination Of Words Used By A Particular Group Or Community To
Express
> And Communicate Thoughts And Feelings.It can also be a sign of group
> solidarity esp. for a community that feels threatened or marginalised.And
> if one of several languages spoken in a given community is considered as
> Socially Prestigious ,those who do not command it have limited
> opportunities for political or economic advancement.Language is also the
> external expression of the totality of the culture of a given community:
> its geography, food, shelter,dress,transportation,customs,beliefs and its
> understanding and interpretation of physical and social enviroment.So,in
> addition to being a tool for communication and an intrument of power ,
> Language is also the vessel that contains the past,the present and the
> dreams of a given people.
>
> It will be become apparent as soon as we have started talking about our
> subject proper why we need to define these Terms above as they will be
used
> here,but in the meantime we want to look very quickly at the Tribal and
> Language development of the very TRIBE that has not only given us the
> English Language, but also played,for better or for worse, a pivotal role
> in our intellectual development.
>
> Fifty-Five years before the birth of Christ,the Emperor of Rome,Julius
> Caesar, told a group of his expeditionary soldiers to cross the channel
to
> the Britsh Isles.The Emperor wanted
> Corn,Cattle,Gold,Silver,Iron,Hides,Slaves and Hunting Dogs to help
maintain
> the Roman standard of living.When the soldiers got there,the only tribes
> there then were the Celtic Tribes(the original inhabitants of the
> Isles).Some of the tribal chiefs and their followers who resisted were
> killed and others were caught and sent to Rome as slaves.As for the
tribal
> chiefs who either did not resist or actively cooperated with the
> Colonizers,they were rewarded lavishly by the emperror.Their
> foods,drinks,furniture and household equipments would now come from
> Rome.And Special Roman schools were set up to teach their children Latin
> and Roman history, culture and the Roman way of life.And in a space of
just
> a few years,an efficient system was in place to ensure the flow of human
> and material resources from the British Isles to Rome. Thus was the
> beginning of Colonialism for this Island.
>
> In around 500AD (after the birth of Christ) three German Tribes (the
> Angels,the Jutes and the Saxons) invaded and occupied much of this same
> territory,killed lots of its Celtic inhabitants and took much of the
land;
> and because of the brutality in which this invasion was conducted,the
> languages of the invaders became the means of communication on the
> Island,so that in just few generations down the line,the entire Celtic
> language(the language of the Original inhabitants) was almost dead except
> for a handful of words.And so began the long and bloody history of the
> Tribe the world now calls the AngloSaxons.
>
> In 870AD,about three hundred and seventy years later,the Danish King by
the
> name CANUTE,invaded and took control of much of the Island.He also
imposed
> his language as the official language and the language of the upper
> class,even though Latin continued to be taught to the children in
> school.And the Danish control also continued for about two hundred years.
>
> And in the famous year of 1066AD,the Duke of the French province of
> Normandy,Duke William,Conquered the entire island and declared himself
the
> King of England and Duke of Normandy simultaneously.Duke William was a
> descendant of the Scandanavians who had conquered and taken control of
this
> french province.The word NORMANS means the people from the north (north
of
> Europe).So,Duke William and his followers also imposed their
language,which
> was nothing but a mixture of french and Scandanavian known in France as
the
> Northern dialect.So,the Norman control also continued for another four
> hundred years,during which French became the language of Government, Law
,
> the Aristocracy,the Royal Circles,Arts, Literature and Philosophy,even
> though schools still continue to teach the children in Latin.
>
> Duke William's conquest is considered as the real beginning of what we
now
> call the English Language.And it works like this: the Grammar and Syntax
> followed the AngloSaxon pattern whereas the vocabulary (words) would be
> provided by French and Scandanavian and sometimes Latin.
>
> This, in short, is the Tribal and Language history of the AngloSaxons;
and
> understanding it will be become very handy for us when we start to look
at
> our own somewhat chaotic Tribal and Language history,which is what we
will
> try to do in OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT. And until then?
>
>
> Regards Basssss!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
egards Basssss!!
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:33:40 -0400 (AST)
From: C_JAGNE@HUSKY1.STMARYS.CA
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: culture2 (fwd)
Message-ID: <01IKNN03RAAA00732H@HUSKY1.STMARYS.CA>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Nice piece Latjorr ...
I was wondering though if you could comment on
how the lack of an alphabet/character set for
most African languages could affect any attempt
to raise their profile.
Cherno,
Atlanta.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:55:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: re:culture (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970630015526.8634A-100000@acc5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:27:02 -0700
From: latjor Ndow <ndukuman@avana.net>
To: gndow@spelman.edu
Subject: re:culture
Greetings Momodou:
Your comments are appreciated. You touched on several important issues
which need to be addressed individually. I shall only address one issue
here and touch on the others later. But before I do let me quickly say
that you are quite right that our schools are full of 'foreign' (mostly
Ghanian and Sierra Leonean - I think) teachers. More Gambians do need to
enter the teaching field. However, having other African teachers is not
the major problem as far as the inclusion of African Culture into the
curriculum. It is not teachers in the classroom who design the
curriculum, it is government!
Your comment:
> The first is that Gambian / African culture is indeed
> included in the curriculum, in Social and Environmental
> Studies and in the socalled 'silent' curriculum.
Interesting. What does this imply? Does it mean that African culture
only has relevance in these two 'safe' subjects? What about subjects
such as mathematics, physics, languages, religious studies, government,
music, philosophy ...?
Lest one does not see how culture plays a role in subjects such as
mathematics (physcis,chemistry etc..), let me remind you that
trigonometry, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, quadratic equations, and
theorems such as the so called 'pythagorean theorem' were all developed
in Africa! Yet all textbooks being used in Gambia (and elsewhere)
portray these disciplines as having been developed by mostly Greeks! Can
you imagine a young gambian (African) reading in her standard
mathematics textbook that 5000 years ago African students like herself
where being given problems such as finding the volume of a cylinder
(problem 41 -43 of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and problems of
geometric progression (problem 79 of the Kahun Papyrus) then furnishing
answers following strict rules of mathematics.
'So what?', one may ask. That is just historical information and has
nothing to do with what we are discussing. I would respond to such a
query as such; 'for the same reason our textbook authors find it
necessary (science books included) to remind us (or more appropriately
their people) about historical personalities such as Pythagoras and
Strabo, it is for the same reason we must include our ancestors who
contributed greatly to the disciplines we study in our schools. It
reinforces the cultural identity of a people. Take any standard Physics
textbook for example, you will find upwards of 700 insertions of a
historical nature regarding who did what, when and where. I do not have
to tell you that Africa does not feature prominently in these
insertions. History happens to be one of the factors (linguistic and
psychological being the others) that contribute to the collective
personality of a people, the latter giving rise to the cultural identity
of a people.
In peace,
LatJor
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 02:22:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: re:culture (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970630022201.8634C-100000@acc5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:55:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@spelman.edu>
Reply-To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List"
<gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: re:culture (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:27:02 -0700
From: latjor Ndow <ndukuman@avana.net>
To: gndow@spelman.edu
Subject: re:culture
Greetings Momodou:
Your comments are appreciated. You touched on several important issues
which need to be addressed individually. I shall only address one issue
here and touch on the others later. But before I do let me quickly say
that you are quite right that our schools are full of 'foreign' (mostly
Ghanian and Sierra Leonean - I think) teachers. More Gambians do need to
enter the teaching field. However, having other African teachers is not
the major problem as far as the inclusion of African Culture into the
curriculum. It is not teachers in the classroom who design the
curriculum, it is government!
Your comment:
> The first is that Gambian / African culture is indeed
> included in the curriculum, in Social and Environmental
> Studies and in the socalled 'silent' curriculum.
Interesting. What does this imply? Does it mean that African culture
only has relevance in these two 'safe' subjects? What about subjects
such as mathematics, physics, languages, religious studies, government,
music, philosophy ...?
Lest one does not see how culture plays a role in subjects such as
mathematics (physcis,chemistry etc..), let me remind you that
trigonometry, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, quadratic equations, and
theorems such as the so called 'pythagorean theorem' were all developed
in Africa! Yet all textbooks being used in Gambia (and elsewhere)
portray these disciplines as having been developed by mostly Greeks! Can
you imagine a young gambian (African) reading in her standard
mathematics textbook that 5000 years ago African students like herself
where being given problems such as finding the volume of a cylinder
(problem 41 -43 of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and problems of
geometric progression (problem 79 of the Kahun Papyrus) then furnishing
answers following strict rules of mathematics.
'So what?', one may ask. That is just historical information and has
nothing to do with what we are discussing. I would respond to such a
query as such; 'for the same reason our textbook authors find it
necessary (science books included) to remind us (or more appropriately
their people) about historical personalities such as Pythagoras and
Strabo, it is for the same reason we must include our ancestors who
contributed greatly to the disciplines we study in our schools. It
reinforces the cultural identity of a people. Take any standard Physics
textbook for example, you will find upwards of 700 insertions of a
historical nature regarding who did what, when and where. I do not have
to tell you that Africa does not feature prominently in these
insertions. History happens to be one of the factors (linguistic and
psychological being the others) that contribute to the collective
personality of a people, the latter giving rise to the cultural identity
of a people.
In peace,
LatJor
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:11:17 +0200
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
To: "'gambia'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: E-mail to gambia college
Message-ID: <c=DK%a=_%p=DIF%l=DKDIFS02-970630071117Z-232@dkdifs02.dif.dk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Friends, back after a nice week-end I=B4m so glad to see the comments on
e-mail, computers, and university of the Gambia.
I think it was me, who maybe made some confusions on the matter of the
company involved. Now Mr. Grotnes has ensured everyone - I hope, that
there is no conflict if we from outside try to help the gambian
institutions with hardware and software-supplies. The more the better.
Hes company can give service, courses, advises etc. inside the country.
He has also ensured me, that the telephone costs will be a minimum. So
to me this is the first step to get the institutions on the net, so we
can communicate directly every day about what they need, what we can do
to help, information of scholarships, etc. And the students and the
teachers can contact you and institutions inside and outside The Gambia.
And having The Gambia College on our Gambia-L should be fatastic, I
think.=20
I=B4ve asked Mr. Grotnes to contact The GTTI. If we could also link the
Agriculture and fisheries institutions etc. What a break through !!
Friday I posted an e- mail to Mr. Manneh at the Gambia College, to
introduce myself and my offer. Now I=B4ll will wait for the answer to
come, and then inform you on the net.
If you in US can communicate, and maybe find some mashines and a
foundation which will pay the mashines, the sending-costs, and maybe
some money to maintain it in the gambia (service, set up and so) I think
that you should do so. Then keep contact to the Director of Gambia
College, and ask them to make a requestion to the authorities to get it
all in free of charge, tax etc. Who will be responsible in US ?
And when it comes to all of you other there, how was your get-together
some weeks ago ?
Sorry my job is calling. I`ll come back later.
Asbj=F8rn Nordam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 9:56:03 +0000
From: S Njie <S.Njie@commonwealth.int>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Message-ID: <DB6ADB3001D23A00@commonwealth.int>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-disposition: inline
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Hi Tombong,
Glad to know that you have settle down back home and that
you are now DPS at MTIE.I hope yourself and Fams will do a
good job encouraging bonafide investors to invest in
longterm projects that will be mutually beneficial to the
Country as well as the Investor.
London's still wet and miserable despite it being June /
July.
Penda is back at work at the High Commission and sends
her regards.
Do drop me a line sometime,if there are any newsworthy
initiatives goig on.Out here we are preparing for the
Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October in
Edinburgh and I am sure Gambia will be represented at the
highest level.
Kind Regards.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:49:33 +0200
From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New members
Message-ID: <19970630135053.AAA12200@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l,
Sahir Drammeh and Ebrima Mboob , have been added to the list.
Welcome to the Gambia-l, we look forward to your contributions.
Please send a your introductions to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Regards
Momodou Camara
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:31:03 +0100 (BST)
From: "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.970630142836.23412A-100000@whale.students.stir.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Thanks very much for your prompt response. I appreciate it
very much and look forward with relish to Part 3.
Regards,
MOMODOUOn Sun, 29 Jun
1997, BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH wrote:
> Mr.Njie!
> Thanks for your response.Yes,I just meant to say that English was
> influenced by other Languages.No,I am not denying the Latin influence,but
> we are here talking about the years immediately after 1066, the OLD ENGLISH
> era, more than hundred years before the first university was built,or
> Aristotle (his Logic and Philosophy)translated,or the Latin Classics
> (including its grammar and syntax) was understood and used by the ruling
> class.
>
> Regards Basss!
>
> ----------
> From: M. Njie[SMTP:mn015@students.stir.ac.uk]
> Sent: 23/OYN/1418 04:20 a
> To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
> Subject: RE: (PART2) THE CANCER OF TRIBE AND LANGUAGE IN AFRICA
>
> I must first of all commend Bass for the way he is
> dealing with such a complicated and sensitive issue. Everything -
> well, almost- he has said so far is clear and to the point.
>
> It is not my desire to distract him from the main issue
> under discussion, but I do not really understand what he is
> trying to say in the paragraph beginning, 'Duke William's
> conquest...', especially the part which says, 'the Grammar and
> syntax followed the Anglo-Saxon pattern whereas the
> vocabulary(words) would be provided by French and Scandanavian
> and sometimes Latin.' Does this mean that there were no more
> Anglo-Saxon words? Or does it simply mean that English came
> under the influence of other languages? Let me just add that
> Latin, in fact, influenced both English grammar and syntax, as
> any traditional grammar book will show. We were told not to
> end a sentence with a preposition, not to begin one with a
> conjunction and so on. These were all Latin influences. In
> fact, Latin so dominated literary life that virtually all
> writers wrote in it. Until people like Chaucer came and
> started writing in the VERNACULAR( in this case referring to
> English). These are only my thoughts and may be quite
> different to ( I normally use different 'from' but some English
> intellectuals have argued that it is a Latin expression, and
> that the Anglo Saxons said different 'to') what Bass had in
> mind. I am sorry if I have gone off the rails.
>
> Thanks for reading.
> MOMODOU
>
>
> On Fri, 27 Jun
> 1997, BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH wrote:
>
> > *** LANGUAGE AND THE ENGLISH TRIBE ******
> >
> > Now that we know what Tribe and Tribalism are and how they differ from
> > Ethnic and Ethnicity in terms of what they refer to,we will now define
> our
> > second term,namely,LANGUAGE.It comes from the French word LANGUE which
> > initially meant Tongue, but gradually expanded to mean A System Of Words
> > And Combination Of Words Used By A Particular Group Or Community To
> Express
> > And Communicate Thoughts And Feelings.It can also be a sign of group
> > solidarity esp. for a community that feels threatened or marginalised.And
> > if one of several languages spoken in a given community is considered as
> > Socially Prestigious ,those who do not command it have limited
> > opportunities for political or economic advancement.Language is also the
> > external expression of the totality of the culture of a given community:
> > its geography, food, shelter,dress,transportation,customs,beliefs and its
> > understanding and interpretation of physical and social enviroment.So,in
> > addition to being a tool for communication and an intrument of power ,
> > Language is also the vessel that contains the past,the present and the
> > dreams of a given people.
> >
> > It will be become apparent as soon as we have started talking about our
> > subject proper why we need to define these Terms above as they will be
> used
> > here,but in the meantime we want to look very quickly at the Tribal and
> > Language development of the very TRIBE that has not only given us the
> > English Language, but also played,for better or for worse, a pivotal role
> > in our intellectual development.
> >
> > Fifty-Five years before the birth of Christ,the Emperor of Rome,Julius
> > Caesar, told a group of his expeditionary soldiers to cross the channel
> to
> > the Britsh Isles.The Emperor wanted
> > Corn,Cattle,Gold,Silver,Iron,Hides,Slaves and Hunting Dogs to help
> maintain
> > the Roman standard of living.When the soldiers got there,the only tribes
> > there then were the Celtic Tribes(the original inhabitants of the
> > Isles).Some of the tribal chiefs and their followers who resisted were
> > killed and others were caught and sent to Rome as slaves.As for the
> tribal
> > chiefs who either did not resist or actively cooperated with the
>
> > Colonizers,they were rewarded lavishly by the emperror.Their
> > foods,drinks,furniture and household equipments would now come from
> > Rome.And Special Roman schools were set up to teach their children Latin
> > and Roman history, culture and the Roman way of life.And in a space of
> just
> > a few years,an efficient system was in place to ensure the flow of human
> > and material resources from the British Isles to Rome. Thus was the
> > beginning of Colonialism for this Island.
> >
> > In around 500AD (after the birth of Christ) three German Tribes (the
> > Angels,the Jutes and the Saxons) invaded and occupied much of this same
> > territory,killed lots of its Celtic inhabitants and took much of the
> land;
> > and because of the brutality in which this invasion was conducted,the
> > languages of the invaders became the means of communication on the
> > Island,so that in just few generations down the line,the entire Celtic
> > language(the language of the Original inhabitants) was almost dead except
> > for a handful of words.And so began the long and bloody history of the
> > Tribe the world now calls the AngloSaxons.
> >
> > In 870AD,about three hundred and seventy years later,the Danish King by
> the
> > name CANUTE,invaded and took control of much of the Island.He also
> imposed
> > his language as the official language and the language of the upper
> > class,even though Latin continued to be taught to the children in
> > school.And the Danish control also continued for about two hundred years.
> >
> > And in the famous year of 1066AD,the Duke of the French province of
> > Normandy,Duke William,Conquered the entire island and declared himself
> the
> > King of England and Duke of Normandy simultaneously.Duke William was a
> > descendant of the Scandanavians who had conquered and taken control of
> this
> > french province.The word NORMANS means the people from the north (north
> of
> > Europe).So,Duke William and his followers also imposed their
> language,which
> > was nothing but a mixture of french and Scandanavian known in France as
> the
> > Northern dialect.So,the Norman control also continued for another four
> > hundred years,during which French became the language of Government, Law
> ,
> > the Aristocracy,the Royal Circles,Arts, Literature and Philosophy,even
> > though schools still continue to teach the children in Latin.
> >
> > Duke William's conquest is considered as the real beginning of what we
> now
> > call the English Language.And it works like this: the Grammar and Syntax
> > followed the AngloSaxon pattern whereas the vocabulary (words) would be
> > provided by French and Scandanavian and sometimes Latin.
> >
> > This, in short, is the Tribal and Language history of the AngloSaxons;
> and
> > understanding it will be become very handy for us when we start to look
> at
> > our own somewhat chaotic Tribal and Language history,which is what we
> will
> > try to do in OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT. And until then?
> >
> >
> > Regards Basssss!!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> egards Basssss!!
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 15:50:54 +0100 (BST)
From: "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: re:culture (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.970630152254.23412B@whale.students.stir.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
iF 'African Culture' is to be included in the curriculum as
a subject, it is very important for those who are to
implement it - mainly teachers- to be aware of the content and
teaching strategies, if the desired educational outcomes are to
be achieved. Surely, there has to be a selection of what is
to be taught ('African Culture' being so wide a subject), and
parents, teachers, students and the community at large should
appreciate its importance. If someone without any previous
knowledge or training as regards curriculum content and teaching
strategies is asked to implement it, what will be the result?
I agree in principle with the idea of 'African Culture' to
be taught in schools, but it has to be done at a regional
or sub-regional level for it to be successful. So that
teachers from other African countries would be in a better
position to implement it wherever they find themselves. Let us
not forget that curricula are based on certain assumptions,
philosophies, or beliefs about education. If we do not share
similar beliefs with our African brothers and sisters, the
implementation process is likely to suffer.
Latjor is right that curriculum planning and development is
mainly left in the hands of government officials, and this is
a pity. An attempt was made in 1987 to include parents but
despite their opposition to the then 'New Education Policy', it
went ahead anyway. Most teachers, including Heads, were opposed
to it, and this was obviously a recipe for disaster. Teachers
were not properly trained to implement the new curriculum, and
it was business as usual for them. I do not want to
elaborate on the failures of the Policy. The point I want to
make is that in this case even Gambians found it difficult to
cope with change in their education system. I am not sure
whether people from other countries would fare any better.
Thanks for reading.
MOMODOU
On Mon, 30
Jun 1997, Gabriel Ndow wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:55:53 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@spelman.edu>
> Reply-To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
> To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List"
> <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
> Subject: re:culture (fwd)
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:27:02 -0700
> From: latjor Ndow <ndukuman@avana.net>
> To: gndow@spelman.edu
> Subject: re:culture
>
> Greetings Momodou:
>
> Your comments are appreciated. You touched on several important issues
> which need to be addressed individually. I shall only address one issue
> here and touch on the others later. But before I do let me quickly say
> that you are quite right that our schools are full of 'foreign' (mostly
> Ghanian and Sierra Leonean - I think) teachers. More Gambians do need to
> enter the teaching field. However, having other African teachers is not
> the major problem as far as the inclusion of African Culture into the
> curriculum. It is not teachers in the classroom who design the
> curriculum, it is government!
>
> Your comment:
>
> > The first is that Gambian / African culture is indeed
> > included in the curriculum, in Social and Environmental
> > Studies and in the socalled 'silent' curriculum.
>
> Interesting. What does this imply? Does it mean that African culture
> only has relevance in these two 'safe' subjects? What about subjects
> such as mathematics, physics, languages, religious studies, government,
> music, philosophy ...?
>
> Lest one does not see how culture plays a role in subjects such as
> mathematics (physcis,chemistry etc..), let me remind you that
> trigonometry, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, quadratic equations, and
> theorems such as the so called 'pythagorean theorem' were all developed
> in Africa! Yet all textbooks being used in Gambia (and elsewhere)
> portray these disciplines as having been developed by mostly Greeks! Can
> you imagine a young gambian (African) reading in her standard
> mathematics textbook that 5000 years ago African students like herself
> where being given problems such as finding the volume of a cylinder
> (problem 41 -43 of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and problems of
> geometric progression (problem 79 of the Kahun Papyrus) then furnishing
> answers following strict rules of mathematics.
>
> 'So what?', one may ask. That is just historical information and has
> nothing to do with what we are discussing. I would respond to such a
> query as such; 'for the same reason our textbook authors find it
> necessary (science books included) to remind us (or more appropriately
> their people) about historical personalities such as Pythagoras and
> Strabo, it is for the same reason we must include our ancestors who
> contributed greatly to the disciplines we study in our schools. It
> reinforces the cultural identity of a people. Take any standard Physics
> textbook for example, you will find upwards of 700 insertions of a
> historical nature regarding who did what, when and where. I do not have
> to tell you that Africa does not feature prominently in these
> insertions. History happens to be one of the factors (linguistic and
> psychological being the others) that contribute to the collective
> personality of a people, the latter giving rise to the cultural identity
> of a people.
>
> In peace,
> LatJor
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:31:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Progress on Internet connectivity.
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.970630130225.12752A-100000@terve.cc.columbia.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hi folks,
I think I speak for a lot of Gambians when I reassure the Grotnes
brothers and all the non-Gambians helping to bring the Internet to The
Gambia that their work is highly appreciated and that nothing is suspect
about running a legitimate enterprise in The Gambia or volunteering to
help (as alas too few Gambians do).
On another matter, I think the Education committee has been, quite
frankly, ineffectual. Perhaps the members can regroup and revamp the
committee by for example asking for more volunteers on Gambia-l. If they
on the other hand feel that they cannot carry out their duties, they
should let us know so that we can look at forming another committee or
have the GambiaNet committee take on that responsibility. We now have a
lot of momentum on the Internet connectivity issue with people offering
help and hardware. If we do not seize this opportunity now, the second
opportunity could be a long time in coming.
Thanks and bye for now,
-Abdou.
*******************************************************************************
A.TOURAY
Computer Science
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
MY URL ON THE WWW= http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~at137
A FINITE IN A LAND OF INFINITY.
SEEKING BUT THE REACHABLE.
I WANDER AND I WONDER.
ALAS, ALL RESPITE IS FINAL.
*******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:18:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ylva Hernlund <yher@u.washington.edu>
To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: lost factoids
Message-ID: <Pine.A41.3.95b.970630111642.40010B-100000@dante05.u.washington.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
sorry to bother everyone again, but during a particularly fierce
cyber-spring cleaning I deleted some stuff I now wish I had: 1) does
anyone have the messages about the insecticide that was suppposed to work
really well with mosquito-nets?
2) who was it who sells the calendars with Wolof proverbs?
Thanks so much, Ylva
------------------------------
Date: 30 Jun 1997 18:14:42 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: DEVELOPMENT-FINANCE: World Bank Promotes 'Effective' State
Message-ID: <624033758.142461261@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 25-Jun-97 ***
Title: DEVELOPMENT-FINANCE: World Bank Promotes 'Effective' State
//ATT EDS: The following item is under embargo and may not be
printed or otherwise reproduced before 1900 GMT on Wednesday, Jun.
25//
WASHINGTON, Jun 25 (IPS) - The World Bank's latest annual report
on global development rebuffs those who favour minimal government
presence in national life.
But the Bank also criticises governments in which ''policies
devised by technocrats (are) accorded pride of place'' at the
expense of responsiveness and accountability to the public.
''Development -- economic, social, and sustainable -- without
an effective state is impossible,'' the Bank says in this year's
World Development Report.
Bank officials readily admit the agency itself has promoted
both the notion of the small state as well as big government.
Having devoted its early years to development policies and
projects that required -- and, in turn, reinforced -- large and
unresponsive state structures, the Bank more recently has promoted
a model of small, non-interventionist, and market-friendly states.
Its new report is not a departure from the latter argument, but
''an amplification of what it means to be market-friendly,'' says
Joseph Stiglitz, the Bank's chief economist.
The Bank now embraces the notion of the ''effective state'' as
''one which harnesses the energy of private business and
individuals, and acts as their partner and catalyst, instead of
restricting their partnership,'' according to a statement released
with the report.
This conclusion is based in large part on a survey of some
3,600 local businesses in 69 countries, according to Ajay
Chhibber, who led the team of Bank staffers charged with writing
the report. This was the first time in the annual report's 20-year
history that the agency used such a survey.
Additionally, the report draws on the history of Western
industrialisation and the ''important role of the state in the
'miracle' economies of East Asia.''
The report is ''not a recipe book'' of specific policies
governments should follow, says Stiglitz. Rather, it advances a
two-part strategy to guide countries in building effective states.
First, states must focus on ''five fundamental tasks (that) lie
at the core of every government's mission,'' the report argues.
These include: establishing law and order and securing private
property rights; maintaining macroeconomic stability while not
interfering with private markets; investing in basic services and
infrastructure; maintaining social safety nets; and safeguarding
the environment.
In many countries with weak states -- including the poorest
ones and those emerging from conflicts -- Stiglitz asserts,
''people aren't asking what to do, but where to begin.'' Rather
than try to do too much with too little, he adds, they should
start with these ''pure public goods'', which the private sector
cannot provide.
Thus, the report argues, states would prevent their workload
from exceeding their ''capability''. It defines this as ''the
ability to undertake and promote collective actions efficiently.''
The strategy's second element is to improve that capability by
''reinvigorating public institutions,'' chiefly by improving civil
servants' performance and reducing political interference in their
work.
The report highlights three measures: establishing effective
rules and restraints; fostering competition within the bureaucracy
and between public and private service providers; and increasing
citizens' ''voice and partnership'' with the private sector.
The report places particular emphasis on curbing governments'
''discretionary actions''. It promotes policies that reduce state
control over foreign trade, remove entry barriers for private
industry, and privatise state enterprises as ways to fight
corruption.
Acknowledging that corruption has increased under many
privatisation schemes, Chhibber argues that this ''is really a
symptom of underlying problems in the interface between the public
and private sector.''
The key to stamping out corruption, the report argues, is to
wrest regulatory power from the hands of individual officials;
reduce the number and complexity of regulations with which the
private sector must comply; and ensure that the resulting rules
are enforced.
The report also says corruption flourishes where civil service
wages have fallen too far behind private-sector pay. It argues,
however, that wages at the upper echelons of bureaucracy have been
undermined by excessive hiring at the lower end, and suggests any
raise in salaries for superiors should be tied to layoffs for
their underlings. Thus, wages might be raised without exceeding
budget limits set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Altogether, these reforms will yield ''good economic policies
and stronger institutional capacity'' and, in turn, faster
economic growth for countries implementing them successfully, the
report asserts.
It acknowledges, however, that ''reforms have little appeal if
the winners cannot compensate the losers'' and adds: ''A further
problem is that the benefits are often realised in the future,
whereas the losses are immediate.''
For these political reasons as much as anything else, the
report says, ''reforms only succeed if they are directed by
leaders with a clear vision of the way things could be, and a
contagious determination to turn that vision into reality.''
This may sound to some like an endorsement of authoritarian
governments headed by charismatic leaders, but the report makes
the point that ''no single type of regime can guarantee economic
and social progress.''
Entitled 'The State in a Changing World, the otherwise tame and
general report singles out ''the predatory state'' as
''inconsistent with economic development''. It cites the examples
of Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and Haiti under Francois 'Papa
Doc' Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier.
(END/IPS/AA/YJC/97)
Origin: Washington/DEVELOPMENT-FINANCE/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
------------------------------
Date: 30 Jun 1997 18:16:49 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: HEALTH: Africa Winning the Battle on Meningitis
Message-ID: <2759917534.142461480@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 25-Jun-97 ***
Title: HEALTH: Africa Winning the Battle oc
by Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 25 (IPS) - The campaign launched barely five months
ago to fight meningitis epidemics in Africa has made good
progress, announced the World Health Organisation Wednesday.
The International Coordinating Group (ICG) created last January
by the World Health Organisation (WHO) considered its efforts to
help the African countries affected by the 1996 to 1997 meningitis
epidemic have been successful.
Hiroshi Nakajima, WHO director general, said ''Thanks to the
ICG, no country which urgently needed vaccine was denied it.''
The ICG, made up of agencies within the United Nations (UN)
system, non governmental organisations and other cooperating
technical institutions, closed an evaluation meeting in Geneva
Wednesday.
The WHO was joined by the UN Children's Fund, the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Medecins
sans Frontieres and the Association for Aid to Preventative
Medicine.
The campaign was planned after the especially serious African
meningitis epidemics of 1995 to 1996, which affected some 150,000
people, and caused more than 16,000 deaths.
Health experts predicted a shortfall of vaccine in 1997 due to
the immense demand of 1996.
The first ICG mission dealt with the rational use of the
limited amounts of vaccine, which barely reached 14 million doses.
Technicians from ICG member organisations advised the WHO on
the best way to distribute the vaccine in order to meet the
critical needs and to avoid waste.
''We were able to meet all urgent needs,'' said Nakajima.
The group monitors menigitis and threats of outbreaks,
evaluates the need for vaccine, antibiotics and injection
equipment and supervises the acquisition, storage and distribution
of material.
Since last November, 16 African countries made the commitment
to unite their efforts to improve the battle against meningitis.
The nations affected carried out national plans which included the
training of health personnel and laboratory technicians.
These countries evaluated the needs for vaccines and other
drugs, based on criteria on the low risk populations, the
epidemiological patterns of the illness and the available stocks
of vaccine in each national territory.
The campaign had financial aid from cooperation entities in
Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. A
total of three million dollars were raised, with a million dollar
WHO donation top up.
The Coordinating Group it managed to cover the urgent needs for
vaccine, the rational use of the available vaccines, the obtaining
of favourable prices, while avoiding serum wastage in its first
working period.
This body also helped provide safe injections and better
planning in the countries, from a preventative fund for 1998 and
improvement of suervision, and preparation for epidemics in high
risk countries.
''The existence of the ICG has meant that countries have been
encouraged to develop plans for dealing with epidemics and better
forecasting their needs,'' said WHO assistant director general,
Ralph Henderson.
In 1997 to 1998, the epidemic prevention funds allowed
countries immediate access to vaccine when they needed it
operating a refunding system to make them self-sufficient in the
supply of vaccines.
Epidemics are a periodical problem in Africa's ''meningitis
belt,'' which stretches from Senegal to Ethiopia, covering
territory in at least 15 countries, affecting a population of 300
million people.
The meningitis season lasts from November to April. In 1995 to
1996, it showed particularly serious problems. The 1996 to 1997
epidemics were also significant, with 59,461 cases reported by
June 1, of which, 6,055 proved fatal. (END/IPS/tra-so/pc/ag/sm/97)
Origin: Montevideo/HEALTH/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 20:56:53 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: New members
Message-ID: <01BC85A1.BE25ABE0@didn.qatar.net.qa>
Mr.Drammeh,Mr.Nboob!!
A very special WELCOME to both of you.That day is near when we will have
all the smart Gambians outside Gambia as members of this very special
BANTABAA!!
Once again,my very sincere Welcome to both of you!
Regards Bassss!!
----------
From: Camara, Momodou[SMTP:momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk]
Sent: 24/OYN/1418 03:49 a
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: New members
Gambia-l,
Sahir Drammeh and Ebrima Mboob , have been added to the list.
Welcome to the Gambia-l, we look forward to your contributions.
Please send a your introductions to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Regards
Momodou Camara
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:40:27 EDT
From: nahak@juno.com (Michael J GOMEZ)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Message-ID: <19970630.193942.3518.0.nahak@juno.com>
Please suscribe Yusupha Ceesay to the lis. His email address is
yusupha@elephantwalk.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 10:41:09 -0400
From: Yaikah Jeng <YJENG@PHNET.SPH.JHU.EDU>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
Message-ID: <s3b39e2e.038@PHNET.SPH.JHU.EDU>
-Reply
Soffie,
I see that you are appalled by this ruling. I am too. Cases like
this make me wonder how to proceed with this issue. I understand
that in some countries, progress is being made but i can see that
it's going to be very slow. I guess we just have to keep voicing out
our opinions and feelings.
yaikah
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:01:02 -0400
From: "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net>
To: "'Gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <Gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: UDP's statement on tortures of supporters.
Message-ID: <01BC85A9.A9193520@mhorn.fred.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
STATEMENT BY THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY (UDP) ON THE ILLEGAL DETENTION =
AND TORTURE OF EIGHT PARTY OFFICIALS.
The world will be shocked once again to be confronted with yet another =
human rihgt atrocity perpetrated by the dictatorship presently ruling =
The Gambia. On June 8, 1997 the following officials of the UDP, namely, =
MR MOMODOU L. SHINGLE NYASSI, MR WASSA JANNEH, MR YUSUPHA CHAM, MR =
BOLONG SANNEH, MR DEMBO ARA SANNEH, MR DODOU SANYANG, MRS SARJO KUNJANG =
SANNEH, AND ANSUMANA BOJANG were illegally arrested while attending a =
party congress in Brikama, Kombo Central constituency and eventually =
found themselves in a notorious torture cells built by the military =
junta at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). =
The National Intelligence service, commonly known as NIA, is the secret =
security service of the current Gambia dictatorship which even after the =
so-called transition period from military rule still maintains the power =
of arrest and detention. These sweeping powers were promogated by =
decree entitled Decree No.45. Constitutional rule manifested by a =
flawed Presidential and National Assembly has not in any way changed the =
modus operandi of the NIA whose actions continue to directed by the same =
military dictator who masterminded and spearheaded the 22nd July coup d' =
etat against the legitimate government. In effect, therefore, the =
decree empowering the NIA to commit brutalities against the civilian =
population of this country overides and supersedes the constitution as =
far as the present dictatorship is concerned. This recent action =
against the UDP has proved to a very large extent that the so-called =
transition to democracy is a mere facade, a lip-service at adherence to =
the rule of the law intented to mislead the international community in =
order to save a desperate situation which already biting hard. In fact, =
this is a government which was also condemning donor intervention and =
was constantly accusing donors of coniving with the former regime to =
defraud The Gambia. The present trend can generate instability since =
excessive provocation and severe repression can lead to confrontation =
and internal conflict.
Our party officials were subjected to the most inhuman treatment, never =
heard in The Gambia history. Victims of the most brutal and savage =
torture, these officials were left in the cells for hours without food =
and water. One of them had his sex organs burned while our female =
militant, MRS SARJO KUNJANG SANNEH sustained injuries on parts of her =
body not supposed to exposed to people who were not her husband. The =
statements from the detainees which are equally being forwarded to you =
speak of the ordeal these innocent civilians went through while held at =
NIA headquarters. This is a regime which is insensitive to human =
rights and is persistent on banning the freedom of movement and assembly =
of any pro-democratic organisation genuily committed to good governance. =
It is a totalitarian dictatorship because the ruling party (APRC) did =
conduct their congress country wide and have been holding public =
meetings and rallies with the full collaboration of the state security =
agencies. =20
The UDP wishes to reiterate a strong condemnatio of the increasing trend =
of oppression perpetrated by the autocracy. The UDP also condemns the =
arrest of its militants, and the harrassment and brutal torture they =
underwent especially the indecent treatment of a woman already weak from =
exhaustion and lack of food. As an organisation struggling for freedom =
and justice, the UDP strongly denounces the construction of torture =
cells at NIA headquarters as well as the use of electric shock equipment =
as a torture too. The UDP once again calls on Human Rights =
Organisations including the UN Commission on Human and Peoples Rights =
to: =20
a) investigate the full extent of the torture on the eight UDP =
officials including a woman and the level of body injuries sustained by =
them;
b) investigate the full extent as well as the reasons for the illegal =
arrests and detentions of UDP militants countrywide being carried out by =
the police who have not desisted in showint total partiality for the =
regime;
c) investigate the cells at the NIA and the amount of illegal arrests =
and torture being metted out to innocent civilians. =20
UDP SECRETARIAT
JUNE 20, 1997
***NOTE: I tried to reproduce this text as accurately as possible, any =
errors are solely mine and not that of the UDP.***
Nyanga Darboe
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:48:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970630234745.10806C-100000@acc5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sisters:
I am with you.
LatJor
On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Yaikah Jeng wrote:
> -Reply
>
> Soffie,
> I see that you are appalled by this ruling. I am too. Cases like
> this make me wonder how to proceed with this issue. I understand
> that in some countries, progress is being made but i can see that
> it's going to be very slow. I guess we just have to keep voicing out
> our opinions and feelings.
>
> yaikah
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:54:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: re:culture (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970630234942.10806D-100000@acc5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Momodou:
I quite agree with you. The point I was hastily making was that
governmental policies dictate the educational agenda
of the nations like Gambia.
LatJor
------------------------------
Date: 01 Jul 1997 11:21:17 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: ENVIRONMENT-UN: Failure of Rio Foll
Message-ID: <632926111.146141864@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 27-Jun-97 ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT-UN: Failure of Rio Follow-Up Meeting a 'Wake-Up Call'
By Farhan Haq
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 27 (IPS) - By all admissions, the special
session of the United Nations General assembly this week to follow
up on the 1992 Rio "Earth Summit" ended as a remarkable failure.
For the first time at a major U.N. conference - which attracted
more than 40 heads of states and dozens of Cabinet ministers -
there were no significant international commitments. The General
Assembly failed to broker agreement on climate control, a
convention to protect forests, a tax on aviation fuel or funding
by the industrialised world of environmentally friendly
development in the South.
In perhaps the most significant sign of the meeting's collapse,
diplomats scrapped a five-page ''political statement'' that was
supposed to display international unity to address environmental
woes. Instead, after several late-night meetings, the delegates
settled on a shorter ''framework of commitment,'' which, in the
words of one negotiator, contained ''no phrase that is
controversial or specific.''
''It's an abdication of responsibility and a tremendously
squandered opportunity,'' said Clifton Curtis, political advisor
for Greenpeace International.
Gordon Shepherd, director of international policy for the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), added that the talks ''choked in even
making promises...The Rio agreements were rightly hailed as a
major success, but the promises made here have been betrayed in
New York this week.''
''This is a kind of wake-up call to the United Nations,'' said
Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia, president of the General
Assembly. ''This was the sort of conference that was due to
happen...For the first time, we have recognised the limitations of
our promises.''
No new commitments were made, according to Razali, because for
once, the countries of both the North and the South honestly faced
up to the lack of real action they had made on environmental
promises made in rio de Janeiro in 1992.
''The bane of international cooperation is that governments
cannot maintain commitments -- not just on resources, but on doing
things over the long haul,'' he said. As a result, most diplomats
here - particularly those from developing nations - shared ''a
sense of being aggrieved that many of the things that were
promised at Rio didn't come.''
The conference ''really reflects the breakdown of goodwill
between the North and the South,'' agreed Martin Khor of the
Malaysia-based Third World Network. In that sense, the failure of
this week's talks at least offered the opportunity for nations to
ponder why their environmental efforts have run aground so that
they can mend their cooperation on those issues.
That may not be easy. Nations from the South remained upset
that, instead of abiding by Rio targets by which they should spend
0.7 percent of their gross national products on official
development assistance (ODA) to the developing world, the
industrialised countries have actually decreased ODA spending to a
paltry 0.27 percent.
''What we have witnessed in the five years after Rio has been a
nearly complete halt to international dialogue on environment and
sustainable development,'' President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe
said this week.
By the same token, European leaders especially were frustrated
that the two main achievements they sought at the conference - a
timetable to negotiate a forestry convention and a concrete goal
to cut carbon emissions in the North by 15 percent from 1990
levels by 2010 - ran aground.
U.S. President Bill Clinton refused to bind Washington to the
15-percent target despite massive pressure this week to sign on to
the European Union (EU) plan and negotiators decided to leave the
matter of specific reductions open until a climate control
conference sheduled in Kyoto in December.
The forestry convention, meanwhile, was scuppered by an
alliance between the United States - where timber and paper
interests feared any new regulations - southern nations like
Brazil and India, and environmentalists fearful that European and
Canadian businesses would help forge any accord. Instead, nations
here opted to follow up on more than 130 measures already
suggested by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel and Forests and to
consider further ways to enforce deforestation regulations.
Blame for the lack of results fell on all sides: the United
States, for opposing everything from climate control targets to an
aviation fuel tax proposed to garner funds for environmental
programmes in the South; the EU, for pushing a forestry convention
before other sides understood what it would achieve; developing
nations, for refusing to consider most concrete steps until more
ODA materialised.
But for many environmentalists, the outcome could be simply
explained:
the South had no incentive to agree with the North after five
years of broken promises about cutting their own consumption
levels and funding environmental activities in the developing
world.
''It's the classic case of a failure to do what you promised to
do rebounding back on you,'' Shepherd said.
U.N. officials, anxious to prove that the meeting wasn't a
total loss, noted that world leaders agreed to phase out the use
of lead in gasoline, and made some headway in recognising problems
in maintaining freshwater sources in advance of talks on that
topic next year.
More importantly, whether issues were resolved or not, many
nations - including the Group of Seven - and most other European
heads of government - put progress on the environment, or lack of
it, into the spotlight. ''What this meeting does is that it
creates a sense of expectation in the negotiating process,'' said
U.N. Under-Secretary-General Nitin Desai.
In this case, Razali concluded, the desire for further progress
could be sharpened by the sense of disappointment generated at
this meeting. To that extent, he argues, ''I'm happy that we
didn't go for the gloss -- we went for the real thing.''
(END/IPS/fah/mk/97)
Origin: Washington/ENVIRONMENT-UN/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or
service outside of the APC networks, without specific
permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution
via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists,
print media and broadcast. For information about cross-
posting, send a message to <online@ips.org>. For
information about print or broadcast reproduction pl.org>
Date: 30 Jun 1997 15:45:17 -0800 (PST)
X-Gateway: notes@gn.apc.org
Lines: 149
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 17:34:00 +0200
From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New members
Message-ID: <19970701163532.AAC57366@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l,
Marie Gillen, Yusupha Ceesay and Pa Musa Jallow,
have been added to the list. Welcome to the Gambia-l, we look
forward to your contributions.
Please send a your introductions to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Regards
Momodou Camara
*******************************************************
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara
**"Start by doing what's necessary, then what's
possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible"***
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 11:44:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: lost factoids
Message-ID: <199707011544.LAA18153@cedar.ffr.mtu.edu>
Content-Type: text
>
> sorry to bother everyone again, but during a particularly fierce
> cyber-spring cleaning I deleted some stuff I now wish I had: 1) does
> anyone have the messages about the insecticide that was suppposed to work
> really well with mosquito-nets?
> 2) who was it who sells the calendars with Wolof proverbs?
>
> Thanks so much, Ylva
>
Ylva, think it was I who asked about the Mosquito net insecticide
.. I too lost info sent to me. I believe it was Per Grotnes who responded
to the request. Since then a Gambian medical worker also promised
more infomation on the matter. The list will be sent a copy as soon as I get that.
Malanding
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:01:55 +2000
From: mmjeng@image.dk
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: Unending Woes For Kabila`s Harare Embassy
Message-ID: <199707011600.SAA30765@www.image.dk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable
Unending Woes For Kabila's Harare Embassy
June 30, 1997
HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - The embassy of the former Zaire in Harare is
still without electricity and staff have yet to be paid their
salaries, a month after dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was overthrown by
the forces of Laurent Kabila, now president of the country he renamed
Democratic Republic of Congo.
The sprawling bungalow used as the diplomatic mission is in the
up-market suburb of Highlands but has been without electricity for the
past year after supplies were cut by the power authority when it
failed to pay huge outstanding bills.
Staff living in the adjoining cottage with their families use
fire-wood for cooking and candles or paraffin lamps for lighting the
mansion turned into offices.
They told the Zimbabwe Inter-African News Agency (Ziana) on Monday
that their plight had not yet changed since the coming of the new
government in Kinshasa.
They claimed that they had not been paid their salaries for the past
five years and had to use their wits to survive.
Mpoke Elonda, financial attache at the embassy, who accused Mobutu of
having treated them no worse than slaves, said they literally had to
scratch the ground like ants to scrounge for a living.
It is not only the electricity that has been cut, the telephone too is
dead, disconnected 12 months ago by the phone company for failure to
settle bills.
The telephone is also not working at Ambassador Bemboy Baba's
residence in the exclusive suburb of Borrowdale. It was cut in January
this year.
Baba, who could not be readily located at the embassy or his
residence, has been ambassador since 1990 after serving as Charge
d'Affaires for two years from 1988.
Greetings
Matarr M. Jeng.
Copyright =A9 1997 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 21:42:05 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'GAMBIA-L@U.WASHINGTON.EDU'" <GAMBIA-L@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <01BC8667.A3B47F40@didd.qatar.net.qa>
**** THE GREAT MIGRATIONS**
For each of the nine main racial categories identified by science on our
this planet is a given Land mass which is considered as its original home
land ,and few people would dispute that the African Continent is the
original habitat of the black people.And since every downpour begins with a
trickle,there was once upon a time when the total number of black people on
the continent was not more than just TENS of thousands, and most of them
were concentrated in the area around the Nile Basin( the area now covererd
by modern Egypt,Sudan and Ethiopia),so that most of our this huge continent
was totally uninhabited;by humans, that is.
This part of the world is one of a number of spots around the world cited
by scientists to have discovered agriculture about twelve thousand years
before the birth of Christ.And Agriculture basically means the cultivation
of the soil,growing and harvesting of crops,breeding and raising of of
livestock and dairying and forestry.In short,a settled life that gave
people the ability to control their food supply and freed them from the
dangers and unpredictability of nomadic life,that stage of human
development that precedes Sedentary Life.And with agriculture comes the
building of towns and cities and complex social organisations;in other
words, Civilisation itself.And with civilisation comes prosperity and
multiplication of black humanity.And, as Freud has taught us, Civilisation
is not for free: it always exacts a price on its beneficiaries.So,the more
black humanity prospered and multiplied, the bigger the pressure was not
only for the Social Systems and Relationships but also for the available
resources, especially, Land and Water.And the situation started to get out
of control when the former Green and Lush lands that had existed between
Northern and Southern part of the Continent began to dry up and become what
we now know as the Sahara Desert.So,it became a matter of survival for
groups of people and sometimes entire communities to just pack their bags
and start a search for a new abode (place) where Land and Water could
support life.Thus the first wave of what is now known as the Great
Migrations towards the south and Southwest of the Continent
began,precipitated among other things by the advent of the desertification
process.The second major migration took place thousands of years later,
during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, about 1800 years before the birth of
Christ,to be exact.That was caused by the invasion and defeat of Egypt for
the first time in thousands of years of its entire history by a non-black
barbarian tribes from the north (the mediterranean area).And by the time
the Pharoah and his military elite could study the secrets of the
conquering tribe(the Hyksos) inorder to be able to drive them out of
Egypt,which he successfully did eventually, many people and communities had
already migrated Southward.
Migration is of course a common phenomenon in the animal kingdom, very
closely linked to their survival instinct.Sometimes its temporary until in
such a time that the perceived threat is believed to be over,and at others
its permanent,especially if the migrants have lost all hope of a respite
with regards to the problem plaguing their homeland.And as all of us,West
Africans, now know, when our Ancestors left then,they never looked
back,except when they wanted inspiration from the spirits of their buried
ancestors left behind.The Anthropologist,Theodore Monod, captures the
situation eloquently when he,in a dramatic manner,described the general
reaction to the drying of the Desert : "And what about the people? Hard
times for them and serious debate in parliament: Should they remain there
and let themselves die, or migrate, or adapt? No one opted for
suicide,adaptation did not get a single vote; the unanimous choice was
exodus" And exodus they did.
In our NEXT INSTALLMENT we will explore some of the problems posed by these
Great Migrations of our Ancestors,especially Language and Tribalisation.
And until then ??..
Regards Basssss!!
------------------------------
Date: 01 Jul 1997 21:04:10 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: HEALTH: New Scientific Research Body, a Bridge to the Poor
Message-ID: <3632324509.148228717@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 27-Jun-97 ***
Title: HEALTH: New Scientific Research Body, a Bridge to the Poor
by Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 27 (IPS) - The world pharmaceutical industry and
governments invest around 56 billion dollars per year in health
research, although only 10 percent of this goes toward the
problems of the poor.
The vast majority of investments in public health research are
aimed at the illnesses of the rich, said Richard Feachem, director
of the World Bank Health, Nutrition and Population department.
But this week, a group of public and private organisations
decided to create the International Forum for Public Health
Research to bridge the abyss to the poorer 90 percent of the world
population.
The initiative, announced Friday in Geneva, was backed by 150
representatives of governments and international agencies, like
the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and the Swiss Agency
for Development and Cooperation.
Chair of the Forum, Nigerian academic Adetokunbo O. Lucas,
former professor at Harvard Public Health School, said the
institution would promote and co-ordinate research specifically
aimed at the developing countries.
''The health needs of the poor, especially the research, are
not dealt with to the required degree,'' explained Lucas.
The main objectives of the Forum will be to analyse the
existing imbalance and produce recommendations to strengthen
research into the illnesses of the poor.
The Forum will deal with the poor of the impoverished
countries, but also the poor of middle and high income countries,
said Feachem, ''because every country has its residual poverty
population.''
The distribution of the research is another flagrant inequality
in the health field. For 80 percent of the research in the world
is carried out by 20 percent of the countries.
This means it is not distributed equitably and there is also a
large volume of intellectual resources going to waste in many
nations, said Theodor Fliedner, Chair of the Advisory Committee
for Health Research, Ulm, Germany.
The Forum will operate independently as a non government
organisation, which will provide a broad and stimulating setting
for dialogue including new representatives from public and private
sector researchers.
The body will work with a small staff and a maximum of five
permanent collaborators, said Louis Currat, Director of the
Technical Department in the Swiss Foreign Ministry.
The Forum members will look into the gaping loopholes in
current health research and will evaluate their cost to society.
At the same time, they will concentrate thier efforts on attending
to the needs of the less protected societies.
In its first public statement the Forum reminded the public
that State and private funds invested each year in public health
research were worth around 56 billion dollars, of which less than
a tenth is spent on the problems of the poorer 90 percent.
The World Bank representative said he was sure the Forum would
carry out the appropriate analysis and consultation concentrating
on the research required to offer new products and solutions for
the health problems of the poor and especially disadvantaged
groups, like women and children in many countries.
The Forum conclusions will allow the ''redirection of our
investments into the right kinds of research,'' said Feacham,
''thus allowing us to put our money where the problem is.''
The World Bank opinion is that ''investment in health research
is a very good investment and it yields enormous benefits to the
people of all parts of the world,'' he added.
The Forum ended its two-day inaugural session Friday, charging
six working groups with studies to be presented within the year.
These groups will place emphasis on such issues as research and
training in health policy, rational investments in the health
research field and action to deal with violence, especially
against women.
Other studies will look into the promotion of an alliance
between the private and public sectors for malaria research and
the study of health in social organisations. (END/IPS/tra-
Origin: Montevideo/HEALTH/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or
service outside of the APC networks, without specific
permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution
via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists,
print media and broadcast. For information about cross-
posting, send a message to <online@ips.org>. For
information about print or broadcast reproduction please
contact the IPS coordinator at <online@ips.org>.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 17:21:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Egyptian Court Voids Ban on Cutting of Girls' Genitals
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9707011644.A23020-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Soffie and Yaika,
I was very suprised by the voiding of the band like you two were, and I
think that
this is probably a good issue to discuss and get other people's opinions.
I think that a big problem with female circumcision is due to the
difference between culture and "modern" medical concerns. I'm not sure
about what Islam has to say about female circumcision, or if it says
anything about it at all. Can someone help me out here???????
But I believe it's more cultural than religious, but people will adhere to
the practise more if they feel that it is the will of God.
Another problem is the way that people are going about trying to
stop the practise. You have the West, telling the East that their culture
is wrong. Any person would instinctively rebel against such a declaration:
"I mean, someone is telling me that my belief in a certain practise is
wrong!! And the worst part is that they're telling/demanding that I stop
this practise and not explaining to me NICELY why I should stop. I mean
who do they think that they are??!!!". I think that this is a typical
reaction and understandably so. If someone demands that I stop doing
something and only tells me that it's dangerous to my health hence I
should stop, sorry, but that isn't good enough. First of all do not
demand, and next, explain your reasons to me like an intelligent person, not
like an inferior one. And to top it all, the Arabs do not generally like the
Americans or things American. This last one is not an excuse at all, but
human beings do not always react to things logically.
Another problem is when you have people like me who have studied science
and know that this practise is dangerous, go home and start preaching my
philosophies about such practices. we all know that one of the things
that people at home don't like the most is having Gambians from abroad
telling them what to do. this being right or wrong is another argument
but it's a fact. One thing that has to be taken into consideration is
that this is a practise that has been going on for a very long time, and
human beings are creatures of habit. One can't go around bombading them
with such info, I think that the info should be explained to them gently,
and one should TALK and LISTEN to the people. I do not think that anger
is a good emotion, since it usually doesn't take one far.
Well, this is what I think. what do others think?? And I'ld really
appreciate it if someone tells if Islam has anything to say, if any,
about female circumcision. Thanks
Ancha.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 00:29:07 -0000
From: "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
To: <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <B0000001228@south.commit.gm>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Bass,
> For each of the nine main racial categories identified by science on our
> this planet is a given Land mass which is considered as its original home
I hate to interrupt your monologue, but would you mind citing sources
regarding "the nine racial categories identified by science"? I don't
recognize that science from my own (admittedly, very limited) education in
biology. Are you sure you are not confusing "racial categories" with
"cultures"? The "human race" as it is often called (more scientifically:
the species Homo Sapiens) on the other hand is in my belief univerally
accepted (by biologists, archeologists and anthropologists) to have arisen
in Africa, somewhat south of Egypt though.
Other than that, I must compliment your style, it is very readable and
entertaining!
With fear of starting a debate,
Joern Grotnes
P.S. This message also to test that members of the Gambia-L shadow list can
now contribute to the discussions.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 97 09:41:39 EDT
From: "Numukunda Darboe(Mba)" <ndarboe@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <ndarboe.1218238539A@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu>
>P.S. This message also to test that members of the Gambia-L shadow list can
>now contribute to the discussions.
>
Just being inquisitive, but what is the Gambia-L shadow list about, and what
does in comprise if you don't mind. It seems like this is the first time it
has been mentioned on the list.
Numukunda
------------------------------
Date: 02 Jul 1997 16:53:56 +0200
From: "Ba-Musa Ceesay" <Ba-Musa.Ceesay@Oslo.Norad.telemax.no>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu (Receipt notification requested)
Subject: THE 11th GAMBIAN CUTURAL WEEK 19-26 JULY 1997 OSLO
Message-ID: <post.ut33ba6c37*/c=NO/admd=Telemax/prmd=Norad/o=Oslo/s=Ceesay/g=Ba-Musa/@MHS>
Content-Identifier: post.ut33ba6c37
Content-Return: Prohibited
MIME-Version: 1.0
The Gambian Association in Oslo, Norway, wish to inform all Gambia L
members that this year`s Gambian Cultural Week is scheduled from the 19-26
july 1997.The week long celebration in Norway is a well known occasion
throughout Europe, America and the Gambia. The week entail among other
things, children`s evening, street drumming and dancing, seminars and
sports activities.
For more information contact Ba-Musa Ceesay directly.
Regards
ba
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 19:13:59 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <01BC8725.3F611D00@dila.qatar.net.qa>
Mr.Grotnes,
Thanks for your response.Yes,you are right;RACE is used mostly to mean
the entire Human Species (Homo Sapiens) to which all of us,in the final
analysis, belong. However,it is sometimes used to mean the various
SUB-Species into which HomoSapiens has evolved since her advent some 40,000
years ago.And they are:1) African 2) Indian 3) Australian 4) Asiatic 5)
Melanesian 6) Micronesian 7) Polynesian 8) American Indian 9) European.
My Regards to you and the Shadow List.
Basssss!
----------
From: The Gambia-L shadow list[SMTP:gambia-l@commit.gm]
Sent: 26/OYN/1418 03:29 O
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Bass,
> For each of the nine main racial categories identified by science on our
> this planet is a given Land mass which is considered as its original home
I hate to interrupt your monologue, but would you mind citing sources
regarding "the nine racial categories identified by science"? I don't
recognize that science from my own (admittedly, very limited) education in
biology. Are you sure you are not confusing "racial categories" with
"cultures"? The "human race" as it is often called (more scientifically:
the species Homo Sapiens) on the other hand is in my belief univerally
accepted (by biologists, archeologists and anthropologists) to have arisen
in Africa, somewhat south of Egypt though.
Other than that, I must compliment your style, it is very readable and
entertaining!
With fear of starting a debate,
Joern Grotnes
P.S. This message also to test that members of the Gambia-L shadow list can
now contribute to the discussions.
begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT
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end
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 21:17:56 +0200
From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Gambia-l shadow list
Message-ID: <19970702201942.AAA50458@LOCALNAME>
On 2 Jul 97 at 9:41, Numukunda Darboe(Mba) wrote:
>
> >P.S. This message also to test that members of the Gambia-L shadow list can
> >now contribute to the discussions.
> >
>
> Just being inquisitive, but what is the Gambia-L shadow list about,
> and what does in comprise if you don't mind. It seems like this is
> the first time it has been mentioned on the list.
>
> Numukunda
We only send one copy of the Gambia-l messages to Commit Enterprise,
which is then forwarded to the list members in Gambia using commit.
This is done inorder to limit the number of messages to their server,
also the international line capacity to and from The Gambia is
presently very limited.
Each time there is a subscription request from someone with an
email address [....@commit.gm], we notify Commit so that the person
could be added to their forwarding service (the so called Gambia-l
shadow list). The person is then asked to send a brief introduction
as any other new member.
Momodou Camara
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 18:31:06 -0000
From: "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
To: <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <B0000001265@south.commit.gm>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> years ago.And they are:1) African 2) Indian 3) Australian 4) Asiatic 5)
> Melanesian 6) Micronesian 7) Polynesian 8) American Indian 9) European.
I will respect it if someone tells me to take this discussion to private
e-mail, but for the time being, let us keep it public. I still would like
to know:
1) Where are these nine "races" defined? (I.e. in what publication)
2) If races mean sub-species, which science branch deals with either races
or subspecies? What is the definition of a subspecies? Races in breeding
(horses, dogs, cows) does not mean sub-species I believe, just lineage and
form (because by selective breeding, form is easily alterable).
This I write in genuine interest of learning more about the subject.
Joern
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:51:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Laura Ellen Munzel <lem10@columbia.edu>
To: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.970702210353.2755A-100000@vanakam.cc.columbia.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Gambia-l,
Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted Bass's original messages. Please
excuse my therefore incomplete response to his posting. However, there
were two main points I hope to debate with others:
1) What is race? It seems to me definitions of race have changed
throughout time. Different areas of the world also tend to see race in
different ways. Physical variations definitely exist in people. How
these are interpreted is up for grabs, though. It's a viewpoint stemming
from cultural anthropology: race is a social construction.
2) I don't believe there is any proof that human societies "developed"
along any type of fixed pattern. The idea that we all started off as
hunters & gatherers, progressed through to agricultural societies, and
ultimately to today's techologically oriented civilization stems from the
early 20th century. It is a eurocentric viewpoint which places a European
type society at the summit of "advanced" civilization.
Another aspect of this belief is that there are some societies in which
the so-called earlier developmental stages of civilization still exist.
i.e. any "remote" and "untouched" ethnic groups you can think of. Why?
There is absolutely no reason to believe such peoples are locked in some
kind of arrested development.
Anyway, food for thought. I'd be interested to hear responses!
Laura
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 08:54:55 +0100
From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: THE 11th GAMBIAN CUTURAL WEEK 19-26 JULY 1997 OSLO
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970703075455.006e1958@golf.uib.no>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
BA-MUSA, Thanks for the reminder.
The BERGEN WEEK is scheduled from the 7th.- 12th July. It has been a
"tradition" or practice to hold the BERGEN WEEK 1 week prior to Oslo's. I
guess this is to avoid a collision between the two and that of Stockholm and
Copenhagen since there is usually a cooperation or exchange of visits
between these parties.
For more information contact Alhagi (Momodou) Jobarteh (current Chairman and
a G-l member) at:
Momodou.Jobarteh@hordaland.vegvesen.telemax.no
Thanks,
::)))Abdou Oujiami
At 16:53 02/07/97 +0200, you wrote:
>
>The Gambian Association in Oslo, Norway, wish to inform all Gambia L
>members that this year`s Gambian Cultural Week is scheduled from the 19-26
>july 1997.The week long celebration in Norway is a well known occasion
>throughout Europe, America and the Gambia. The week entail among other
>things, children`s evening, street drumming and dancing, seminars and
>sports activities.
>
>For more information contact Ba-Musa Ceesay directly.
>
>Regards
>ba
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 08:59:22 +0200
From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New member
Message-ID: <19970703080113.AAB27466@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l,
Fatim C. Jallow has been added to the list. Welcome to the
Gambia-l, we look forward to your contributions.
Please send a brief introduction to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Momodou Camara
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:57:00 +0100
From: sahir.drammeh@bok.bonnier.se
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: VB: RE: New members
Message-ID: <97Jul3.105302gmt+0100.26881-1@firewall.bok.bonnier.se>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
----------
Fr=E5n: Drammeh, Sahir (BOK/DATA)
Till: momodou camara
Ang=E5ende: VB: RE: New members
Datum: den 2 juli 1997 12.55
----------
Fr=E5n: Drammeh, Sahir (BOK/DATA)
Till: 'echo@swip.net'
Ang=E5ende: VB: RE: New members
Datum: den 2 juli 1997 12.03
----------
Fr=E5n: Drammeh, Sahir (BOK/DATA)
Till: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH
Ang=E5ende: SV: RE: New members
Datum: den 2 juli 1997 11.47
It is a pleasure to become a member of the BANTABAA and hope that this
opportunity we have as Gambians outside Gambia will be utilize to the
best. There is a lot to discourse and as a means of information media,
we can utilize it to spreed information concerning the gambia.
I was able to glance some of the discoursions that has been
taking place especially the culture debate.
Any how culture is one of the backbone of our educationalsystem.
You have to know your self before you are able to contribute to =
anything
meaningful . It is indeed a fact that culture has not been take very
seriously in our educationalsystem and we all hope that the present
Goverment will address this problem very seriously. We as Gambians /
Africans have to rewrite our own history and change most of the
textbooks that our past colonial masters left with us. There are many
educated African intellectuals that can do the work for us. So i am
looking forward to see this dream been imple- mented in the near =
future.
The other issue that is alarming is the subject of Tribe and
Tribalism which is deeply rooted in the Gambia Mr. Bass did briff us
about the Anglosaxons Tribe and Language history, and did promise to
elaborate on our chaotic Tribal and Language history in the next issue.
To start with i think that it is a big problen that needs to be =
address.
It is becausu of ignorance that warrant us to treat people in the
context of which tribe they belong to or which language they speak. If
we take for example the political groupings in the Gambia as far as the
last republic is concern, most of the political parties do base their
footings on tribal bases but when they come to power, their policies
towards the general masses are the same.
So what we need to do is to try and exchange some meaningful
ideas to be able to upgrade our ways of relating to one an other, in a
proper way.Those of you who are historians needs to touch on this
subject. Gambia for example is a very small society and most of us come
from families that have already been intermarried never mind which =
tribe
you come from or which language you speak. We are all humanbeings and
came from the same Adam and Eve. We have seen what happen in fomer Zair
now Kongo, and not forgetting our neighbours Liberia and Sierraleone.
These are the things that emerge from just tribalsim. People been
subjected to such inhuman treatment,just because they belong to a
certain tribe.
Sorry it was just a short comment , lets talk about Gambia !!!
It's SAHIR
----------
Fr=E5n: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH
Till: 'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'
Ang=E5ende: RE: New members
Datum: den 30 juni 1997 19.56
Microsoft Mail v3.0 (MAPI 1.0 Transport) IPM.Microsoft Mail.Note
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH
To: 'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'
Subject: RE: New members
Date: 1997-06-30 19:56
Priority: 3
Message ID: 4D3F4D3788F1D0119208444553540000
Conversation ID: RE: New members
------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---- --
Mr.Drammeh,Mr.Nboob!!
A very special WELCOME to both of you.That day
is near when we will have
all the smart Gambians outside Gambia as members of this very special
BANTABAA!!
Once again,my very sincere Welcome to both of you!
Regards
Bassss!!
----------
From: Camara, Momodou=C4SMTP:momodou.camara=C9post3.tele.dk=C5
Sent: 24/OYN/1418 03:49 a
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: New members
Gambia-l,
Sahir Drammeh and Ebrima Mboob , have been added to the list.
Welcome to the Gambia-l, we look forward to your contributions.
Please send a your introductions to: gambia-l=C9u.washington.edu
Regards
Momodou Camara
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 12:20:32 +0200
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
To: "'gambia'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: miningitis belt !
Message-ID: <c=DK%a=_%p=DIF%l=DKDIFS02-970703102032Z-60@dkdifs02.dif.dk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Good news, I think. But I=B4m not sure if "Africa is winning the Battle =
on
Miningitis", if there is no explaination, why 'epidemics are a
periodical problem in Africa=B4s "meningitis belt"...' =20
If it=B4s a periodical problem there must be made more research and put
more ressources into this. Instead of just waiting for the next period
to come, and then again put efforts and ressources into momentarely help
and world wide actions for aid.
But as another international news brought on Gambia-L the other day,
there is "no business" for the western medical industries, or for the
pharmalogical institutes, or money to earn for doctors operating in poor
countries. I don=B4t remember the figures, but it was not much world =
wide
spend on the poor peoples. There are more money in plastic surgery,
heart-operations, fat-sucking, producing medicin for cardional, hormonal
problems, medicin for stress and sex-problems, all we spend a lots of
>money on here in the west.
Just a comment. Asbj=F8rn
>----------
>From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk[SMTP:momodou@inform-bbs.dk]
>Sent: 30. June 1997 20.16
>To: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
>Subject: Fwd: HEALTH: Africa Winning the Battle on Meningitis
>
>GENEVA, Jun 25 (IPS) - The campaign launched barely five months
>ago to fight meningitis epidemics in Africa has made good
>progress, announced the World Health Organisation Wednesday.
>
>The International Coordinating Group (ICG) created last January
>by the World Health Organisation (WHO) considered its efforts to
>help the African countries affected by the 1996 to 1997 meningitis
>epidemic have been successful.
>
>Hiroshi Nakajima, WHO director general, said ''Thanks to the
>ICG, no country which urgently needed vaccine was denied it.''
>The Coordinating Group it managed to cover the urgent needs for
>vaccine, the rational use of the available vaccines, the obtaining
>of favourable prices, while avoiding serum wastage in its first
>working period.
>Epidemics are a periodical problem in Africa's ''meningitis
>belt,'' which stretches from Senegal to Ethiopia, covering
>territory in at least 15 countries, affecting a population of 300
>million people.
>
>The meningitis season lasts from November to April. In 1995 to
>1996, it showed particularly serious problems. The 1996 to 1997
>epidemics were also significant, with 59,461 cases reported by
>June 1, of which, 6,055 proved fatal. (END/IPS/tra-so/pc/ag/sm/97)
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: 03 Jul 1997 11:44:10 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: ENVIRONMENT: Shifting Sands of Dese
Message-ID: <632942558.156598343@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 29-Jun-97 ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT: Shifting Sands of Desertification Policy
By Dipankar De Sarkar
LONDON, Jun 29 (IPS) - Scientists and politicians have been wrong
about desertification for nearly 70 years, says British analyst
Jeremy Swift who accuses some of them of wilfully ignoring
scientific literature that contradicted their own preconceived
ideas.
Swift, who works at the Institute for Development Studies in
Sussex, says the history of policy-making on desertification has
''less to do with science than with the competing claims of
different political and bureaucratic constituencies.''
In his recent book, 'The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received
Wisdom on the African Environment', he says the desertification
idea was first raised by French colonialists' concerns about the
apparent drying out of large areas of their Sahelian colonies and
the encroaching Sahara Desert in the 1920s and 1930s.
This later led a forester in the Indian Forest Service, E.P.
Stebbing, to tour West Africa and the Sahara in 1934 and to
publish his findings in a series of articles and a book.
While the Sahara had expanded southwards for centuries, the
desert had begun to encroach at a faster rate, he argued,
attributing it to ''desiccation'' (the drying up of surface water,
lowering of the water table and a decrease in rainfall).
This was the result of human activity, such as changes in
cultivation and nomadic grazing, which in turn was due to
population increase. He insisted that changes in climate and
rainfall were not the cause of the Sahara's expansion.
On Stebbing's suggestion, the two colonial powers set up an
Anglo-French Forestry Commission that did extensive fieldwork
along the Niger-Nigeria border in 1936-37. However its study
followed an exceptionally wet 1936 monsoon.
Refuting most of Stebbing's assertions, the Commission
concluded that it seemed ''dry and wet periods, of short and
variable durations, follow each other. They do not demonstrate any
tendency towards a permanent change in the climate.''
Nevertheless, discussions in the 1940s and 1950s continued to be
guided by Stebbing's original analysis.
The term 'desertification' was coined in 1949 by A. Aubreville,
a French member of the Commission, whose views changed after the
report was presented. Swift says he used the term to describe what
he saw as ''an almost entirely man-made process of destruc tive
land use across the whole forest and savannah zones of West
Africa.''
The 1950s and 1960s were wet years in the Sahel and the debate
resumed only in the early 1970s after a major drought. One of the
earliest responses came from the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), which said the Sahara had
advanced southward along a 2,200 mile front by up to 30 miles a
year in some places. The U.N. also expressed alarm and in th e mid-
1970s new research was commissioned by the Sudanese government,
UNESCO and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).
Influenced by the work of ecologist and wildlife biologist Hugh
Lamprey, an international consensus in the late 1970s and early
1980s built up that reinforced old arguments about over-
population and inappropriate land use.
''Lamprey's estimates for Northern Sudan (the desert edge had
moved south 90-100 kilometers in 17 years) was interpreted as an
average annual advance of six kilometres, and this figure became
the basis for increasingly unlikely rates of desert expansion
along the whole southern Saharan edge,'' claims Swift.
In turn this led to the first global action on desertification
since the Anglo-French Commission 40 years earlier -- the 1977
U.N. Conference on desertification (UNCOD) in Nairobi.
UNCOD drafted a Plan of Action to Combat Desertification by
2000 and UNEP declared 35 per cent of the earth's land surface and
20 percent of its peoples to be under threat from
desertification. This became the received wisdom, ''scarcely
challenged in public policy-making or popular reporting'', says
Swift, while the views of the sceptical dryland scientists were
dismissed.
Dryland scientists argued that the term desertification was
confusing because it was being used to describe three distinct
phenomena: drought, desiccation and dryland degradation.
They say that though sand-dune movement is a problem in some
places, there is no evidence that deserts are progressively
advancing into neighbouring areas. Desert frontiers, they say,
shift according to rainfall: when rains are good, vegetation
flourishe s in once bare areas and when rains fail, the desert
returns as grasses fail to germinate.
Swift says three groups gained from perpetuating the received
wisdom on desertification. National governments in Africa used the
crisis scenario to ''claim rights to stewardship over resources
previously outside their control.''
Aid bureaucracies used desertification to justify calls for
increased aid flows - unlike poverty, land distribution and
population, it was seen as non-political. And for ecologists, it
was an ideal issue to influence policy.
Pastoralists, dryland farmers and herders lost out, says Swift.
''Their control over resources was whittled away by central
planning, land tenure reform, ranches and other 'good ideas' from
governments, the aid agencies and outside consultants.''
However Swift says there is now a 'counter-narrative' on
drylands that deserves to replace the desertification argument.
This combines ideas about making use of local knowledge and
traditional institutions and common property management rules.
There are signs that this argument is winning over some in the
aid agencies, says Swift, ''although it has not yet got far with
governments''.
He concludes: ''Researchers, who come out of the story of
desertification with tattered banners, have a particular
responsibility this time to get the science right and to ensure
that the policy outcomes reflect a more just and efficient
distribution of rights and responsibilities.'' (END/IPS/dds/97)
Origin: Washington/ENVIRONMENT/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or
service outside of the APC networks, without specific
permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution
via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists,
print media and broadcast. For information about cross-
posting, send a message to <online@ips.org>. For
information about print or broadcast reproduction plg>
Date: 02 Jul 1997 15:37:44 -0800 (PST)
X-Gateway: notes@gn.apc.org
Lines: 148
------------------------------
Date: 03 Jul 1997 11:46:47 GMT
From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Fwd: ENVIRONMENT: Media Doesn't Get the
Message-ID: <632942558.156598588@inform-bbs.dk>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 29-Jun-97 ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT: Media Doesn't Get the Message
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 (IPS) - With the end of a five-day summit
on environment and development, U.N. officials and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) have been left to ponder the
value of international news media as ecological watchdogs.
''News editors are not responding to the growing public
interest in the environment,'' says Terry Collins, president of
the Paris-based International Federation of Environmental
Journalists.
Collins said a recent worldwide survey of 27,000 people in 24
countries - and conducted by the Toronto-based Environics
International - revealed that public interest in environmental
issues has increased significantly since the 1992 Earth Summit in
Rio. But newspapers, radio and television have not respondered to
this rising public interest.
''Throughout the world, environmental coverage has been reduced
in recent years,'' Collins declared.
Janne Ryan of the Australian Broadcasting Commission says that
in her country ''environment is a non-story.'' When a news story
has to be cut for lack of space or a radio programme eliminated
for want of air time, the first casualty is the environment, she
said.
Maurice Strong, former Secretary-General of the Rio summit,
says that news on sustainable development issues needs a more
effective dissemination system. ''We can have all the ideas and
the values for promoting sustainability, but unless we get these
messages out into the larger world, ... they will have little
impact,'' Strong said.
''I would like to challenge the media to consider developing
their own version of 'Agenda 21' for journalists and
broadcasters,'' he said, referring to the multibillion dollar
global action plan adopted at the Rio summit for the protection of
the environment through the next century.
''I believe that the media have an enormous responsibility in
this process. Indeed, I believe that the media should take on a
mission, focusing the positive role it can play in increasing
awareness about social, environment and development issues, and
the practical solutions for overcoming some of the challenges,''
he said.
Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based
U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said that some might suggest
that it is really up to the media to put the environment back on
the public agenda and build awareness and support for strong
action by governments.
''But it would be hard to imagine the media being able to
provide any greater effort for the environmental cause than that
which was mounted at the time of Rio,'' she said.
''Hype will not do it. Rio quite clearly showed us that you can
lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink,'' Dowdeswell
said.
She added that ''even in this market-driven world, it is still
up to governments to act. And there is still room for governments
to act if they will choose to act together,'' she said.
Addressing a seminar Tuesday, Seymour Topping, former managing
editor of the New York Times, said that although there were more
than 6,000 journalists at the Rio summit five years ago, global
issues have once again been ''relegated to the back pages.''
Blaming political leaders for the declining interest in global
and environmental issues, Topping said that ''only if leaders take
the bully pulpit will the press take heed.''
Topping singled out the New Orleans Times-Picayune which won a
Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories on the depletion of global
fish stocks. He also said that between 3,000 and 5,000 U.S.
journalists write regularly on environmental issues.
Collins, of the International Federation of Environmental
Journalists, believes there will be much greater coverage of
environmental issues in the next few years but it will be quite
different from the tone of coverage of the late 1980s and early
1990s ''because it won't be driven by environmental NGOs to the
same extent.''
''I think there will be a trend towards integration of
environmental coverage throughout the news room, with an
increasing emphasis on environmental issues by business
journalists,'' he added.
Meanwhile an international media conference on environment and
development held in Seoul early in June concluded that the media
must significantly strengthen the commitment to environmental news
coverage if the legacy of the Earth Summit is to have a lasting
impact. The meeting, attended by journalists, U.N. officials and
NGOs, decide to promote greater commitment to the environment
story ''within our media organisations.''
Participants also agreed to help fellow journalists and media
professionals, especially from developing countries, improve their
knowledge in an techniques for covering the global development
story.
Hyon-Wook Kaing, Korea's Environment Minister, said that in a
survey conducted in his country recently, 94 percent of the
respondents said their major source of environmental information
was the media.
''This reflects the significance of the media in the area of
environmental protection,'' he added. (END/IPS/td/mk/97)
Origin: Washington/ENVIRONMENT/
----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or
service outside of the APC networks, without specific
permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution
via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists,
print media and broadcast. For information about cross-
posting, send a message to <online@ips.org>. For
information about print or broadcast reproduction please
contact the IPS coordinator at <online@ips.org>.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:12:26 +0200
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk>
To: "'gambia'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Culture and the cancer of language and tribe .
Message-ID: <c=DK%a=_%p=DIF%l=DKDIFS02-970703121226Z-83@dkdifs02.dif.dk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Nation building and culture.=20
I think that topic is interesting to discuss, and I will not give
advises on the gambian situation, but I can put the discussion into
perspective by telling you, that a study in Denmark, published just a
few months ago, is saying that we formed this commen feeling af being
"danes" and Denmark as a national state only 150 years ago and the
process is still running.=20
What made me interested, was Bass=B4 comments on, what we believe is =
old,
ancient danish history. Even Denmark as a "state" has existed many
many years , and the kingdom is one of the oldest in "modern" history,
and "danes" has "ruled" over great parts of what today is defined as
Scandinavia, France, England, Germany, our designation as a
"national-state", the danes as a nation of people- "the danes", with
what we should call commen language, ideas of a state and nation, is not
formed untill 140 -150 years ago. What we learned in school was a war
with Germany in 1849 over some pieces of land was infact and
surprisingly for many of us, who have started reading the above
mentioned book, an interrior danish war, which lead to the beginning of
a definition of: where are the bounderies of what should later become
the national-state of Denmark ? (A referendum in 1920 draw the
boarderline between Denmark and Schleswig (Germany) and that is the
latest change of boarderlines of the nation of Denmark)
For hundreds of years the official language in Denmark was frensh or
german among the leading clases, the state-administration, the military,
in commerce, educational institutes etc. (This "cultural colonisation"
was never forced upon us, we did it voluntarely, because the elite, the
rich, the artists, the scientists had to talk such a foreing language,
to be international. They found no challenge in being danish, or among
danes. First from 1875 - the great artists and scientist officialy
declared themselves dedicated to their heritage - danish people,
language, culture, state)
"Danish" (there are different danish tongues) was a language spoken by
the ordinary people, the peasents, the workingclass, poor people.
Education was only for the "elite". But then a cultural "revolution"
started with building of small schools all over the country (at the
beginning with non-educated teachers), local dairies, slaughterhouses,
mills, courses for adults, who had never got any education, etc, and out
of all this grew the commen identity of being a dane, being danish, what
was danish culture, danish language etc. And out of all this we got a
new, modern constitution, taking the "power" from the King and
transferred it to a parliament, constitutional to a "democratic"
forum, formed on a voting system, where at the beginning only men, and
men with own property could vote and represent.
I can not explain all of it here, but I see from the comments given on
forming a commen national sense of being a gambian, belonging to the
national state "The Gambia", as exactly what the danes passed through
starting some 150 years ago, and which is still going on.
We danes feel that we have a lot in commen with our sisters and brothers
in the nordic countries, both in languages and culture, even we have
bounderies between the countries. But we are also aware of where the
differences are between our peoples, cultures.
When we danes are the people in EU, who are the most sceptical against
the EU, it has to be understood from that culturel definition. We are
aware of the influence allways needed from outside, to challenge,
inspire and develop our own society. But we also are very sceptical to
any attepts making Denmark to a part of a EU, not as an individual
nation, but as a state in a federal union, with les sovereignity. We
have "survived" hundreds of years with cultural influence from France
and Germany, and still find something which we say is "danish", and we
believe that we can also survive the culturel oppression from USA. But
to adopt the best from other cultures, we must be very aware of what it
means to be danish, what we believe is danish culture and language.=20
In january I put a very short comment on education here on Gambia-L,
saying that to me it was strange to find children in The Gambia, when
comming first day to the school eager to learn, they were met with a
total new,strange and foreign language. The ministry of education must
be able to figure how many scoolchildren there are now and the next 5
years (for the children are born allready), and then figure how many
classes, classrooms, and teachers there are needed. Then start
educational programmes not only at Gambia College, but also in an
institution up River, to get enough teachers to fill the classrooms. And
the ressources needed is almost possible to get from outside. Most
international institutions (UN, EU etc.) are interested in supporting
educational programmes all over the world. And then instead of saying
how many points the children need to pass the tests, the government
could better deside that FROM TOMORROW the children of the Gambia should
be taught in their own (local) language. In one village maybe there will
be 3 first classes and the teaching launguage are 3 different ones. In
another village it is only one language, because it=B4s dominant there.=20
Language is important for the cultural understanding of what kind of
person you are, what your family, cultural, social background is.
Let me stop my comment here. I will come back later. Right now I look
forward to spend this weekend together with gambian friends in
Stockholm. All Gambia-L=B4er - have a pleasant week-end from tomorrow.=20
Asbj=F8rn Nordam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:41:35 +0100 (BST)
From: "M. Njie" <mn015@students.stir.ac.uk>
To: Laura Ellen Munzel <lem10@columbia.edu>
Cc: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: (PART3) THE CANCER OF LANGUAGE AND TRBE IN AFRICA
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.970703151742.10557B-100000@whale.students.stir.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Food for thought indeed! While Bass most probably does not
want to portray a Eurocentric view of culture, that's the
impression one gets with aspects of his piece. History is
rarely a value-free narration of events, and the type of
sources one consults can influence one's thinking.
I am in no way suggesting that Bass should change his
style, but it seems to me that the way he wants to go about
it will engender so much controversy that his main message may
be lost in the process. Passing references can be made to
other peoples and languages, but the main focus should be on
tribalism and languages in Africa/The Gambia. Laura and Joern have
made very good points and should be taken into account.
Regards,
MOMODOU
On Wed, 2 Jul
1997, Laura Ellen Munzel wrote:
> Gambia-l,
>
> Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted Bass's original messages. Please
> excuse my therefore incomplete response to his posting. However, there
> were two main points I hope to debate with others:
>
> 1) What is race? It seems to me definitions of race have changed
> throughout time. Different areas of the world also tend to see race in
> different ways. Physical variations definitely exist in people. How
> these are interpreted is up for grabs, though. It's a viewpoint stemming
> from cultural anthropology: race is a social construction.
>
> 2) I don't believe there is any proof that human societies "developed"
> along any type of fixed pattern. The idea that we all started off as
> hunters & gatherers, progressed through to agricultural societies, and
> ultimately to today's techologically oriented civilization stems from the
> early 20th century. It is a eurocentric viewpoint which places a European
> type society at the summit of "advanced" civilization.
>
> Another aspect of this belief is that there are some societies in which
> the so-called earlier developmental stages of civilization still exist.
> i.e. any "remote" and "untouched" ethnic groups you can think of. Why?
> There is absolutely no reason to believe such peoples are locked in some
> kind of arrested development.
>
> Anyway, food for thought. I'd be interested to hear responses!
>
> Laura
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:03:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Salifuj@aol.com
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: July 4th celebration!!!!
Message-ID: <970703110025_274684667@emout05.mail.aol.com>
It's July 4th once again....and we are headed to ATLANTA!!!!!!!!!!
I am surprised though that no one bothered to post the programme of events
for participating list members.
Aren't there members of the Atlanta organizing committee on Gambia-L?
Thanks.
-Sal
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 01:27:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New member
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.970704012447.28910C-100000@saul9.u.washington.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Ebrima Ceesay has been added to the list. We welcome him and are looking
to his introduction and contributions.
Thanks
Tony
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 06:38:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabriel Ndow <gndow@Spelman.EDU>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: re: culture2 (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970704063640.3095A-100000@acc5>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 00:52:50 -0700
From: latjor Ndow <ndukuman@avana.net>
To: gndow@spelman.edu
Subject: re: culture2
Greetings Cherno:
Sorry for not responding earlier. I was on a quick trip out of town.
You posed me the following question in your last posting:
> I was wondering though if you could comment on
> how the lack of an alphabet/character set for
> most African languages could affect any attempt
> to raise their profile.
The absence of an alphabetic script should not affect 'any attempt
to raise their profile'. There is nothing strange about a language
not having a script.
Let me put you on the spot. (No offense) How many european languages do
you know that have indigenous alphabetical scripts? There are more than
360 european dialects and languages. I do not know of that many
alphabetic scripts in europe. I think Bassss... hinted at this earlier
in his piece. As he rightly pointed out, most of europe benefitted from
the Latin script and language.
I must however point out before I go any further that Africans do have
several scripts as well as the oldest alphabetic script in the world.
The so-called hieroglyphs is the oldest form of writing and was
developed in inner Africa thousands of years before the first
indo-european (Hitite) language was rendered in written form. This is
our Classical hheritage that awaits us to embrace. It will one day do
for us what ancient Greece did for europe.
Closer to home, I have before me a copy of 15 alphabetic scripts
developed by Africans. There is the Manding script, Fula Dita script,
Fula Ba script, Bete script, Wolof script, to name a few. If Africans
wanted they could easily adopt one or the other script and through
greater usage and research it would grow in prominence. Other 'dead'
languages (like modern day Yiddish spoken in Israel) went through a
similar path. The Zionists decided to resurrect a language with a script
that had not been in usage for more than 600 years inorder to unify
'Jews' the world over in their quest for land! So could we if we choose
to do so.
Finally, the current orthography used to render African languages (using
the very script I am using to communicate with you, along with some
special characters) have been in use since the 60's. I large body of
research has already been conducted in some of these languages. So it is
not 'the lack of an alphabetic script' that is the problem, rather it is
the lack of will among Africans to chart a destiny for themselves that
is the problem. In my opinion!
In peace,
Latjor.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 07:40:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New member
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.970704073834.16080C-100000@saul5.u.washington.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Pa Sowe has been added to the list. We welcome him and are looking
forward to his introduction and contributions.
Thanks
Tony
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:26:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu>
To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Sierra Leone army chief backs female circumcision (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.970704082333.23483A-100000@saul5.u.washington.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Not attempting to revive this topic which had been already and intensely
debated in Gambia-l, I thought that this story might be of interest
to some.
Thanks
Tony
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:11:07 PDT
From: Reuters <C-reuters@clari.net>
Newsgroups: clari.world.africa.western, clari.news.issues.human_rights,
clari.news.issues.misc
Subject: Sierra Leone army chief backs female circumcision
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (Reuter) - Sierra Leone's military
ruler, Maj. Johnny Paul Koroma, has assured supporters of female
circumcision that he supports this and other traditional
practices, state radio reported Wednesday.
The radio quoted Koroma as telling the executive council of
the traditional Bondo Women Society late Tuesday: ``Now that
peace has been achieved you can practice without hindrance.''
Over 80 percent of women in Sierra Leone have been
circumcised but the practice has drawn intense criticism across
Africa from campaigners who regard genital mutilation as cruel,
outmoded and a health risk.
The radio said that the Bondo women, who have come under
intense pressure from domestic and foreign opponents of the
practice, pledged their loyalty to Koroma and his ruling junta.
Tens of thousands of women marched in the capital Freetown
and various other towns early this year protesting foreign and
domestic campaigns against the practice.
Supporters of circumcision said they would vote against
ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah if he did not stop the
campaigns. Kabbah, elected in 1996, promised to look into the
matter.
The Bondo society, which circumcised at least 600 girls at
one session on the outskirts of Freetown in March, agreed to
fine anyone circumcising girls aged under 12.
Junior army officers who toppled Kabbah on May 25 propelled
Koroma to power. Sierra Leone's West African neighbors have told
him and his junta to reinstate Kabbah and have threatened to use
force if they do not.
-=-=-
Want to tell us what you think about the ClariNews? Please feel
free to <<email us your comments>> <comments@clari.net>.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:06:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu>
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Cc: msjaiteh@mtu.edu (Malanding S. Jaiteh)
Subject: Re: New member
Message-ID: <199707050006.UAA03391@hemlock.ffr.mtu.edu>
Content-Type: text
>
>
>
> Pa Sowe has been added to the list. We welcome him and are looking
> forward to his introduction and contributions.
> Thanks
> Tony
>
Welcome to all new members. Tony or any other manager, please add Abdoulie
Jallow to the list. He is at bamba734@aol.com
Malanding Jaiteh
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:50:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: ASJanneh@aol.com
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: Sissoho Update
Message-ID: <970704205056_-1260326974@emout06.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="PART.BOUNDARY.0.7601.emout06.mail.aol.com.868063856"
--PART.BOUNDARY.0.7601.emout06.mail.aol.com.868063856
Content-ID: <0_7601_868063856@emout06.mail.aol.com.5536>
Content-type: text/plain
From
Amadou Scattred Janneh
(heading to Atlanta)
--PART.BOUNDARY.0.7601.emout06.mail.aol.com.868063856
Content-ID: <0_7601_868063856@emout06.mail.aol.com.5537>
Content-type: text/plain;
name="SUSO2"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
MIAMI, July 4 (Reuter) - A U.S. federal magistrate has ruled that a West =
African millionaire who pleaded guilty to a charge of bribing a U.S. cust=
oms officer may not claim diplomatic immunity. =
=0D
In a ruling handed down late on Thursday, Magistrate Ted Bandstra found t=
hat Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko, a citizen of Mali and Gambia, ``is not i=
mmune from prosecution as a result of his designation as a Special Adviso=
r on a Special Mission for the Gambia.'' =
=0D
``Unfortunately, and for reasons never fully explained, the Gambia never =
properly notified the United States Department of State of Sissoko's desi=
gnation as a diplomatic officer or member of its diplomatic mission in th=
e United States,'' he wrote. =
=0D
Sissoko, who faces a sentence of 45 days imprisonment and four months of =
home confinement, has 10 days to appeal the latest ruling in his case. =
=0D
He pleaded guilty in January to paying a $30,000 bribe to a U.S. customs =
agent in a bid to ship two military helicopters to Gambia. =
=0D
Gambia had petitioned the Miami U.S. District Court to overturn his convi=
ction on the grounds that he was serving as a special envoy for that coun=
try and had diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution. =
=0D
A host of African nations condemned the case against Sissoko, who heads a=
company called Negoce International and is known for his largesse in Wes=
t Africa and Miami. =
=0D
Following his conviction, he gave $60,000 Mercedes cars to each of his th=
ree lawyers, tens of thousands of dollars to a Miami high school marching=
band and a gold watch and $10,000 cash to a masseuse who went to his con=
dominium but was not allowed to touch him because of his religious belief=
s, according to press reports. =
=0D
14:30 07-04-97
=0D
--PART.BOUNDARY.0.7601.emout06.mail.aol.com.868063856--
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 09:14:18 +0200
From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou)
To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Subject: New member
Message-ID: <19970705081547.AAB43978@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l,
Abdoulie Jallow has been added to the list. Welcome to the
Gambia-l, we look forward to your contributions.
Please send a brief introduction to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Momodou Camara
*******************************************************
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara
**"Start by doing what's necessary, then what's
possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible"***
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 09:04:18 -0000
From: "The Gambia-L shadow list" <gambia-l@commit.gm>
To: <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: new member introduction
Message-ID: <B0000001359@south.commit.gm>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hi everyone,
My name is Pa Musa Jallow and I am thrilled to join in the global Gambian
bantaba.
I have keenly followed the discourse and look forward to contributing.
I do know quite a few of the Gambia-L subscribers or members and this is a
very healthy development bringing all of us together to share opinions and
ideas.
Anyway for introduction sake I am working and living in The Gambia and have
been home for three years now.
It is my pleasure to join you all.
Bye for now
Pmj
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 20:32:42 +-300
From: BASSIROU DODOU DRAMMEH <kolls567@qatar.net.qa>
To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: new member introduction
Message-ID: <01BC8982.9A776140@dibo.qatar.net.qa>
Mr. Jallow!!
You are most welcome! Feel free and say what you think;its your Bantabaa
as anybody else.
Again, WELCOME to the Penchabi !
Regards Bassss!!
----------
From: The Gambia-L shadow list[SMTP:gambia-l@commit.gm]
Sent: 29/OYN/1418 12:04 a
To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List
Subject: new member introduction
Hi everyone,
My name is Pa Musa Jallow and I am thrilled to join in the global Gambian
bantaba.
I have keenly followed the discourse and look forward to contributing.
I do know quite a few of the Gambia-L subscribers or members and this is a
very healthy development bringing all of us together to share opinions and
ideas.
Anyway for introduction sake I am working and living in The Gambia and have
been home for three years now.
It is my pleasure to join you all.
Bye for now
Pmj
------------------------------
End of GAMBIA-L Digest 75
*************************
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gambia-l: LOG9707B - Digest 75
