Bailo,
Your observations are apt. The Libertarian in me thinks we (Gambians) blew some of this tribal meme out of proportion. You met someone who for some reason couldn't speak your dialect...well they've got to be tribalist. It is so disheartening when you see intelligent folk ranting and accusing their countrymen of bigotry because of an encounter they had with a single individual.
I don't think Samsudeen is tribalist, I happen to disagree with his observations in that article. He is a prolific writer and I trust he will dig himself out of the hole. His rejoinder (except for the part where he obsess over the personality of Suntou) is testament to that. In it he is talking about how his son's generation don't see tribe in the same way his own generation does.
There is a generational dynamic to the tribal perception. Youngsters like yours truly are wowed by skills and ingenuity than what dialect you speak. We are what George Ayittey called the cheetah generation as opposed to the hippos of Samsudeen's generation. Maybe I am going off base here...Sam might not be that old but you get the drift.
By the way Dr. Manneh's dissertation is available in a few libraries in the United States. Here is a link to the World Cat listing:
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/6515705&referer=brief_results
bailo jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Koto Haruna, Suntou et al,
The following quote in Lt Col Sam Sarr's own words is seemingly the evidence justifying his non-sensical attempts to smear the image of Dr Manneh. Sam wants the gullible amongst us to believe that Dr Manneh is a tribalist because he, Sam, could not convey his message in Mandinka couple with the fact that Dr Manneh referred him back to OJ in not a pleasant manner and finally continued speaking in Mandinka.
What is apparent from Sam's own narration is that no evidence was in it to establish that Dr Manneh did not support his (Sam's) passport application becuase of not sharing the same ethnicity with him. Btw, how could any responsible individual vouch for a total stranger who seems so desperate to acquire such an important national document? I personally won't. Why did Sam not factor in the possibility that the man was simply not having a good day on that day he met him on the street wanting him to endorse his passport application. Was Dr Manneh expected to know Sam at the time? I bet if Dr Manneh had unreasonably consented to Sam's request, then Sam would not have attempted to tarnish the former's integrity or question the genuiness of his earned and desrved academic credentials.
"As a teacher in The Gambia I was once directed to our Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Education who then happened to be Dr. Manneh. I had urgently needed him to sign my passport application form which Omar Jallow (O.J.) our MP then would have easily done if he had not travel abroad. After missing Mr. Manneh in his office, some one told me that he was seen at the Quadrangle and that’s where I met him leaving an office. I greeted him in English and he stopped and looked at me with so much intensity that I thought there was something seriously wrong about him or me. He wouldn’t say a word. I still went ahead and explained to him, still in English, what I wanted from him. He started walking away and speaking Mandinka. I apologized to Manneh I couldn’t speak the language. That was what did it. The man snapped at me before the eyes of a big crowd telling me to get out of his face and wait for O.J to sign the document for me. I couldn’t understand his behavior although I
was later told that he was generally very impatient with most people and would sometimes use physical force just to make a point." (Lt Col. Sam Sarr).
In view of Ousman's conclusive evdence, Lt Col Sam needs to apologise to Dr Manneh and retract his vain attempts of smear against him.
Best wishes
Bailo
Haruna Darbo wrote:
Thanx Ousman for the effort. Even though I think Samsudeen was trained on
tribalism as opposed to benign fact-finding. To authenticate Suntou, you can
call the Alumni Association at Rutgers. A friend of mine, Mathews, Physics
Professor at Western Carolina, told me he knew of Momodou Manneh while he taught
at Rutgers (Mathews).
I wouldn't honor Sam's idiotic query with any effort to prove him right or
wrong. Sam is not worth that time and attention to me. I am glad however that
Ousman and Suntou are doing some fact-finding so Sam can cease soiling the
reputation of more honourable men and women than himself. He is doing all this
in the hope of selling his rag of a book.
Haruna. Thanx again Ousman for sharing.
In a message dated 1/3/2008 7:19:27 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Suntou,
Here is an article posted on the Africana studies department website of
Rutgers University pertaining to Dr. Manneh. Money quote:
"The next person hired was Momodou Manneh, a PhD candidate in the Rutgers
Political Science Department (the first Black to earn a PhD degree in that
Department). Manneh, Bethel , and Weaver organized the introductory course to the
Africana discipline (in 1971-72 the African and Afro-American Program on the
three campuses in New Brunswick became Africana Studies) and team-taught.
Manneh returned home to the Gambia , West Africa and became the highest ranking
member of the Gambian Parliament, second only to the president of the
country."
The last sentence is definitely an exaggregation, but Dr. Manneh did pursue
a PHD at Rutgers.
Here is a link to their site:
http://africanastudies.rutgers.edu/historyrutgers.html
http://gambian.blogspot.com
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