I guess you would understand why people like me born and brought up in
Africa would suggest that these name thing played and still playing
a vital role for the African to identify himself.I believe that names like
Chrles, John, peter and the rest,were introduced primarily to maintain the
grip that former colonial masters had on the African nation and it's
people.This is not just the christian colonisers but
also their Arab counterparts.I strongly believe that as long as the black
people do not define themselves on the bases of NAME,HISTORY,
CULTURE and TRADITION the, the full story of our existance would be either
white or Arab related.Am not calling for a continental divide,
but as you know the whites in south Africa would not change their names to
Mulungu, neither the north African Arabs would change their names to Sankung
or Bintang.We can be christians without being called
Peter the Baptist or Muslims without being Muhammad or Haruon.
Our names mean everything, our entire existance from then, present and
the future for ever.
By the way my name is kebba and it means old and wise even though am only
30.If you know anybody call peter or Ibrahim, ask them to tell you the
meaning of their names without refering to the bible or the
Koran.What were our names as black people before the bible or the Koran? or
we did not have any names before 2001 years of the history of christianity
or the 1431 years of Islam? The black people must prove to world that we
were the first and so we had names before they
they had the bible or the koran.By the way call yourself Sankung if you were
born in december.It means the end of the year "sankung".
No disrespect,I love you and everyone of my brothers and sisters,
from Africa today or from Africa 500 years ago.

    Kebba Sanneh
    Sweden Scandinavia
PS: Our names were our inventions, lets preserve and protect them.

>From: Archibald H R Graham <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Black Inventors/Its a Black Thing
>Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 23:31:09 -0000
>
>Following the discussion on this subject, may I say thanks to the
>contributors for enlightening me further on this matter.
>
>Some few months back, I happened to listen to a BBC world service program
>discussing a topic similar to this. I found it exciting and I was so much
>amazed by what was being said about black presence in the Americas before
>Colombus that I burst out of my room that early morning to invite my flat
>mate to tune in to the program. To my disgrace, when my flat mate heard
>what
>I was excited about , he gave me one of those looks and asked if that was
>news to me. Having boasted with a 1 in my History paper of the O'level WAEC
>Exams you can imagine how embarass I felt.
>
>Anyway, I made a record of the program for furture ref. And as if I was not
>embarassed enough I wanted to spread the news with some friends.
>Unfortunately for me, the third person I discussed the program with also
>just gave me that look as if I ought to have known my history better.
>Coming
>to my rescue he offered to lend me a book entitled 'They Came Before
>Colombus, The African Presence in the Americas' (Sorry I did not note the
>Author's name).
>
>I must admit I tried reading it but found it was not some kind of light
>read
>material. It was heavily researched stuff and I could not go past the 3rd
>chapter as I was studying for my course work at the time.
>
>In any case, I thought I might share this personal experience of mine to
>show how much there is for some of us to get to know about our history in
>the passage of world events regardless of what we might have been taught at
>school.
>
>Can you believe me but until now I never knew that those items listed on
>the
>list of black inventions were actually masterminded by black. Regardless of
>their nationality or where they live at the time of their invention I am
>now
>better able to associate those things to the respective heritage. At least
>thanks to your enlightenment, I would not be like those who attribute
>everything that makes our life easy on earth to the white race.
>
>By the way, for those who may have the tendency to class others by name,
>please be assured that I maybe one of the most black breed of Africans
>around. As a matter of fact, where does name differences come into
>equation?
>Will names such as Nelson, Jerry, Abdoulie, Charles etc. necessarily makes
>one less black African than others with name like Kwame, Kojo, Dawda,
>Obasanjo etc?.....Maybe its time to give this name thing a break and think
>objectively and give credit where it belongs regardless of name and its
>origin.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________________________________________________
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------