Lameen

Thank you for your excellent contribution.  I find much of it that I totally support. I do not want to mention names but I have seen a great deal of the debates on the list spoilt when the arguments degenerate into abusive personal attacks, I have even been the recipient of some of them.

Please do not get me wrong, I have no wish to hide or cover up the wrong doings of anyone in The Gambia, so that a few more tourists might visit. I have always said that if people on either political side are doing wrong, they will surely and eventually be brought to justice. It is only my personal opinion but I do not think personal abuse helps in the process of justice and reconciliation.

I know some of you guys love The Gambia more than some of us do, but I think that there are some of us who love it as much and maybe even more than some of you - nothing is ever that 'Black or White'.  Some Gambians born here in the UK have never even visited Gambia, so I think I even know the Gambia more than they do and I know Gambians who know more about the UK than some people who live here do.

And about helping, I do not see us competing to see who can give the most help, ever little bit matters, where ever it comes from. So instead of it being 'you guys' & 'us guys' why can't it just be all of us working together, blind to colour, race and religion. 

To these 3, I would like to add 'politics' because there is always a government and always an opposition BUT there are always more ordinary people who care much more about where their next meal will come from than they ever will about politics - This is not a criticism of Gambians, it is true of people everywhere.  

Do we punish these people because they don't care - when a beggar asks for charity do we ask him his politics before we give him bread?

Like you, I wish MY country was better, like you I want faster change, so there is more equality of opportunity, more justice for the people at the bottom, less prejudice, less meanness and greed, less fraud and corruption. But I don't want the people I most want to help to starve while this change slowly happens.

The UK is not really into revolutions, we only feel passionate about politics when we hear our political opponents speaking on television (and then we shout abuse at the screen, but most of the time we just work together, ignoring the plight of the rest of the world, getting richer from the plunder of our colonial and slaving past - Please don't attack the few of us who want that to change.

Francis

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URL: www.gambiatouristsupport.com

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