Did they change the name al well? If it is appropriate to change the venue
what makes it inappropriate to change the name and purpose?

Just a thought.

Ebou Secka


>From: "Jeng, Beran" <[log in to unmask]>

>Banjul - The Roots Homecoming Festival is a direct consequence of tracing
>back
>to the small village of Juffureh the ancestral home of an African-American
>author Alex Haley in the mid 1970s.
>Therefore, the natural home of the festival should be Juffureh and nowhere
>else.
>It was therefore a surprise to many people when the epicentre of the
>festival
>seemed to have been moved over to Kanilai, leaving Juffureh virtually
>relegated
>to insignificance. It is indeed a shame on the part of the Department of
>State
>for Tourism and Culture and the National Council for Arts and Culture to
>apparently allow the programme to be hijacked by a few sycophants, whose
>objective may be is to please President Jammeh and ultimately capture his
>attention for their own personal aggrandisement. By willingly taking the
>festival to Kanilai and giving President Jammeh the impression that his
>people
>have the purest culture in this country, their institution have failed the
>people of The Gambia.
>More and more people are wondering why the centre of activities for the
>festival
>should be moved to Kanilai instead of its natural home of Juffureh. Why
>should
>'Sindola culture' be displayed to our visitors from the Diaspora as the
>only
>authentic culture in this country? Obviously, somebody somewhere seems to
>be
>playing a clever trick on the psyche of the people of this country,
>probably as
>part of the scheme to transform Kanilai from an obscure border village to
>the
>most important settlement in this country. However, it is certainly quite
>unfair
>to snatch the 'Roots' limelight from the people of Juffureh its rightful
>owners
>and take it to Kanilai which has absolutely nothing to do with it, but
>apparently only because President Jammeh hails from there. Therefore, the
>Secretary of State for Tourism and Culture Susan Waffa- Ogoo and her
>specially
>selected Roots committee members should heed the concern of the people and
>organise the festival according to its original idea, which is to use the
>'Roots' concept to entice our brothers and sisters from the Diaspora on an
>annual basis. If however, Mrs Ogoo really wants her 'brother' to actively
>participate in the festivities or to even lead the mumbo jumbo activities,
>she
>should invite him to go to Juffureh but certainly not to relocate the
>festival
>to Kanilai for any purpose. I am sure most of our visitors from the
>Diaspora
>would prefer going to Juffureh the ancestral home of Kunta Kinteh rather
>than
>being subjected to the display of mumbo jumbo rituals that have no
>intrinsic
>significance to them, thus making the festival to lose its original
>flavour.
>
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