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lurker
509 Posts |
 Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 00:00:04
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and there you have it! i am sorry Princess, but you have taken the bait , hook line and sinker. the rant was part of the point---irony, satire and sarcasm. the clue was the ending......read the last comments i made.
OF COURSE IT IS GOOD HERE!
OF COURSE PEOPLE WANT TO COME HRE.
WHO WOULD NOT?
despite the very problems we have been outlining, this IS one of the few places that offers everything that you mention, despite its shortcomings that we have listed.
you have, i am sorry to say, missed the intrinsic issue here......humour.
this has been an exercise of discovery.
to find out if people here understand british satire.
we have laid into ourselves deliberately. but in the end, we let you all know that we love our country and we undersand why people want to come here.
this whole exercise relates to the rubbish comments made by some people here that the brits are racist, that some of us brit contributors to this banataba are racist.
i repeat. we are here solely because we give a sh-t.
perhaps it would behove those recidivists among us to be grateful that there are toubabs here who care about a tiny, tinpot little country like gambia.
but, the fact is , we do.
a lot.
so we contribute, we enquire and we ask questions.
we strive to learn and we make our points and expect respect in return, as we duly pay to others here.
but what most of the westerners here get is a barrage of anti-western sentiment and self-pity and blame.
that is fine. you are all entitled to your opinion.
but when members here, and we know who says these things as it is in writing, accuse bantaba members of brit origin of being racists, despite their love for that person's own people and country, then the time comes to register displeasure.
this bantaba has some fiercely nationalistic participants. people who will refer only to their unfortunate past and blindly ignore the iniquities of their own present.
toubab 1020 asked where is the usual bunch.
the dialogue in this thread has been almost entirely from the toubabs.
where are the usual bunch?
do they not "get" the brit sense of humour? or maybe just not my brand of it.
your posting shows the very different way in which the continents differ in their understanding of mentalities elsewhere.
the whole thread has been drenched in irony. i am sorry if you missed it.
the racism on this board is pretty much one way fom what i have seen over the years here.
the toubabs return for a lambasting time after time, because they care. they may be misguided, paternalistic, patronising, but they are honest in their love. this cannot be said of the reverse.
there is avery nasty hatred that is very evident from a number of contributors to anything western because of the past. fair enough to some degree.
dbaldeh, you started this thread with a question about an african's inhumanity to africans and whether help is an option to rid africa of a tyrant. the whole zimbabwe topic has reevealed a deep hatred from some to everything british.
so. IRONICALLY, i have laid out the rubbish on this isle, but the denouement is the deep love of our home and our way of life.
THE VERY REASON HALF THE PLANET SEEMS TO WANT TO COME HERE, including half of you who already have.
so, good people, this exercise is over. does anyone understand what this was all about?
peace.
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Edited by - lurker on 16 Jul 2008 00:02:51 |
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MeMe
United Kingdom
541 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 00:29:55
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| However, I still stand by what I said in my post about the Hollywood myth and that teenagers who look to the west for that 'pot of gold' should be given a stark dose of reality before they leave their own shores - for their own good! |
It is better to die standing than to live on your knees - Ernesto Guevara de la Serna |
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Hiz Princess
United Kingdom
464 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 13:51:53
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Oh you Cad you got me 
I make no apologies for my postings and yes I did realise your postings were at best tongue in cheek, humorous I beg to differ.
Although, im sure to some, an interesting exercise I fear that a lot of your 'satire' feeds into BMP arguments that were used to secure seats in Barking essex. Read their manifesto and you will see and yes as a black woman I have done just that. Why?? Because im a mother, I feel it is my duty to know exactly where these people are coming from,and what vile lies they spread in order to gain support even support the argument that Brits are racists.
what's the quote 'keep our friends close and our enemy's even closer'
But I understand now why you offered an easy forum to Brit bash for want of a better world. I personally think it failed because these failings you pointed out could have been anywhere in the world, its in the here and now and not in the past.
Racism is more complex than black and white theres racism between Africans and West Indians,Indians and Pakistanis even within Europe I have witnessed Polish and Russians of the same colour.
Im new to the forum so please forgive my naivety about the anti- western sentiment you talk about im sure in time I will experience it for myself .(don't worry the flags not going anywhere).
Blame and shame is no motivation for change!
I use this a lot in my work both here and in western Africa especially. Those very actions are what enslaves the mind. Which unfortunately I see more in Gambia than Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Togo or Senegal.
During a visit this year I was asked by a post grad student who was black why on the ferry did the teenagers with sponsorship forms only approached the white students and avoided the black ones. On questioning a youth (I already knew the answer) his reply was simple 'the whites will give us money they always do you guys will give us talk(a Lecture).'
Heres the problem from a very early age this is indoctrinated into the mind set that white people owe us, On visiting Gambia the 'shame' some westerners feel manifests into the obliquity handing out of whatever they have at their grasp.
Before im condemned for this statement let me clarify I have no problem with anyone visiting schools or projects and offering aid although in my experience all to much inappropriate, 150 scissors for a school I was working in was a generous gift and was welcomed by the bemused teacher I was working with, as we had nothing to cut. Powder paints without brushes or containers the list is endless but nethertheless always welcome. What I take exception to is the encouragement of the youth to travel backwards and forwards on the ferry collecting money/pens/sweets etc. Never challenged as to why they're not in school or doing something more constructive.
Why be part of the problem when you can be part of the solution. Does that really ease the western concious??
I took four truck trips up to Georgetown this May one of people of mixed heritage and colour, one was all black afro Americans and two were white. Again the same experience on the ferry We had and open back truck for the four trips the children at the villages some as young as 2-3 chased the truck shouting 'minty minty' three times guess what truck was followed but no shouts of 'minty minty ' where heard.
I may have gone off thread here but I just wanted to illustrate the point of an enslaved mind. While there is always a party that will blame and a party that will feel shamed into doing what they precieve is right, or at least expected things will go round and round in circles.
I to think the people that use this forum do it because they have a deep seated love and respect for the country and its people, however I fail to see how you can attack people on the same side as you.
Maybe this time next year I will understand your posting fully. |
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lurker
509 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 15:02:03
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thanks for your observations. my rant is an accumulated result of the despair and frustration i feel in recent postings, where people have views about africa in all its facets, and all that comes back is blame the west, blame the colonialists, blame who ever, but blame . you said blame and shame are not motivation for change. how true. this is what we have been trying to say for ages. people have to own up to their own guilt occasionally in in order to allow for forward momentum.
this is no answer to any of the problems in africa in the here and now or in the past
i have lived in zimbabwe, so feel powerfully about its people and future. so , defend the people, criticize mugabe and you get this nationalistic fervour about a murdering thug and his henchmen, because it is an ex-colony, or a rant about britain and it only cares about the white famers, of which there have been precious few left for a very long time now.all blame and no hands up to a nasty african and acceptance that the ex-colonial power, as bad as it was, is not a good enough reaason to blame for all of zimbabwe's woes.
when i see people go on and on about the racist brits and they are the cause of it all, my hackles rise. mugabe does not send his boys out to hack off limbs , cos he got a raw deal from colonialists. he does it because he wants to retain power at all costs and will kioll his own to do so. then he can play the blame game on the brits and the saps and jaundiced nationalists lap it up.he is laughing at them more than at us, becusse they "justify" the murders of his own people in his own twisted mind.
many of us have said it before- until africa, on the whole, stops blaming, it cannot move on.people here know that not a single toubab on this forum tried to excuse the horrors of apartheid or colonialism. buit that does not prevent or disallow us from having views on africa's future, inspite of it's past. there are heinous african ruleres who delight in destroying their own. nothing to do with colonialism. it is abotu power and money. they would be the same wherever they would be allowed to rule.
lord knows how you get africa moving forward. we just make suggestions and air our views and then get called rascists.
i guess this Bantaba is just a small, but typically representative cross section of the populace in general.
thanks for your response. i had two mins lunch today so my spelling is rubbish. |
Edited by - lurker on 16 Jul 2008 16:25:20 |
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Hiz Princess
United Kingdom
464 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 21:22:26
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#65279; #65279;Tut at you posting when you should be enjoying a leisurely lunch
Typos are part and parcel of the course im always amused that people trouble themselves to correct spellings and grammar on forums detracting from the thread.
Your rant has been read and understood while procrastinating I have read a few previous post across the forum and find some of the accusations incredulous the hostility is something I don't care for, neither the double standards.
The race card unfortunately has now been exasperated by people who use it as protection for an inability to give a logically argument or take on board criticism directed at them. This is a dangerous road to go down (ever heard of the boy that called wolf??)
Futhermore racism as i have been lead to believe is discrimination of any racial group surely this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black!
Critisim is only good if it can be delivered constructively and lessons can be learned from it, destructive criticism serves no purpose but to undermined and destroy.
I find it interesting that I have never come across the blame game with the students or faculty at the University of Gambia, more a keen interest in how to move the country forward and this is why despite frustrations and reservations as to whether my work is valid , I fight to secure funding to enable me to continue my work.
Hopefully which seems to be the case, people from all parts of the world regardless of race colour or creed will continue to post, discuss and debate wouldn't it be a boring world if we all agreed. |
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lurker
509 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 21:36:04
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you have sussed out those points very quickly.
welcome to bantaba. it is a great place to air views, but it is unfortunatley bedevilled by the very issues you raise.
what is #65297 or am i thick?(don't all answer at once) |
Edited by - lurker on 16 Jul 2008 21:38:31 |
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Hiz Princess
United Kingdom
464 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2008 : 21:57:36
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Thank you for the welcome
I learn fast
#65297 hmmmm I have no idea. I think it comes up because i have indented my posts I havent with this one so lets see. I wonder how many people have tried to crack my secret code |
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kaanibaa
United Kingdom
1169 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jul 2008 : 02:45:10
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| Welcome to heaven Hiz Princess , I can smell a charming and hmm a thoughtful poster here Alsamadeh my friend! |
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Hiz Princess
United Kingdom
464 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jul 2008 : 21:49:49
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Thank you for the welcome Kaanibaa  |
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