Inspiring!, thanks for sharing

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Pasamba Jow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Interesting read from  http://gambiabeat.weebly.com
> Dr. Siga Fatima-Jagne
> Academic/International Consultant
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> *Development activist, international consultant, and Director of
> International Development Support Services (IDSS), Dr. Siga Fatima
> Jagne-Jallow worked as Assistant Professor, English, Comparative
> Literature, Women's Studies, and African Diaspora Studies, Spelman College,
> Atlanta, GA, between 1992 and 1996; as Teaching Assistant, Department of
> Comparative Literature/African and African-American Studies/Romance
> Languages; and Director, Graduate Travel and Research Fund and Vice
> President, Graduate students Organisation at SUNY-Binghamton University,
> New York. *
>
> *She was also **Professor/Acting Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of the
> University Council, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada (University
> Extension Programme in The Gambia). Dr. Jagne speaks, reads and write
> English, French and Arabic, and gathered a wide range of experience working
> in many African countries as a researcher and international consultant. In
> this interview with Sanna Camara, she speaks on politics, women, education
> and some of her personal stories.*
>
> *Some people believe that successful women like yourself find it
> difficult to marry. Do you have similar experience? *
>
> No, I have never had that experience. I was the one running from men…
> (Laughs). I have to be honest, I heard it a lot but I never had the
> problem. I am the one who didn’t want to get married. I wanted to have a
> career and I focused on that. When I was ready, I got married. But for men
> getting scared due to somethings, may be there were but some came. So I
> can’t speak for all men on that. I got married after my Ph.D and after
> working for many years – about 12 years ago, but it was basically my
> personal choice. And I am happy now; I see my children as my priority… I
> could have married and have them as my priority at age 20.  But I decided
> otherwise and I think I am a better mother now… having children at this
> time of my life, and I have no regrets. There is nothing more important to
> me now than my husband and my kids. They are my priority.
>
> *The national assembly recently passed the women’s bill into law, but
> with reservations on some issues. As former director of the Women’s Bureau,
> did you play any role in this Bill?*
>
> Then, I used to work at the Pro-PAG and we worked closely with the women’s
> bureau to have a draft of the women’s bill. That was where my role ended. I
> think the areas the legislators had reservations on were affirmative action
> part. Where there had to be a certain number of females in the parliament
> and in certain institutions. I think the worry was that, if they have, say
> 33 percent of women parliamentarians, are they going to have the right
> people from the population to put in parliament? Isn’t that a lot at this
> time, knowing the level of awareness, education of women… and I always
> stress, education is not about going to school but knowing issues.
>
> *So do you think that it is time that women have a proportional
> representation in the national assembly?*
>
> I think in certain areas, affirmative action is important. I also that
> think in politics, it has to be a personal decision. What if they give
> women the 33 percent and not enough women are interested? It’s not going to
> make difference in our lives. For The Gambian women, from the research I
> have done, many of them want to be more economically independent than to be
> part of politics. I find that very interesting because when you ask them
> most often, what they tell you is they want economic independence. ‘Do you
> want to go into politics?’ they would say ‘no’ they want money so that they
> can do better in life, and they don’t think it can happen for them to go
> into politics. It’s a cultural norm that women should remain in the private
> spheres while men remain in the public spheres.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *For the affirmative action, many think it should not be confined to the
> national assembly but also the political parties…?*
>
> Yes, because that is where decisions are made as to who can be a candidate
> to go into the national assembly. That decision is not made at the level of
> the national assembly. I think these political parties should be challenged
> to practise affirmative action.
>
> *Other people find the demand for monogamy rather contentious too?*
>
> I think polygamy started because people were farming and needed a lot of
> help on their farms. Now, I don’t understand why people in the urban areas
> would practise polygamy. It is true, oh yes. Historically, even white
> communities, European nations and Asia, they all practised polygamy. That
> was the cultural start of polygamy and if you do anthropology, you learn
> this. That’s how polygamy started because everybody was agrarian, everybody
> was farming and you needed a lot of hands on the farm because there was no
> technology. Men married a lot of women and had a lot of children to work on
> the farm….
>
> *But others would consider it religious. For example, Islam allows men to
> marry up to four wives…*
>
> No, no, no… then it is people who don’t read the Qur’an and the Hadith
> very well who would say that, because the conditions for marrying more than
> one wife are so difficult to fulfill. Do you see people from Saudi Arabia
> marrying more than one wife? You hardly see Arabs marrying two wives
> because the conditions that are set are so difficult. I think very few in
> The Gambia would qualify to marry more than one wife. First, most women
> feed themselves. Most men cannot fulfill the main condition that Islam asks
> from them, which is to cloth and feed their wives and children. So why
> would they marry a second wife when they can’t even take care of the first
> one they have? That’s against Islam.
>
> *Some argue that marrying more than one wife can help in reducing the
> unmarried women on the streets. Particularly if the statistics are saying
> that women are more than men nine times?*
>
> Actually, if I remember right, once I came to do a research as a student,
> we have more male babies being born in The Gambia than females. That figure
> is not true; the female population has always been 50 or 51 percent. It has
> never been above 51. The reason why we have more females at adulthood than
> males is because more males die under five years old. For some reasons,
> girls are stronger and survive longer than their counterpart males. These
> are scientific facts. I don’t know if the records are available here but in
> most countries, records of births should be able to prove this.
>
> *If your husband wants to marry a second wife, how would you handle that?
> *
>
> I don’t like to discuss polygamy because it is a personal choice. I know
> some women who wanted their husbands to marry, and even get them, second
> wives. And there are those who don’t want it. Such are private things… I
> know in certain countries there are laws, like Senegal, that when you marry
> you sign papers on whether your husband would marry a second wife or not.
> Some women sign to allow it…
>
> *But you don’t belong to that category? Or do you have an agreement with
> your husband too?*
>
> Me? I don’t have any agreement… and my husband is also his own individual
> and I think, like I said, it’s a personal choice for both sides. People can
> do what they want… how you react, nobody can predict.
>
> *What jobs have you been doing?*
>
> I have been doing holiday jobs at ports authority in Banjul from the
> mid-70s to 78. After that, I worked for The Gambia Information Services as
> a journalist and editor after my sixth form. I also went to the US to
> study, but while I was studying, I was tutoring in French and women
> studies. For my Masters, I was actually teaching a comparative politics
> class. For my PhD, I was also teaching full time in the areas of
> comparative literature, women studies and African studies.
>
> *But how did you get into gender?*
>
> Gender is something I grew up with. I think I grew up in a household where
> there is gender equality… and I couldn’t understand why other households
> did not have that just like my household. So it’s an innate part of me so
> that whatever work, or analysis I do, I bring in gender. It is an interest
> of mine but my disciplines are in the art, the humanities and the social
> sciences. I have done a lot of work in policy, research more than I have
> done on gender.
>
> *You were once appointed to head the women’s bureau. How did that job
> come about?*
>
>
> *You were once appointed to head the women’s bureau. How did that job
> come about?*
>
> Actually, I was on a sabbatical from… I was teaching in the US and I had
> just come back and I was in Senegal and teaching at the Codesria gender
> institute. I happen to come to The Gambia and was chosen as one of the
> co-lead consultants for the first national women’s policy in 1996/7. A few
> of my friends and colleagues who are not by the way Gambian, actually
> convinced me to take the job that was being advertised at the time since I
> was planning on leaving the academia. So I applied, got interviewed and was
> given the job of the executive director of the women’s bureau.
>
> *Women constitute the majority of this country, but they are still
> playing secondary roles when it comes to decision making positions in the
> country?*
>
> I think it has to do with cultural issues and the lack of acceptance by
> males and even females themselves that they need to be in leadership
> positions. For instance, when we talk of the highest level, we have women
> represented. Where the problem comes in is actually at the decentralised
> levels: when you look at the number of chiefs, alkalolu, and even
> governors. We are yet to have females in most of these positions. Of
> course, the only position where we have the women occupying is in the
> village heads (Alkalo). But other than that, I am yet to…. Historically,
> maybe I need to find out because I am doing research on that right now. I
> think it is very important for us to have females in such positions at the
> decentralised levels. Another reason why females are not in positions where
> they are supposed to be is the level of education. We are not talking about
> acquiring degrees, but basic education in your local language. You have to
> have basic education or a basic way of knowing processes and how things are
> done…
>
> *But that is something missing in this country. Some people are even
> suggesting a mass re-education of Gambians? *
>
> That’s right, this is missing. Because if you notice in the neighbouring
> Senegal for example, people are highly educated about most things – whether
> in politics, culture, or many others – it is because they are literate in
> their native languages… It is not like they are studying things in French.
> And it is the same in Asia, you will even realise that there are more women
> in leadership positions in Asia than any other region. And that’s because
> of the same things. Asians have been using their local languages to educate
> their own people, rather than English or French.
>
> *Do you think such is possible in The Gambia?*
>
> As a teacher of languages, I think it’s always good to start work in your
> native languages before you move to somebody else’s language. What you find
> is, a lot of people despite their level of education in foreign languages,
> cannot even write in their native languages. English is a second language
> or for some Gambians, even a fifth language because they are speaking other
> languages before they go to school to learn English. Imagine, trying to do
> everything in that English language? Five times, two times removed from
> your native language? We have a lot of this adult literacy in the past, but
> I think we need to go beyond that and teach about civic education, cultural
> studies… all for the women.
>
> *The national assembly recently passed the women’s bill into law, but
> with reservations on some issues. *
>
> Then, I used to work at the Pro-PAG and we worked closely with the women’s
> bureau to have a draft of the women’s bill. That was where my role ended. I
> think the areas the legislators had reservations on were affirmative action
> part. Where there had to be a certain number of females in the parliament
> and in certain institutions. I think the worry was that, if they have, say
> 33 percent of women parliamentarians, are they going to have the right
> people from the population to put in parliament? Isn’t that a lot at this
> time, knowing the level of awareness, education of women… and I always
> stress, education is not about going to school but knowing issues.
>
> *Thank you for your time, Dr. Jagne-Jallow.*
>
> Thaank you Sanna.
>
> "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of
> justice." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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