Hamadi,
I share some of your views points in relation to this topic.The problem with
Momodu is that he lacks the simple understanding that we as Africans have an
experience with religion,whether this is Islam or Christianity,and this is
what must mould our understanding and relationship to them.When the Latin
American priest understood there historic experience with Christianity they
began to look at the whole issue from their own perspective,they made sure
that Jesus thinks like an ordinary Latino.This is the same thing that Kurdish
Islamic scholars are doing.And this is why Malcom was saying do not go to the
church were you are told Jesus is white and Mary is White,go to that church
were they preach black consciousness.There are so many things that we take to
be Islamic culture which is an Arabic culture and does not have anything to do
with religion.Take this name issue,you are right that being called Fatou does
not make you a better muslim than Jabou or Tombong,why then make Arabic names
so holy ?Arabic names  that have existed long before Islam.Arabic Islamic
scholars have brilliantly integrated their culture into the Islamic
religion,in the interest of their culture and for reason of assimilation.In
Gambia particularly,and Africa in general,our Islamic scholars become very
much brain washed,instead of thinking African they think more Arabic than even
the Arabs.This is why you can have people like Momodou Njie who will  tell you
that you have to think first as a Muslim and then as a Gambian or that it is
of no importance to have an Arabic name instead of a Gambian name.
One must think critically no matter what religion one belongs to,if not we
will just be doing the dirty works of others.
Lets take the issue of that racist Louis Frakan.He can say everything about
the Jews and White Americans,but he travel to Sudan, shake hands with leaders
of murderous regime,called them Brothers,received monies from them
withouttelling them to stop the murdering of Black Africans .He can travel to
Mauritania,shake hands with those slave trades,received money from them called
them Brothers,without asking them to stop the enslavement of Black
Africans.These are muslim states not so.Do you think Malcom will entertain
such bullshitts,is it surprising that they have something to do with murder of
the Brother.Malcom was a muslim but a very conscious one,he was relating to
Islam first as an oppressed black man and from the concrete situation of his
people.These are the types of scholars we need and not those who are proud of
telling us how good they are in mastering Arabic cultures/history in relation
to Islam and that this all history is about.We have had enough of this,it is
time for new way of thinking.

For Freedom

Saiks





The debate about using traditional African names in lieu of Western or Arab
ones has for a long time now caught the attention of Africanists,
intellectuals and politicians alike.  If I'm not wrong the late Kwame
Nkrumah preferred to go by his traditional rather than his christian
baptissimal name, if he had one for that matter.  The late Mobutu Sese Seko
Kuku Wazabanga (whatever in the world that means) prohibited Zaireans the
use of Western names.

In The Gambia, as in most other African countries people have a tendency to
use a Western or Arabic name to baptise their children. There is a general
belief that African names have an echo of paganism tied to them and that
they should always be superimposed by a "biblical"/Jewish, Greek or
"Islamic"/Arabic name.  Often it is from the latter category that a name is
chosen for the new and it is this name that is recorded in the birth
certificate of the child.  Some christian denominations would even go so far
as to add another name after confirmation.

A philospher once said that a peoples' religion will always carry elements
of the culture of the founders of that religion.  In pre-islamic Arabia as
in pre-christian Europe the names that we so commonly consider holy and
sometimes sacriligious are the same names that were used by the
idol-worshippers of those eras.  I can bet that Abu Bakr = father of the
cattle, Al-ahssan = the best or Peter and Paul do not bear more significance
than Ngone, Samba and Demba in the eyes of God.

Whatever the reason advanced for borrowing Arabic and Western names to
baptise our children (when we have an endless list of our own names is it
has just been proofed in this List), we cannot ignore the fact a peoples'
culture is their best I.D. in the arena of nations.

PS.   For the sake of clarification I think that Almami, Alkali, Alpha,
Asiatou, Boubacarr/Babucarr,  Sana (Hassan), Sainey (Alhuseiny)and Yassin
are Arabic and not traditional Gambian names.  Our Islamic scholars and
Arabophones will agree with me on this.




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