Sister Jabou Joh wrote:

"...We must not impose our religion on anyone, but we cannot also let others
force us not to adhere to the rules of our religion. This should have been the
simple response and solution to this veil affair."

I naturally agree that it should have been that simple. But the issue of the veil arose without doubt as a consequence of unprecendented direct politicization of religion in Gambia since Jammeh's seizure of power. It is also perhaps true that the President saw the construction of a mosque on State House grounds as a simple practical affair. But then he and other council members, as per Ebou Jallow's narrative, must have overlooked the powerful symbolism inherent in that act. In a culture as oral as ours the state itself is usually associated with the corporeal character of the head of state. Being openly partisan in his thinking and practice it is very easy for ordinary people to associate the mosque as an integral property of the Gambian state, and Jammeh, as you mentioned,  used this very blurred distinction between the state and his person to maximum effect. He was not just appointed president by Allah, but he claimed effectively that he has limitless access to credit at Allah's Department of the Treasury. His Samory Touray regalia removed any lingering doubt that he was "mansa". Jammeh is the state and the state is Jammeh, with the power to rule by decree (no Nawetan for ruralists!), send opponents six feet deep, and other impossible feats. His homilies and his actions all combined to encourage the mushrooming of little mosque all over the country, the creation of Islamic Brotherhood organizations, and the creeping ascendancy of a general militiant Islamic outlook, all of this enhanced by homeless Arab money.

True, all this should be accepted as the inalienable right of muslims to express their religious belief. But in a society where religious instruction is still prone to misinterpretations and misrepresentations, and where democratic ideals and individual freedoms are still to grow deeper roots, a militant religious outlook may hold sway over constitutionally sanctioned individual freedoms. (I am aware of two occasions when young ladies, considered to have been inapropriately dressed, had their bodies sliced with razor blades by a hysterical mob. The last instance was in Brikama.
A mulsim cleric from Gunjur (actually an uncle of mine) went on high gear campaigning against the nomination by the APRC of Mendy who was manjago and catholic on the grounds that the former was a non-muslim and so the people of Kombo South should not vote for him. My uncle was unfortunately too vocal in his rejection of the APRC nominee on religious grounds. So one bad night he was visited by the NIA and disappered for a week. When he was eventually released, he came home, turned mute, locked himself up from public view until the 1996 elections were. Some folks from Gunjur still tease me with questions about the treatment my uncle suffered at the hands of the NIA; a treatment so severe the preacher turned silent. (My mom is baby sister to the mother of Lamin Darboe, former chief). My uncle got the cue from indirect presidential instigation. It was too late for him to learn that the symbolism was more opportunistic than sincere).

Finally, I tend to think also that what we describe in passing as peaceful coexistence with our christian neighbours is highly relative. While the heated debate on Sharia was raging in Gambia, I could not help thinking that Gambian christians and animists must be duely terrified by the prospect of an Islamic state. But given their great numerical inferiority, what can they do except watch and listen in fear? a fear which the rest of us muslims hardly noticed. 

I want to believe that muslims like oursselves need to practice our religion fully and devoutly. But we must do that in such a way that those who are not muslims FEEL that in spite of that practise they have an equal chance not only of economic and political representation, but to security and social justice. In that regard, Imam Fatty's exhortations, especially his fiendish pronouncement to the effect that "..muslims mourn while christians laugh..." is dangerous demagoguery.
I should still persuade my brother Ebrima Sall to remove Imam Fatty's name from his list of those great Gambians. He should not share the same podium with Halifa, or Sidia, or Sam.

With deepest respects,

Momodou S Sidibeh

 

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