Mr.Gaye,
First i would thank you for the question and the challenge regarding my analysis prior to the undermentioned reply.Mr Gaye my article was a combination of many approaches and explanations that one hears in our streets back home as far as the contribution of illiterates is concerned vis-a-vis our politics and political believes or methods plus other societal issues.Mine was not a confusion and i would have expected you to ask me or quizz me further more before throwing in the words like "you are confusing" but! you have the full right to explain what you understood and i respect that as well Omar. One thing is certain and that is i was not confusing anything.Not at all.Combination of questions,enquiries and other issues of concern is far from confusion.That is why i implied at the end that i was going to continue....
Yes Gaye, i do agree with you that GATES was not the founder cum inventor of the internet and neither did i say that.Me mentioning Gates was more on contribution than invention.How about inventing the internet and then having vehicles like the microsoft help us move further more? Sometimes names appear in the front and are called inventors of this and that but the helpers at given any workshop or laboratory are left behind the scenes.Science Gaye is never unilateral when it comes to contributions.Science simply put is OBESERVATION AND DERIVATION OF FACTS.No inventor or scienctist can observe or invent without having an environment or a society per se.Thus the reason why during the era of Louis Pasteur in France many agreed with the follwing that SCIENCE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE IS NOT SCIENCE.Words like confusion or any one that refers to the mind etc as we are discussing here stem from the science that passes through conscience.
So Einstein was mentioned to further justify that so many are being trampled upon my mouths and tongues when in actual fact they could be useful to scociety if allowed to operate.Mr Gaye,yes some of us have been made to believe that Gore etc invented the internet and so do i belong to those...but i would advice you and anyone who thinks so to dig within the circle of a group called the ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN SCIENCTISTS and see.They have a website and if you are interested i can share it with you to further strenghten our discussions.Therein one can even see the latest and best gadgets relating to military inventions etc Tracking devices and so on.Gaye the pentagon will probably further dig and tell us where the internet was useful before it was spread to the outide world and why it was being used and not shared for a while.Wasn't that body here before many were born including myself?
So if Gore is the one fine but i reserve my comments on that for now, i do not wnat to appear fastidious in the case.The only reason behind my position is that i do honour and fully respect my sources(facts and findings) and thise sourcse are AMericans as well.
Sundiata and Latdior had no degrees but they ruled effectively that is why i mentioned the Timbuktu library and so on.We cannot discuss Africa and then throw away African history to justify our stands.Latdior's role during the colonial era is within the archives of the Dakar museum and therein one will see how he played his cards with the french,however he was faced with rivalry from envious kings and traitors thus lost and then was received by Maba in Nioro.Maba was not a french "berbed-intellectual" either.Thes people were so good at what they were doing anyway and would have still been considered illiterates in an English speaking country is it? Is Gambia an English speaking country? Well that is what we were taught at school and many of us are ready to jump and call ourselves so at gatherings.Those are the remnants of the Berlin conference-no wonder!
After Galeleo i mentioned Goya the Spanish artist.These names were not mentioned to confuse or defuse anything they were mentioned because i was still stemming from history to justify how useful "illiterates"were and still are from that time to now.These people were lucky because their societies inherited the words that we Africans have allowed to classify us as either being illiterate or literate.You see Omar these are left overs where our colonial masters had a chance to label people.Remember that i said in my first article that we should try and invent our own alphabet even if it will be based on sounds like that of the Chinese.THAT IS WHY I RESPECT NA KEBBA SIDIA JATTA OF PDOIS.He has been singled handedly fighting that battle for so long and i had the privilege to meethim in 1990/1 and heard his sound ideas along those lines.Well in the above justifications i was trying to see how we can escape the current predicament when it comes to communication and archiving our useful
ideasby using our own dialects because that will be easier and more comfortable for our local folks.Omar i did work for ACTION AID THE GAMBIA AND WAS IN NIANIJA FOR MONTHS.I know how many brains back home are being wasted just because western schools see them as misfits because thye cannot speak John's langage.Second languages are never an advantage where deep-rooted findings and scienctific discoveries are concerned. That is why China is China and it will cetrianly stay China after having been China for 5000 years plus Is Africa fully Africa?! How many Gambians were sent to Germany and asked to study German before they started doing a course in architceture etc Some Gambians were urged to study,read and write Chinese! beofore they started their courses in China!
Nyerere started the idea in trying to mobilise intellectuals(African ones were his priority) thus try and spread Swahili as an African "uniform" language.In Burkina schools are teaching what they call aphabetisation and so on.
A Gambian illiterate who contributed in politics? Excuse me Omar? How about those who originally formed the PPP? Were they all educated,lettered etc etc? Not at all.George SARR can help us with that good book he received from Karamba? or someone else.
That apart Omar not contirbuting politically does not exclude one from doing something towards development be you illiterate or not.I will refer you to a village called Santanto Bubu and there you can ask for the parents of someone called Samba Jamanka or Karafa Jamanka those people will show you a Gambian illiterate who invented a horse cart that was purely made of wood nothing else.Not the wheels or anything else.
You know what happened to that fula man? He was arrested and then was sent to jail for a while by the forestry department.I knew about this through a peace corps volunteer and Karafara himself.Was that not an illietrate contributing? I was informed that he later on was invited by the Senegalese to further see what he could do and invent more.Most of those who run the "mbaarih teggahs" back home are my best friends and are not educated but they are the ones who are maintaining our society when it comes to the production of a lot of utensils.Are all tailors back home literate? Omar my mind was trying to bring in a lot of factors instead of confusing anything and i do appreciate your challenge because if you or others did not reply then my contribution was not the least useful.On the arabic scholars i will come up with a defence and show how they should not be considered illiterates even in an English speaking countryand i do not think i will ever understand why?! Lastly Omar i was
equally confused when i read your question ie;;;if i were asking the definition of the word illiterate in the African context? The etmological background of the word itself stems from the west so how can Afrcians reserve a definition for it? I was challenging the so-called African educated(being the ones who are active in spreading those words thus justify a hidden class struggle that is based on pens and slates compared to those who were NOT! sandwiced by the four walls of a classroom).Africans cannot create a definition for the word because that will further strengthen our suspense as people.It is like us trying to encourage the word "evloues"when the french considered those in Cap Verd area Ngorr to Rufisque etc as the refined citizens because they spoke "perfect" french.You see some of our African intellectuals compared to our own local folks are like putting water and oil in a plain glass.Both stay together but if you come closer you see that the oil is on top.
Essa.
[log in to unmask] wrote:
[ This e-mail is posted to Gambia|Post e-Gathering by [log in to unmask] ]
Mr Sey,
Are you questioning the definition of the word 'illiterate' as applied to the
African context? Or, are you trying to point out the contributions
of 'illiterates' to our own development? The first is a legitimate question
because I also would not label an illiterate, the guy who only
attends 'darah' and learns to speak and write Arabic. But, I still understand
why some of these Arabic 'scholars' would be considered illiterate in an
English speaking country! By mentioning the likes of Bill Gates, Einstein,
and Galileo, you seem to be confusing the unlettereds with the illiterates.
Not having a college degree does not make one an illiterate, although some
would argue that having one does not necessarily make one literate either.
I'm not sure if you have outlined the roles that 'illiterates' can play in
politics because you really did not mention a single illiterate person, and
that includes Sundiata and Latdior. By the way, Bill Gates did not invent the
Internet. Al Gore did!
Amat
----------------------------gambiapost.NET------------------------------
------LATEST NEWS FROM THE GAMBIA, NOW AT:>>-------
http://www.gambiapost.net/newspaper
-------------ACCESS TO OUR ARCHIVE AT:>>-----------
http://www.gambiapost.net/signon.php
(password is : freedumo )
--------CHAT WITH FELLOW GAMBIA POSTERS>>----------
http://65.18.147.105/chat/index.php
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Be sure to contact List Management for (un)subscription requests by e-mail
addressed to: [log in to unmask] or simply follow our DIY directions
at: http://www.gambiapost.net/unsubscribe.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
©2002 Our Guiding Principle : "Va, pensiero", "Let thought(s) fly forth"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Think before you sink!
"Pessimists see difficulty in every opportunity and optimists see an opportunity in every challenge"
"Suits cannot be made without scissors and niddles,so decent minds disagree to agree"
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - Get your photo on the big screen in Times Square
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
