Prediction: Several generations from now precious few of us would be
remembered  outside of our immediate circle of family and friends. That is
the stark reality of the temporary nature of  our lives as humans. Yet our
history and culture it is hoped, would endure albeit far more susceptible to
the ever encroaching effects of prevalent and dominant cultures that sweeps
most of the world. As a people we have a lot to be proud of in that we are
ancient and culturally textured. Our forefathers have lived and thrived in
societies that in their days were sophisticated and a par with other
societies in the world. What worries me today is what has become of our
contemporary history. As far as I know there is no systemic catalogue of
contemporary Gambia that describes who we are in terms of how we live,
interact, and relate to eachother. What was 1940s Kaur like? Or what was turn
of the century  Gerorgetown like?, afterall people have been living there for
centuries. How would  one go about even writing a fictional tale of a town as
old and profound as Georgetown if you can't weave into your story a
convincing portrait of your subject matter? Even a native son like myself
having tapped into a long gone family source who attended Armitage in the
1930s can only manage a cursory description of the town  . Lacking the kind
of detail essential to good story telling ,it is often difficult to carry
readers to  the  depth and persuasion a writer needs for a successful
account. In orderwords I don't how to transport you listmembers to turn of
the century Georgetown something I very much want to do precisely because
there is  no repository I can reference to make a credible story. I am sure a
farfetched story no matter how cleverly done will not go down well with most
of you .
One thing that is clear to me is the fact there is a great yarning for
Gambian literature and that might in  the long term be our savior from the
disastrous lack of documentation that has characterised our history. With an
expanded media base we are slowly documenting our society as covered by the
media spanning a broad spectrum of our lives from the unseemly to the best of
our instincts. It is true that the independent  media has not fully matured
in both scope and reach because  of resource limitation and government
heavy-handedness, generations to come would nonetheless have a pretty good
idea of how Gambians lived early in the 21st century. It is a tragedy that
the Gambia Radio and Television is run in such shallow and unprofessional
manner when it  it can offer the nation the single biggest opportunity to
learn and document who we are as a people. They do not provide any meaningful
insight into the economy, society , the enviroment or anything of
significance. Instead young and budding 'reporters'  are so severely
compromised in their reporting that the Gambian people would find no marked
difference if they acquired  trained parrots and placed them infront of the
camera and microphones to repeat the nonsense that passes for news. For one
thing we would saved on the D119 million subsidy Gamtel was made to fork out
to keep all these garbage on the air.
For the most part it is upto to us the living to document our way live both
for current purposes and for posterity. There is a compelling story just
waiting to be told in almost every one of us be it an experience we had or an
issue we confront or a thousand other things. Afterall I sometimes send to
this list personal stories about  life in the dusty little village of Demfai
replete with sojourns at cow herding and other mundane stuff that
characterises village life. A description a friend of mine who say grew up in
Picton street can hardly relate to. But so what? If the story is told to his
liking , his imagination is much more potent than his experience .
So I say  to you all, write and  enjoy what we write about us for it is all
the future will ever know of us. If we do not begin to put in place a vivid
portrait of us, a documentary void would exist in perpetuity.

Karamba

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