Thank you for injecting in and encouraging a civil perspective to the
discourse at hand. Tribal hatred is a menace that exists in almost all
societies in this world and Gambia is obviously not an exception. Amongst
the many shortcomings within our social settings, homes, work places,
schools, mosques, churches, etc. tribal hatred is probably one that is
least discussed not mainly due to the sensitivities but more for the
tendency of participants in such discussions injecting their own strongly
prejudiced biases.

It is much easier to start a discourse on tribal hatred than to insulate
oneself from your own tribal predilections characterized in any Gambian
childhood. Let's face it; anyone who grew up in Gambia must have been
exposed to one or two extreme displays of absolute hatred for one tribe by
someone you know. We all grew up being exposed to some sort of caste
system that tends to emphasize tribal hatred amongst us. It is how far we
take those predilections in shaping our adulthood and life in general and
how we deal with each other that should matter to all of us. To reduce the
substance of such discussions down to the banality of fainthearted
accusations of others of “tribalism” is more cynical than strong opinion.

The political playing field in Gambia will never be insulated from tribal
sentiments so long as there is massive predisposition of the tendencies in
other aspects of our daily lives. Our daily social interactions are
chock-full of some form of tribal hatred masked in jovial mannerism as in
“kal” (Wollof) or “sanawo” (Mandingka). We conveniently use these
consented jovial maneuvers in our daily interactions to mask our hatred
for the Jola, Serrer, Serahule, Fula or Bainunka. Have you ever wondered
how many tribal wars we would have had without such an outlet?

I’ll have to stop here before I get into pulling a notch down on Conteh’s
pants again. Have a nice day.



-- 
-BambaLaye
==============================================
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤