Gassama:

Problem with Dr. Jah Jnr's approach is that he tends to approach the whole
concept of separation of religion from state with a certain bias.  Since he
apparently is a fundamentalist Islamic scholar of sorts, he argues that
Muslims cannot be secular and in this instance, I believe he is defending
Yahya Jammeh's inability to even minimally heed the concept of separating
religion from state affairs.  Even though he (Dr. Jah Jnr) tries to disguise
this approach of his as much as possible, this avenue he has taken is quite
clear to me.

He also tried to make the point that there is no such thing as a complete
separation and as such, we might as well lift our hands in despair and give
in to the situation as it is back home, or even succumb to Shariah.  I think
this really betrays his sympathetic leanings towards fundamentalism and thus
does a serious disservice to the objectivity of his paper.  Problem with this
approach is no serious student of government has ever had any illusions that
we can completely make the separation.  Instead, I assume that every
sovereign democratic state enforces this principle in the best way possible.

The main pt in separating religion from state is to give the citizens of a
given state the assurance that the ruling body of said state assumes that all
are citizens are equal regardless of religion.  I think this is a fundamental
pt that DR Jah has completely missed.

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