Pa ,
Great to have this here.These are no hidden facts and you have the
representatives of these country in the OAU  and they have good relationship
with many African leaders etc.When the suffering of our brothers and sisters
in these countries becomes no agenda for us and since the freedom of these
people will not mean better acces to oil or diamond mining, they have to
rely on them selves entirely for their own freedom,I wonder what will happen
when that day comes since we prefer dinner and dance with their evil
slavemasters.

For Freedom
Saiks
----- Original Message -----
From: pa ali ceesay <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 10:08 AM
Subject: Fwd: ISLAM`S BLACK SLAVES


> >
> >
> >>
> >>Islam's black slaves
> >>
> >>By Suzy Hansen, SALON.COM
> >>April 5, 2001
> >>
> >>Although slavery seems like an institution from a barbaric and
uncivilized
> >>past, it survives today in
> >>both Sudan and Mauritania. The horrific details of the Atlantic slave
> >>trade -- the ruthless slave
> >>traders who pillaged Africa, the millions of Africans who died on
> >>treacherous sea journeys to
> >>America, the resulting "peculiar institution" of cheap, brutalized labor
> >>that spawned the Civil War
> >>-- weigh heavily on the American conscience. Another slave trade,
however,
> >>the Islamic one,
> >>remains a mysterious aspect in the history of the black diaspora.
Fourteen
> >>centuries old, this
> >>version of slavery spread throughout Africa, the Middle East, Europe,
> >>India and China. It is the
> >>legacy of this trade that continues to ravage Sudan and Mauritania
today.
> >>
> >>South African-born Ronald Segal is the author of 13 books including "The
> >>Anguish of India,"
> >>"The Americans" and "The Black Diaspora." In his latest book, "Islam's
> >>Black Slaves: The Other
> >>Black Diaspora," he offers one of the first historical accounts of the
> >>Islamic slave trade. Salon
> >>spoke with Segal by telephone from his home in London.
> >>
> >>How did the Atlantic and Islamic slave trades differ?
> >>The Atlantic slave trade exclusively used black slaves or agricultural
> >>labor on plantations. It
> >>started in a very small way in 1450 and ended in the middle of the 19th
> >>century. It was the basic
> >>labor supply for the plantations in the Americas since the indigenous
> >>people had been all but wiped
> >>out by a combination of imported diseases and forced labor. The number
of
> >>slaves who landed
> >>alive in the Americas -- it was an important aspect in the development
of
> >>capitalism, so the
> >>numbers are fairly accurate and organized by merchant banks and
investors
> >>with stock market
> >>quotations -- was something like 10,600,000. Slaves became so cheap that
> >>it was more profitable
> >>to work them to death and buy new ones than to try to keep your labor
> >>supply alive. For example,
> >>some of the mortality rates in San Domingue -- which became, after the
> >>only successful slave
> >>revolution in history, Haiti -- were quite staggering.
> >>Slaves in the Atlantic trade came to be kept and regarded as units of
> >>labor, not as people. This was
> >>almost formalized by categorizing slaves as "pieces of the Indies." A
male
> >>slave, able-bodied and in
> >>the prime of his life, was defined as a "piece of the Indies," and the
> >>other slaves, the women and
> >>children, were defined as "pieces of pieces of the Indies." That gives
you
> >>an idea of how the
> >>exploitation of African slaves was rationalized in the West.
> >>
> >>But not in Islam?
> >>The slave trade in Islam was seriously different. It began in the middle
> >>of the seventh century and
> >>survives today in Mauritania and Sudan. With the Islamic slave trade,
> >>we're talking of 14 centuries
> >>rather than four.
> >>Whereas the gender ratio of slaves in the Atlantic trade was two males
to
> >>every female, in the
> >>Islamic trade, it was two females to every male. Very large numbers of
> >>slaves were used for
> >>domestic purposes. Concubinage was for those who could afford it and
there
> >>was no disrepute
> >>attached to having women as sexual objects. In fact, they married them.
> >>Some harems could be
> >>enormous. One ruler had 14,000 concubines. In one respect, women slaves
> >>were a status symbol. I
> >>hate to say it this way, but it's comparable to the way people in the
West
> >>collect motorcars.
> >>The male slaves were used for the more exacting physical jobs in homes
and
> >>palaces: porters,
> >>messengers, doorkeepers. In various places, from Islamic Spain to Egypt
to
> >>Libya, there were
> >>black slaves used as soldiers. In Morocco, there was a whole generation
of
> >>black slaves who
> >>became the army of Morocco, in which the young boys were bought at the
age
> >>of 10 or 11 and
> >>trained in horse handling and military skills of various kinds. Young
> >>female slaves were instructed
> >>in household crafts and were then provided with resources to buy a home
> >>and get married.
> >>
> >>What about eunuchs?
> >>Strictly speaking, in Islam, castration was against the law. I don't
think
> >>it was in the Koran, I think
> >>it was a hadith -- a saying attributed to the prophets -- which says he
> >>who castrates a slave will
> >>himself be castrated. But they got around this as people do. One
> >>contrivance was to buy already
> >>castrated slaves. Another was to employ those who were not Muslims to
> >>perform the operation.
> >>But then even these contrivances came to be abandoned and dealers would
> >>perform the operation
> >>themselves along the route. The mortality rates were absolutely huge.
> >>To be technical, there was a crucial difference between white eunuchs
and
> >>black eunuchs. White
> >>eunuchs were made by the removal of testicles. Black eunuchs were made
by
> >>what was called
> >>"level with the abdomen." Eunuchs were guardians of the harem [because]
if
> >>they were castrated
> >>"level with the abdomen," there was no risk of their damaging any of the
> >>property in the harem.
> >>For reasons that are not altogether clear or explicit, they came to be
> >>used increasingly by rulers as
> >>counselors, advisors and tutors and, eventually, to actually run the
holy
> >>places of Mecca and
> >>Medina, where they were treated with enormous respect. One can speculate
> >>on the motivation -- if
> >>they were not sexually active or preoccupied they were more likely to be
> >>devoted and loyal or
> >>given to spiritual preoccupations instead of bodily ones.
> >>
> >>Were there other types of white slaves in Islam?
> >>Yes. The Atlantic trade didn't deal with white slaves, but the Islamic
> >>trade dealt with large
> >>numbers of white slaves.
> >>
> >>And in Islam black slaves were never used for the same purposes that
they
> >>were used in America?
> >>In the early stages of Islam, they were used in the American way. In
> >>southern Iraq and neighboring
> >>Iran they were put to work in large quantities to clear the salt crust
for
> >>agriculture and plantation
> >>labor. But in the ninth century, a prophet arrived who instigated a
> >>rebellion among the black
> >>slaves, the Zanj, in the area. This rebellion was enormous. It destroyed
> >>much of the commercial
> >>shipping in the region and came close to capturing the city of Baghdad,
> >>then the greatest city of
> >>Islam. It was eventually crushed after quite a protracted period. The
> >>impact across Islam was
> >>enormous. There developed a reluctance to allow very large
concentrations
> >>of slaves for plantation
> >>agriculture. That is a parenthetical reason for the overwhelmingly
> >>domestic nature of the Islamic
> >>trade.
> >>
> >>Does the Koran specify how slaves should be treated?
> >>The Koran is the key. The relationship between slave and master in Islam
> >>is a very different
> >>relationship from that between the American plantation laborer and
owner.
> >>It was a much more
> >>personalized relationship and relatively benevolent. Everything here is
> >>relative -- being a slave is
> >>being a slave and it shouldn't be romanticized.
> >>The institution of slavery is sanctioned in the Koran. To say that the
> >>Koran is in any way opposed
> >>to the institution of slavery would be wrong. It is never recommended,
but
> >>it is influentially and
> >>explicitly benevolent in its attitude to the poor, the orphaned and
> >>slaves. And there is a specific
> >>injunction that to free a slave is an act of piety, which has its due
> >>reward in the other life.
> >>Incidentally, what was absolutely outlawed in the Koran was to separate
an
> >>infant or a young child
> >>from his mother.
> >>
> >>Which was normal in America.
> >>Right. There is a specific statement in the Koran that says that he who
> >>separates the child from his
> >>mother will himself be separated from his loved ones on the day of
> >>judgment.
> >>Since it was an act of piety with immeasurable reward, the incidence of
> >>emancipation or
> >>enfranchisement was enormously more widespread in Islam than it was in
the
> >>Western form of
> >>slavery. There wasn't a complete separation of master from former slave.
> >>Usually, a patron and
> >>client relationship developed between slave and master. For example, in
> >>Mauritania today there are
> >>freed slaves called Haratin whose descendants still pay tribute to the
> >>family of the owner.
> >>Specifically in the Koran, the owner of a slave is enjoined to provide
> >>that slave with an
> >>opportunity to purchase his freedom.
> >>There would be a binding contract in which the slave would be provided
> >>with the opportunity to
> >>earn money for himself and pay in installments to his owner, which by
> >>practice, if not by law,
> >>became a gratuity. There were then two motivations for freeing your
slave
> >>-- a reward in heaven
> >>and money in this world.
> >>
> >>Was slave ownership only for the rich, as it was in America?
> >>Slave ownership was so widespread. Even small shopkeepers owned slaves.
> >>Paradoxically,
> >>although slaves were at the bottom of the hierarchy because they weren't
> >>free, they still stretched
> >>right across the economic hierarchy. It was not rare for slaves to
become
> >>highly prized artists.
> >>There were academies that existed to teach young slave girls to play
> >>musical instruments. Any self-
> >>respecting merchant house would have a chamber orchestra.
> >>Slaves became generals and black slaves became rulers. In the 16th
> >>century, a slave, Ambar,
> >>became first a general and then the ruler of a large Indian state.
> >>
> >>I also thought it was fascinating that the child of a master by a slave
> >>was free.
> >>Definitely. A child born fathered by his master was freed, since a child
> >>could not be the slave of his
> >>parents.
> >>
> >>The great numbers of black female slaves must have ensured a great deal
of
> >>miscegenation.
> >>There's no question about that. It is the major reason for the
relatively
> >>small size of the black
> >>diaspora in Islam, though there were other reasons. A number of
countries
> >>noted a low fertility
> >>rate among black women slaves. And not all women slaves used for
domestic
> >>purposes had the
> >>opportunity to produce children.
> >>The ultimate example of the distinction between the two trades is that
in
> >>the greatest Islamic
> >>empire, the Ottoman Empire, after the sons of the first two sultans, no
> >>sultan mounted the throne
> >>who had not been born of a concubine. The Ottoman ruling family did not
> >>marry because they
> >>regarded the royal family as above any alliance. Occasionally, marriage
> >>would be used to ensure
> >>the loyalty of a Turkish tribe, but overwhelmingly the fertility of the
> >>Ottomans was through
> >>concubines.
> >>
> >>Why could Islamic slaves assimilate into the surrounding society so more
> >>easily than American
> >>blacks could?
> >>Here we get to a further dimension of the difference between the two
> >>trades. Slavery in the West,
> >>because it was so cruel and had become so disreputable, required some
kind
> >>of excuse or
> >>extenuation -- the idea of biological discrimination. Essentially, the
> >>concept of race developed and
> >>was popularized. The sort of pseudo-scientific view, in distinction from
> >>the pseudo-religious view,
> >>came about during the Victorian age, the 19th century, when you had
> >>Darwin's theory of
> >>evolution. You could irresponsibly and intellectually dishonestly
> >>subscribe to the idea that certain
> >>races were inferior.
> >>
> >>But the Koran, on the other hand, prohibits racism?
> >>The Koran very explicitly attacks it. According to the Prophet, Islam
> >>comes to do away with these
> >>distinctions of tribe and nation and color. There is a strong argument
> >>made by Patricia Crone that,
> >>initially, Mohammed was most influential in a political rather than a
> >>religious sense. He supplanted
> >>this intertribal rivalry by uniting a large part of the Arabian people
> >>into a political unit, and, of
> >>course, it then became an imperial power.
> >>
> >>Was there no stigma attached to being black in Islam?
> >>Nothing is ever quite so simple. There did develop an attitude toward
> >>color. There were
> >>distinctions in market value and general consumer appreciation between
one
> >>sort of black slave
> >>and another. Some of this was aesthetic. One tends to think that anyone
> >>who looks like one's own
> >>people is more beautiful. For instance, the Ethiopians and the Nubians
> >>were highly favored
> >>because they had sharpish noses rather than flat noses and they were
> >>lighter colored. Clichés
> >>developed so that you had so-called Negro slaves for hard work and you
had
> >>Ethiopians and
> >>Nubians for concubinage.
> >>But this was never institutionalized. This is another key to the
> >>difference between the two empires.
> >>Of course, there were Islamic pseudo scientists in the Middle Ages who
> >>said differences of
> >>character and temperament were the consequences of climate -- those who
> >>lived too far from the
> >>sun in the North had frigid temperaments, and those who were immediately
> >>beneath the sun were
> >>given to too much merriment and too little thought.
> >>But in the context of the development of Islam it would have been a real
> >>break with tradition had
> >>it been institutionalized in law. This is important for the assimilation
> >>aspect too, because once you
> >>were freed, there was no discrimination in law against you.
> >>
> >>They weren't confined to an underclass after they were freed?
> >>Many of them might have been, although the client/patron relationship
was
> >>a sort of protection if
> >>you were in need -- that is, if your previous owner was a true
practicing
> >>Muslim. And there isn't
> >>this history of separation. The nature of the Atlantic trade and
therefore
> >>the survival of racism in
> >>the West has been one of segregation. In America, separation was the
> >>social clarion call and as bad
> >>in the Northern states as in the Southern. Generally, the geographical
> >>separation -- the kind of
> >>separation in individual churches where blacks were seated in one part
of
> >>the congregation and
> >>whites in another -- produced this enormously creative black diaspora in
> >>America, as well as
> >>infinite suffering.
> >>There wasn't this separation in Islam. Whites didn't push blacks off the
> >>pavement. They didn't
> >>refuse to allow a black singer to sing in Constitution Hall. They didn't
> >>forbid restaurants to serve
> >>them. I don't think that there's any disputing that slavery was a more
> >>benevolent institution in
> >>Islam than it was in the West.
> >>Also, it is irrational to make the exclusive connection between slavery
> >>and color that existed in the
> >>West because there were white slaves in Islam in significant numbers.
> >>
> >>In comparable numbers to black slaves?
> >>With the enormous expansion of Islam and the conquests of huge
> >>territories, there were certainly
> >>large numbers of white slaves in the early periods. But, to be cautious,
> >>white slaves became
> >>increasingly more difficult and expensive to obtain. Black slaves became
> >>far more numerous than
> >>white ones. Certainly, when you get to the 19th century, which was the
> >>cruelest century, there
> >>were many more black slaves than white ones in Islam.
> >>
> >>Beyond the tenets of the Koran, why was this so?
> >>Western capitalism and the development of the attitude of viewing people
> >>as units of labor and not
> >>as people.
> >>
> >>Was America so economically powerful because it exploited its cheap
slave
> >>labor more brutally
> >>than any other leading empire -- such as the Ottoman?
> >>That's a valid point but there are many other reasons for the demise of
> >>the Ottoman Empire.
> >>Although opinions may differ over the extent of the relationship between
> >>the Atlantic trade and the
> >>development of industrial capitalism, it is unarguable that the Atlantic
> >>slave trade was immensely
> >>profitable. The Industrial Revolution was closely related to the
Atlantic
> >>trade in two major
> >>respects. First, many of the products of early British industrialization
> >>were directly related to the
> >>slave trade. But also, the families who grew rich as a result of the
slave
> >>trade invested their profits
> >>in industrialization. This was a dual fruitfulness that the slave trade
> >>produced for the development
> >>of industrial capitalism.
> >>
> >>The Islamic slave trade was not profitable?
> >>It was profitable for the dealers. But it was nowhere near the kind of
> >>sophisticated business that it
> >>became in the Atlantic trade.
> >>The Atlantic trade is a horrendous and fascinating story. Which is not
to
> >>say that in Islam there
> >>weren't tremendous cruelties involved, particularly in the 19th century
> >>when all inhibitions were
> >>discarded. Of course, it must also be said that the West, for all the
> >>horrors for which it was
> >>responsible, did also engender (not always for benign reasons) the
> >>movement against the
> >>international slave trade.
> >>
> >>Was there an abolitionist movement in Islam?
> >>Initially, it was a source of great hostility that the West dared to
> >>intervene in Islamic affairs in
> >>contradiction to what was allowed by the Koran. But as Western
influence,
> >>or modernism, became
> >>more and more [widespread], it became less fashionable as well as
> >>profitable in Islam to own
> >>slaves. And it became illegal over much of the area. The pressures
against
> >>slavery were extremely
> >>great from Western powers. It was the moral issue. It became more
> >>scandalous because the
> >>conditions of procurement and transport became more and more horrendous.
> >>
> >>Was it similar to the Atlantic trade in this respect?
> >>Both slave trades wittingly and unwittingly encouraged warfare on a huge
> >>scale to provide the
> >>captives for the traders. In Islam, this was much less the case until
the
> >>19th century, when it
> >>became quite ghastly. The worst of the slavers were not Arabs but
> >>Afro-Arabs -- they were as
> >>black as the people they were enslaving. The casualties involved in
> >>enslavement wars were
> >>absolutely unspeakable.
> >>
> >>Where were the Afro-Arabs from?
> >>The great dealers of the 19th century? Some of them carved empires for
> >>waging war and for
> >>providing large numbers of slaves. The point must be made that the
worst,
> >>the most costly in their
> >>ravages, were the Afro-Arabs. They were themselves Africans. There is
> >>nothing peculiar to Africa
> >>about this, though -- people are corrupted by circumstances and greed.
> >>
> >>Why has slavery survived in Sudan and Mauritania?
> >>The resurgence of fundamentalist Islam has a lot to do with slavery in
> >>both countries. Both
> >>describe themselves as Islamic states and pursue policies of
Arab-Islamic
> >>religious law, but they
> >>are essentially exercises in the maintenance of control. Sudan is an
> >>imperial agglomeration of two
> >>countries -- one part of black Africa, one part of North Africa.
Involved
> >>in the war is a question of
> >>control and power. In Mauritania, the so-called white Moors represent a
> >>third of the population,
> >>another third are the Haratin -- who are the descendants of freed slaves
> >>and largely black -- and
> >>the last third are blacks still held in slavery.
> >>Also, it is partly a reaction to the power differentials in the world at
> >>large. Islam was a civilization
> >>that for hundreds of years was arguably the central civilization of the
> >>world and certainly dwarfed
> >>the cultures and powers of a West that is now unquestionably supreme. So
> >>there is a sense of
> >>humiliation. In such a situation you get a backlash -- a "return to the
> >>future through the past" sort
> >>of thing -- a re-Islamization. There's nothing in the Koran that says
> >>someone can come along and
> >>free your slave.
> >>
> >>What interested you in the Nation of Islam?
> >>I find it personally inexplicable that the adhesion to Islam within the
> >>Black Muslim movement is
> >>apparently indifferent to the survival of black slavery within Islam.
> >>
> >>Louis Farrakhan doesn't acknowledge what goes on in Sudan and
Mauritania?
> >>Does he want them to bring him the slaves as proof? I think it's based
on
> >>a crude self-defense
> >>mechanism not unrelated to those who feel it necessary to defend the
> >>conduct of the Israeli
> >>government regardless of what it does. The attitude is: "These are
yours,
> >>you belong to them, they
> >>are part of your past and part of your history, and therefore how can
you
> >>associate yourself with
> >>outsiders who attack them?"
> >>But this isn't about the survival of Islam -- that's not in question.
> >>You're talking about two rogue
> >>states, which are condemned by Islamic countries, governments,
preachers,
> >>writers. You become
> >>so much more credible if you show that you are altogether sensitive to
> >>suffering, that you are
> >>hostile to injustice across the board. If you become so selective that
you
> >>can ignore outrages of
> >>this kind, well, how can you blame other people for ignoring outrages to
> >>you and your
> >>community?
> >>Farrakhan is a very paradoxical thinker because he's very, very
> >>intelligent, yet he makes statements
> >>that are so obviously stupid. It is incomprehensible that he doesn't
know
> >>that they are stupid. He
> >>knows how to manipulate the media. He does it on the basis of short-term
> >>gain, without realizing
> >>that it is long-term loss. You don't build anything lasting on that
basis.
> >>
> >>Do Black Muslims hold to the classic tenets of Islam?
> >>They break from the Koran immediately -- if we're talking functionally
> >>about their crude and open
> >>anti-Semitism. That is in complete conflict with the special
relationship
> >>that Islam established,
> >>while the Prophet was alive, with Judaism and Christianity. There has
been
> >>no long historical
> >>conflict between Jew and Muslim, though there has been a conflict since
> >>the crusades between
> >>Christian and Muslim.
> >>There are exceptions, but overall Islam proved most hospitable, and
> >>certainly a great deal more so
> >>than Christianity, to the Jews. When the Jewish population was expelled
in
> >>1492 from Spain, Islam
> >>took in those Jews who couldn't find havens in Christian countries. This
> >>isn't to say there haven't
> >>been tensions from time to time, but overall there is no comparison
> >>between the way Islam has
> >>behaved to Jews and the way Christianity has behaved to Jews.
> >>
> >>On what basis does the Black Muslim movement usually attack Jews?
> >>What I find most outrageous is that the leadership of the Black Muslim
> >>movement has judged it
> >>necessary and defensible to attack Jews on the basis -- for which there
is
> >>no historical foundation
> >>whatsoever -- that they masterminded the slave trade, by which I think
> >>they mean specifically the
> >>Atlantic trade. And that is -- not to put to fine a point on it or to be
> >>excessively elegant --
> >>unmistakable crap. Anyone who knows anything about the Atlantic trade
> >>knows that this is
> >>nonsense.
> >>
> >>So why do you think they keep on about this?
> >>I think that they are resentful -- and I understand the resentment but
not
> >>the form it has taken --
> >>that a great deal of fuss, an enormous amount of moral attention, is now
> >>paid to the Holocaust.
> >>And in my view, rightly so. The slave trade was the only comparable
> >>historical experience to the
> >>Holocaust -- comparable but not identical. No one seems to pay remotely
> >>the same attention to or
> >>have the same sense of guilt about the slave trade as about the
> >>combination of racism in the
> >>Holocaust.
> >>Now, that is a point that ought to be made. But you do not aggrandize
one
> >>by belittling the other.
> >>On the contrary, you end up denying the importance of one by denying the
> >>importance of the
> >>other. Certainly you add nothing to your case by basing it on assertions
> >>that are so easy to
> >>confront and contradict.
> >>
> >>Do you think the Nation of Islam came out of pure despair with America
or
> >>from a loss of faith in
> >>Christianity?
> >>They were explicably attracted by a sense or knowledge that there was no
> >>such history of
> >>specifically anti-black racism in Islam, as so conspicuously had existed
> >>for blacks in the West and,
> >>in particular, in the United States. Those who wished to believe in God
or
> >>practiced some form of
> >>religion and were, as Louis Farrakhan was, disenchanted with
Christianity
> >>were easily captivated
> >>by a religious alternative not all that far apart but distinctly
different
> >>from Christianity.
> >>
> >>Do you think the Nation of Islam has helped American blacks?
> >>I have traveled widely in the United States and have visited communities
> >>in Michigan and Illinois.
> >>Secular black academics testify that in Black Muslim schools the
emphasis
> >>placed on the history
> >>and dignity of blacks in Africa has had a marked effect on the reading
> >>ability of black children,
> >>who no longer feel disparaged and demoralized.
> >>There is a great deal of truth in a man like Farrakhan's indictment of
> >>some of the black middle
> >>class who flee the ghettos, for understandable reasons, but in the
process
> >>think that they can turn
> >>their backs on those who are unable to buy new homes in these
middle-class
> >>suburbs. There is a
> >>smugness there, and then there is the phenomenon of the black
> >>conservative, such as Clarence
> >>Thomas.
> >>It is outrageous that American democracy doesn't function for the
> >>objectives that it is almost
> >>perpetually enunciating. If you start looking at statistics on the
> >>disproportionate numbers of blacks
> >>executed, of young blacks in prison -- all these undeniable abuses of
the
> >>system make people very
> >>angry. The problem occurs when this anger becomes irrational. Because it
> >>is such an obvious
> >>series of abuses, the anger doesn't need to be irrational. In fact, the
> >>only way it can be effectual is
> >>to be rational.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
> Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
> You may also send subscription requests to
[log in to unmask]
> if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write
your full name and e-mail address.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------