Saul Jawara and Gassa, I suspect you were both not referring to me in your postings. But that is not the reason why I am writing. Fact is I normally tend to throw away such issues into a rock pile of bushleague questions, and so I have not even once commented on any of them. I mean stuff like Blair overflying Banjul, relations with the U.S, Gambia's trading status, are all symptoms of a big disease: Gambia's economic insignificance. In Gambia, there is no homegrown money, and the little that comes around by way of grants and loans is largely homeless! There is no oil, no minerals, only a little fruit and flowers and peanuts. In fact we are so tiny (globally speaking) our name is sometimes left out of the charity list. [When, sometime in the 1980s, the EEC was granting aid to coutnries affected by the Sahelian drought, Gambia's name was abruptly left out from the list including countries as far apart as Chad and Senegal. Jawara's ministers braced up for a fight, demanding "What About Us?" from the Brussel bureaucracy?] Secondly. Dave Manneh paraphased Chomsky here, remember? If the leading mafia don in town says baa and all the goons say boo against international terrorism, little Gambia might just make the grade to get its name in Washington's good book. Of course it is good that the APRC government nurtures its relations with Washington. U.S aid and grants and diplomatic parasol will always come in handy. There is nothing wrong with our living by our wits. On the other hand we should not fool ourselves: For more than thirty years, successive Jawara regimes enjoyed the support, diplomatic and economic, of the entire Western world. What did Gambia benefit from that good name? ZERO! minus hundreds of millions in debt! Gassa wrote "...I for one is for the utilisation of both grants/loans whilst at the same time change our attitude from that of over dependency on loans/grants to that of production and hard work....We must also sensitise our peoples about our ever growing population. We must not use the raising of huge families as insurance against posible poverty or destitution in old age. It is counter productive these days". I have no problems with Gassa's concern and sincerity. But I suspect his reasoning here is tangled up. How do you rely on grants and aid while fighting dependency? What in fact is over dependency? Such a position needs obvious qualification? But more importantly, birth control in the Third World has for long been part of the tacky and matted aresenal of eager-beaver Western academics in their crusade against population growth. Afrcia is under-populated, and ignorance there is widespread. Raising many children is used as an insurance policy precisely because people are poor. What has been practically proven is that improving living standards (say by raising incomes of the poor) and educating women are the best guarantees against using children as policy agents while ageing without pensions. Such cruthcy phrases are dismal because they tend to blame the African condition on our reproductive organs, subliminally dumping the entire realm of politics and economics into the safer retreat of biology. This way politicians and numbers junkeys are absolved from their natural responsibilities. That must not be allowed!!! Saul Jawara on the other hand has just shown tremendous courage in confessing that he is a pessoptimist. I truly sympathise with him. Have a Good Day! Sidibeh, Stockholm/Kartong ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~