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 The parables of two Gambians
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Santanfara



3460 Posts

Posted - 10 Jan 2009 :  13:01:23  Show Profile  Visit Santanfara's Homepage Send Santanfara a Private Message
I cannot help for forward the exchanges between Foday Samateh and Sheif Bojang. the exchanges is interesting

this is foday's trigger.

The Silent Londoner

06 Jan 2009


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

By Foday Samateh, New York

Confronted with private solicitation, the chief of scribes promised he would end his long silence and return to his calling this elapsed January. He did not. Justifiably, I can’t help but wonder aloud why he is still the silent Londoner, as everything unravels in the land of fangbongdi.

Young, the English Poet, indelibly inked that "Procrastination is the thief of time." This chalkboard axiom is my placard statement on my protest march to the London Bridge . There I will lodge via the House of Commons my open complaint to the Silent Londoner and his royal host, Her Majesty, the Queen of the British Empire . The Silent Londoner must come out of hibernation and restore equilibrium to the unbalanced state of mind as a matter of exigency.

The idle dancer of futampaf is now a busy trafficker in quackery. He scorns the physics of Hippocrates and boasts about the supernatural cure of his invisible jinni. He beats his chest like Ali, the pugilist, claiming that his miracle mentors are no match for any spirits, including the Elders of Santang-ba. This dare from an amateur wrestler must not pass over unchallenged. His sorcery is slipping the nation into superstition.

More than a quack, fangbongdi is an openly-proud anti-knowledge campaigner. In case anyone missed it, he threw a beach party to celebrate "The Defeat of Intellectualism." One would have thought that this anti-intellectual activist has finally run the full orbit of his ability to shock and surprise. But since when has mediocrity become a badge of honour? And if this map-carrying Mungo Park specialist is the historian he claims to be, why he plays foolery, the anti-hero seeking to doom wisdom.

Break your silence with a second letter to your nephew. He needs to be told that your host continent once shunned and snubbed intellectuals until they almost forgot how to read. But finding no pride and dignity in poverty, disease and ignorance in the Dark Ages, they voyaged back to philosophy and science, which gave the world Enlightenment.

Admonish your nephew in no uncertain terms that real mullahs do not overdress. Real muftis lower their voice and speak no profanities. Real marabouts fear to use the Scripture as a trickster’s playbook to grab attention. Real men of God do not indulge in promiscuous showmanship. All and sundry know that he has never been a student of the Holy Revelation. And to claim he is endowed with the knowledge of its secrets like a scholar is to insist parading in the public square in the Emperor’s new clothes.

Your prolific insight is the only undoing of his proclivities for impulse. Write with the swiftness of your acclaimed proficiency. Mention that he might as well forget about his legacy. It is a dream material for every screenwriter looking to outdo the groundbreaking sensation of The Last King of Scotland. So drop all what England occupies you with and dance your fingers on the electronic keyboard.

If your present engagements are assigned by the Queen, I will myself tell Her Majesty that no royal duty is more immediately pressing than saving the homeland. If I fail to secure a British consent from the Victorian girl, you have to take French leave. You cannot be so indispensable. She has the Westminster Abbey, the Big Ben, Bank of England, Arsenal, the United Kingdom , and ten thousand butlers to wait on her leisure and luxuries. She has David Cameron and Gordon Brown to watch over Imperial Blair. We have only you for the masquerader. As the Romans say: Speak, strike and redress!


Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran

www.suntoumana.blogspot.com

Santanfara



3460 Posts

Posted - 10 Jan 2009 :  13:04:03  Show Profile  Visit Santanfara's Homepage Send Santanfara a Private Message
this is sherief's response. a bit long but wise words and loaded as well. let the lirary masters explain this, kaani included.

http://www.allgambian.net/NewsDetails.aspx?id=786

Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran

www.suntoumana.blogspot.com
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kaanibaa



United Kingdom
1169 Posts

Posted - 10 Jan 2009 :  16:44:42  Show Profile Send kaanibaa a Private Message
That my brother was a very powerful poem containing prayers and cautious words of advice to the reader that what we have is a problem and one which with divine intervention can change to advantage. If that prayer is answered and the mighty man transforms into a loving leader; guiding the nation with kindness and judicious wisdom what a wonderful country we can have, alas ,dear friend not all prayers are answered; dare we hope that this one shall be ? The writer is surely a master at his job and I shall keep reading it for it truly reflected my thoughts on the Gambian dilemma. Some have advocated for change by force or through the ballot and this one is perhaps another avenue , at least of hope ; for Divine Intervention ,that is. Silence on his part was not a wasted venture he most have been in a halwa ; surely he was not engaged in idle hallucination but in deep thought ; hum!Many ways to break the mouse's head .......

Edited by - kaanibaa on 10 Jan 2009 16:47:02
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Santanfara



3460 Posts

Posted - 10 Jan 2009 :  22:19:15  Show Profile  Visit Santanfara's Homepage Send Santanfara a Private Message
very well explained kaani. read what Dida Halake as to add to the deabet. he made a very controversial statement i most say.

www.allgambian.net
BY DIDA HALAKE


Well, well, well, I must say!

Having read Foday’s letter to the “Silent Londoner” yesterday, and having decided immediately that Foday is none other than the “Silent Londoner” himself, I visit Allgambian.net this morning to find the “Silent Londoner” himself enriching us with the gift that God gave him to give – not keep it tucked away in some tiny corner of London.


Since I believe there is no “Foday” to reply to your “ps”, my dear Uncle, may I take the opportunity to welcome you back? And, totally confidentially of course, can I claim, totally to myself you understand, credit for forcing you out of your “criminal” hibernation? If so, everything is forgiven, my Uncle, but I suggest you no longer indulge in the “crime” which, in the 1970s, imposed on my fellow countryman, Prof Ali Mazrui, the task of writing the book entitled “The Trial of Chris Okigbo”.


Of course, as I am sure you know, Chris Okigbo was the Biafran poet who sacrificed his god-given gift for the Biafran cause by becoming, I think, a pilot and getting killed. Your gift, my Uncle, is not yours to hide or sulk on. As the English Bard puts it in the Sonnets, yours is a gift given to give, and he gives to those who are not *****rdly.


Welcome back, to the “Fraternity of the Ink” as someone put it to me the other day. And keep enriching us.

Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran

www.suntoumana.blogspot.com
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