Baaba Sillah - Anybody's Role Model 

The Independent (Banjul) 
INTERVIEW
October 10, 2003 
Posted to the web October 13, 2003 

By Olufemi Jr
Banjul 

If, God forbid, I were to lose my sight, I don't think I would find life worth living. After seeing the beauties of this world, and raring for more, losing my vision would reduce me to a living corpse. Well, someone who has seen it more than me, done things I am yet to do, is struck down by Glaucoma. The devastating blow did not make him resign to fate and nor did it lose the grasp of life's full meaning. Rather, it had fired him up to get along with life. He has certainly passed the bitter test. Who dare disagree when he has gone ahead and let loose a well-researched, aptly presented book? Yes, Baaba Sillah is anybody role's model. Narrowing him to the visually impaired community is a felony. This tall, humble Norway-based gentleman is not prepared to last one book. As he puts across here, many more are in the offing. 

Born in the early fifties in Banjul, Sillah attended Bakau, Muhammedan Primary and Crab Island Schools. He did his high school education at Armitage and pushed chalk at Njaba Kunda. He then left for overseas where he did chemistry and biology, simultaneously studying medicine. This never lasted due to a dearth of funds. A Diploma in Social Studies was gotten from the Waltham Forest College of Further and Higher Education. Sillah's interest in psychology was buoyed and he bettered himself in it at Middlesex University. Back home, he taught at The Gambia College before leaving back for England where he did a Postgraduate in Education, enabling him to teach at Brixton College, Ruckholt Manor Adult Education Institute and North London College of Further Education. Back home again, he became a senior at his old Alma Mata, Crab Island. 

It was while at the Management Development Institute (MDI), that Sillah's sight began to fail. Years on, save developments around him, he is still the same old person. 

In this issue of Portrait, Sillah talks on his life, on losing his sight and other issues. 

Portrait: What was it like growing up in Banjul in the 50's? 

Sillah: It was very interesting. Every generation you ask would tell you ours was the best. Then Banjul was not as big as it is now. It was quite small and everybody knows everybody. All contemporaries went to the same dara or same school. We were brought up with a lot of discipline and we took our education seriously. During the colonial period, people valued education and, as a result, we were forced into taking it seriously. This was not only of formal education but also the one we had at the Quranic level, including the informal education interms of what society could offer us in the socialization process. 

Portrait: I would say you are very versed in the Quran? 

Sillah: Well, I'm not a big khalipha but I know a little about the Quran and about Islam. My knowledge about it is a very modest one 

Portrait: In the 50's there were a lot of have-nots in The Gambia and most families were on the same scale, so to speak. Was it like a big family in the community? 

Sillah: Let's put this into context. The colonial masters then ruled the Gambia and we had an occupying administration. They took all the decisions. Yes, there was material poverty in the urban areas and a lot of urban squalor. But there were possibilities for people, at least, who had access to education to go through a rigid and rigorous system of education. Inspite of the poverty, a lot of people aspired with education as the vehicle through which they could uplift their social standing. 

Portrait: And you grasped it well? 

Sillah: Well, I think in many ways I did. I also imbiled the values that were prevalent in society and I still do uphold and maintain that education is the way to success and everything in this world. 

Portrait: You left for Europe to study medicine but it never went as planned. What happened? 

Sillah: It didn't go according to plan because I couldn't get funding. 

Portrait: But wasn't it a blind decision to go to Europe like that? What motivated you? 

Sillah: There were several motivations. The first thing was that there wasn't a university in the country. If you wanted to study medicine, you would have had to have exceptionally good A' levels and you would have to wait for a scholarship from countries in West African or Britain. Since I didn't fall under that category, I just decided to fend for myself and do it my way. Thus, I left without a destination but my aim was to go and study. It became my guiding principle in Europe 

Portrait: Hoe did you fare? 

Sillah: Well, I did relatively well. The most important thing for a person was leaving here and going to Europe and also remembering what their objectives are. If it is to go and study you better do that. If you have other objectives such as make money, well, some succeed, and others don't. For me my sole aim was to go and study 

Portrait: You studied Psychology at Middlesex University. Why Psychology? 

Sillah: Well, when I couldn't get into medical school, I took a year's break during which time I decided to do a part time course in social studies. The main component of that course was psychology and applied studies studies. Then I was really fascinated by the subject matter because of the methods that psychologists used and I became very interested in the subject. That was the beginning of a career that was unfolding. 

Portrait: Being well grounded in psychology, have you ever applied it somewhere? 

Sillah: Well, psychology is applicable to all situations. In the work environment, at home, in school, etc. The psychology I have studied is a basis for other things. It is psychology that not only looks at the individuals in isolation of his society but the individual within the context of the society in which he was living. Thus psychology for me was different from hardcore psychology, which looks at the individual in isolation. 

Portrait: So psychology, bettered your life? 

Sillah: Well, it has improved and helped me, especially when I started to lose my sight. I've gone through situation where I went through a lot of trauma. Psychological trauma when my family broke down and when I needed to garner all the inner resources I needed to help me stand firm and resist degeneration and resignation to fate. Yes, psychology did help me and I also pulled a lot of inspiration from religious, Islam. 

This gave me the basis to fight the very dilapidating condition. So this is how I have managed to triumph over the difficulties I have had over the past few years. It is the same psychology that has helped me to see to it that I have is a possibility for the future. 

Portrait: You landed a teaching job at Brixton College. How did that come about? 

Sillah: Well, that was not a coincidence. As a black man living in London at the time, there were not many black people who went into education. This is because the system of education failed a lot of black men. It also stunted the development of black youths. Thus, there was a lot of confrontation between black youths and British society and, of course, the agents of social control- the police. So to me, it was a political decision to go and offer my services at Brixton College so that I could help the black youths who needed to have role models that they could emulate and also to have black people in these positions that could serve as mentors to these kids. That was why I went. I was offered a job to teach Psychology, Career and Environmental Studies. 

Portrait|: How did your almost all white students take you? 

Sillah: Well, it is strange that Brixton at the time was not all white. 70% of the students were blacks and 30% black teachers. Of this 3%, 90% of them were female. Thus, I saw my role as being very important especially to black youth that the system didn't offer much to. 

Portrait: In between you also taught at the North London College of Further Education and Ruckholt Manor. It must have taken a good drive to roll all this into one? 

Sillah: I was driven part in part by the economic necessity and also by the feeling of wanting to share and give and exchange with people what it had and what they could offer me. It was a two way process. At Ruckholt Manor, I was asked to teach African Studies and African Caribbean studies. That was a challenge. So I was virtually two pages ahead of the students I was teaching. 

Portrait: What were your years at the US Peace Corps like? 

Sillah: The two years were basically a pot pourri of things. It was challenging in many respects. I had to break out of the routine of the slow paced in the civil services and administration of this country. It was a breakaway from that because the pace at Peace Corps was pretty fast so I hand to adapt to a new situation. I was third officer and I was given a job description, which was very challenging. It also gave me the opportunity to have a re-think and to deconstruct certain paradigms. I had contacts with language and cultural instructors who were given instructions in Wollof, Mandinka and Fula. This was the first time I started to look at ways in which we could use language training as well as a medium through which we could teach people. In this sense, Peace Corps was challenging. 

Portrait: You studied management at MDI and also at the Royal Institute of Public Administration. It was then that your sight began to fail you. How did you feel? 

Sillah: Let me take that question apart. The most exciting job I ever had was working at the MDI at general management. At the time, the colleagues I worked with were child hood colleagues like Donald Sock, Carl Juwara, Moses John, etc. We had shared values so we were able to cooperate in all respect. The level of motivation of the professional staff was very high and so was the output. Thus, MDI for me was a citadel for advancement and it provided the possibilities for growth and of hope. We believed on the philosophy that set up MDI and thus made it easy to work. The second aspect of it was when MDI sent me for training at the Royal Institute of Public Administration in England. I then started to lose my sight. I was of course horrified because initially I felt well, it well looks like that is the end. For somebody who had spent all his life using vision for everything, and it starts to fail you, you think about what happens to your career. Also there aren't supportive networks in this country. Despite that, I decided that I would carry on and see how far I will use what sight I had left to continue. 

Portrait: Certainly it wasn't an easy thing to stomach? 

Sillah: Well, losing one' s sight or any of your functions is not fun at all. What one needs to do is to know that there are people around you and prepared to support you. The second thing is one has to undergo rehabilitation. Life does not stop and wait for you; it carries on. I took it as a challenge and my faith in God also deepened around this time. This combination of things actually helped me an awful lot. 

Portrait: You rose up to it defiantly and went on to publish a book. Some good fight back, wasn't it? 

Sillah: Well, yes when I grew up as a child in the country, we studied everything white. Our heroes were white heroes, our icons were Sir Francis Drake, Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Henry Morgan and all the people who committed atrocities and raped African of her wealth and resources. These were the people that we look up to as heroes. As a result of the colonial education we went through, an aspect of it was very shuttled, which was psychological. We loathed ourselves because the standards were set from outside. We look up to everything foreign and Western as good and everything that was African and that was part of us as bad. 

Portrait: Your book, in other sense was to right wrongs? 

Sillah: No, what I did was because of my misgiving about the history that we learnt, I decided that I was going to rewrite our history and give it the perspectives that Gambians needed. I also needed to interface the literature and the history so that people can go to bed and feed comfortable about what they were going to read about. Eventually what came out was a mish mash of literature and history. Thus, my main objective was to put the records straight. Everything in the book is based on research and information dug out from archives. I sort of blended it with our rich folklore to produce "When the monkey talks." 

Portrait: How long did it take you to produce "When the monkey talks"? 

Sillah: Well, it took me the best part of three years, two of which I spent researching. I then spend the other part writing it. Something happened half way through writing it. My house was broken into in Stavanger, Norway and my equipment was stolen. Thus, it took me a while to get over that and rewrite what I had lost. 

Portrait: Is this the first of many books? 

Sillah: It will have to be. I have so much I think I would like to share with people. There are so many issues I have and people have that needs to be taken up. I'm working on a sequel of this book. This book spanned the 70 years of colonial rule, from 1880-1950. Thus, I'm going to look at what happened from1950 to present day. It's going to touch on a lot of contemporary issues history and will examine certain areas that we need to address. 

Portrait: Are you at home in Norway? 

Sillah: I feel comfortable in Norway but spent about the same time in Britain. Norway has a hostile climate although the facilities are very good, especially the social care system. Thanks to them, I have gone through rehabilitation. I do feel at home because my children are there. I also have a network of people I could contact for all sorts of things. Yes, Norway is home away from home. 

Portrait: Have you realized you are a glaring role model for the visually impaired community? 

Sillah: Well, I hope I am. If disability was in the past same thing that prevented one from advancement, that is not the case now. This is because the technology is available and nobody needs to despair. I also hope I'm not a role model to only the blind community but also to people who don't have disabilities. They can look up to me and say, "we can learn something from him." I hope I'm in that position. 


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Copyright © 2003 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

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