Hi folks,

Thanks so much for your responses to my last e-mail on religious postings on Gambia-L.  I appreciate the time you all took to send in your comments.  From all indications, the majority of us are of the opinion that we should allow religious postings on the list.  In addition, the feeling I get is that many who wrote on the issue feel that my e-mail was rather crash, if not dictatorial.

In response to all these opinions, I would like to begin by saying that the problem is all my fault.  I should have preceeded my position with an explanation of the circumstances surrounding it.  I did not do that, and in the process have given a lot of people genuine grounds for concern.  Having said that, I will now give you a brief overview of the reasons for my e-mail, and hope that in the end, we will be able to move on.

Those subscribers who were on the list when it was hosted at the Univ. of Washington (UW), Seattle, will recall that we had to move Gambia-L from there after Mr. Anthony Loum, under whose auspices the list was hosted by UW, was no longer comfortable with the list being hosted under his name.  It was with luck that I was able to get St. John's University to host Gambia-L for us.  I have been helping with managing the African Association of Madison mailing list, which St. John's has hosted since it's creation in Oct. 1997, and for this reason, was able to ask my contact at St. John's to help, and he agreed to.

Gambia-L has been hosted on St. John's server since last May.  For the benefit of those who don't know, St. John's is a Catholic university, in New York City, USA.  You can access their Web site at http://www.stjohns.edu/index-2.html to get more information about the school.  I suggest you read the "About" pages http://www.stjohns.edu/about/ which detail information such as the university's Core Values, and Mission Statement.  The Mission Statement, in particular, states that the University is Catholic committed to creating "a climate patterned on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ as embodied in the traditions and practices of the Roman Catholic Church."  However, the Mission Statement continues:
  Our community, which comprises members of many faiths, strives for an openness which is "wholly directed to all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous, or worthy of praise" (Philippians 4:8). Thus, the university is a place where the church reflects upon itself and the world as it engages in dialogue with other religious traditions.
It seems from the above that while St. John's takes their Catholic faith seriously, they are also open to a dialog with other beliefs.  Be that as it may, I thought it prudent that since our list is hosted on their server, we will be advised to be sensitive to their beliefs, and refrain from using Gambia-L to engage in religious education of whatever form.  I think this is a perfectly logical stand to take, especially because I don't think an Islamic group would allow their, say, mosque's public address system to be used to preach Christian sermons.

Another issue that I think we should be aware of is the fact that we have many Christian (Gambian and non-Gambian) subscribers on the list.  What would happen if we start trading more religious postings?  Would we be reduced to a forum of religious strife and intolerance?  And again, I thought it prudent that we should just refrain from out-right religious propaganda, in the interest of being sensitive to people who might not subscribe to our faiths.

Some of you have suggested that given the existence of the DELETE button, it is a fairly simple matter to forget about postings one is not interested in, including those of a religious sort.  While that sounds simple, it does not consider the fact that our postings are archived.  That you've deleted a posting from your mailbox does not mean that it's dissappeared from our archives.  The fact that you don't read a posting does not mean that it does not affect you in anyway, because each archived posting takes up space on St. John's server.

For your information, the St. John's server has a disk capacity of 15 GB, and runs a total of about 700 mailing lists, out of which 546 are archived (http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SS1=MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU).  The server delivers an average of about 600,000 (six hundred thousand) postings a DAY to and from some 241 THOUSAND subscribers.  As you can imagine, the numbers can add up very fast.  Thus, it would help for all of us to ensure that we do our best to ensure that we do not over-stretch the resources that St. John's provides to subscribers the world over.

I also mentioned that other people have created mailing lists on various religious issues, including Islam.  Thus, you can search for Islam-oriented groups at:

http://www.lsoft.com/lists/list_q.html

Type "islam" or "muslim" (without the quotes) in the search field, and press the "Start the search!" button to retrieve a list of lists with names, hosts, or titles (depending on what you chose) that might your criteria.  And, if you like, you can also start your own group at either e-Groups (http://www.egroups.com) or Topica (http://www.topica.com).

I would like to re-assure everyone that my decision on stopping religious postings on the list was motivated more by a desire not to abuse favors being accorded us by St. Johns.  I will contact them on the matter, to get a categorical answer regarding what their policies are.  In the event that they do not have any problems with people sending religious postings on our list, and such postings do not become an issue of concern to people of different religions (e.g. Christians worrying about Islamic postings, and vice versa), I will have no problems letting subscribers send in what they want assuming, of course, we have adequate diskspace.

May I also add that the decision to put a stop to religious postings on Gambia-L was totally mine.  For this reason, I would like to absolve other Gambia-L managers of any and all blame for whatever problems this might have caused.  These Managers have always provided, and continue to provide a lot of help in the management of Gambia-L.

Finally, I have to express my displeasure at the way which Hamjatta Kanteh attacked Jabou Joh about her postings on Gambia-L.  I see no reason why Mr. Kanteh should have attacked Ms. Joh like that, and further, I would like to say that I wish Mr. Kanteh had allowed us to make up our minds about whether or not Ms. Joh is a hypocrite.  Still on the issue of other comments on my posting, I'd like to say that Samba Goddard's reply totally cracked me up. I laughed my head off when I read his e-mail.  Despite what you might think of my posting, Mr. Goddard, it was in good faith, and not meant to offend one religion or the other.  God, I'm sure, will understand.

Have a great week, and best wishes.

Katim