Joe,

     I have seen your reply it could have been better,  if you were  simply touching on dirty politics and  or being near Yahya only to gain for one's personal interest.Unfortunately you are attempting to polarise my statements therefore taking a completely different dimension.Look through what I wrote very very closely.I said that Yahya looks low upon some people within his own ethnic group because he sees his immediate geneology as people who possess powers that other Jolas do not have.Why did you omit that part and see my piece as a mandinka-Jola thing? Please read the Rwanda story that others posted in here.Before Paul Kagame over threw the tribal Hutu leader,what did this leader do? He was eliminating killing all Tutsis(ethnic cleansing) and Hutus who refused to join him(his own tribe).Do you see my point now? Also go back and see where I mentioned Shyngle Nyassi before and see the virtues that I attributed to this fello! w ci tizen who am sure speaks better Jola than Yahya and many others who pretend to be defending this good tribe.Mr Sambou remember what has already been written about Lang Conteh and others before.Are they Jolas? You can answer that question.

If Yahya is being protected by our own ethnic feelings even for a minute he will then succeed.I am pouncing on Yahya along those lines because he is a president.When Mathew Jallow mentioned Teri Kafo I was glad he did and that is why I came out with this article to continue the debtate.We must not be carried away by deliberate attempts to see this as Mandinka,Jola,or fula issue.We must jointly abandon leaders who want to exploit ethnic feelings to fuel a war! period!!!!!!!! You also missed the point because you are trying to compare my analyses about the red jola traditional hat with some tribal attack.Mr Sambou you cannot defend Yahya by using what you sent here,that shows me and others within the silent majority that you are angered when Yahya is called a tribalist and a jola.While you are ready to pounce on Jawara and others for dancing sewruba? Both dancers are bad elements if the dancing fuels ethnic feelings.

That very sewruba is what brought us Yahya's polarised and tribalised bukarabu today.And if the trend continues then every tribe will think that going to the state house is based on ethnocentric feelings.

"Teri Kafo" was here and some mandinkas never enjoyed anything from them.So are some jolas being used today for the selfish interest of very few Jolas,these very Jolas were even not in The Gambia before 1994. You are here today and you are one of Yahya's critics.Joe why not we have Jolas like you and mandinkas like me around Yahya? Those very Jolas and Mandinkas near Yahya have their infighting and when the going gets tough those very people exploit our poor folks with the blood money to fuel such ethnic feelings within our midst!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Joe that is what I am scared of!!!

Then when will the spiral of tribal feelings stop hanging over our heads,if we are not ready to talk thru this mess with open minds? How many mandinkas are in Senegal? Do we hear that feeling there and every one knows that the wolof language is used more often.The authorities do not encourage that period.In Senegal if division exists it is within the sects like Maurids,Tijaniya and so on.That is competing to serve God.There are no major diffrences that warrant tribal matchets to cut through others.The talibes in Touba can be wolof,jola,sarahuley,fula and so on.

This is what I mean.I dislike mandinkas that sell the tribal card and so do I dislike Fulas who do so.Mr Sambou no amount of deviation or attempts to save Yahya through the generalised Jola tradition will stop people from seeing his ethnic feeling and tendencies.Those other tribes that you said dance near Yahya,are obviously opportunists but they are there for salaries.What i and others are seeing from Yahya's own organised nocturnal dances goes beyond sycophancy.That is the dangerous and poisonous ethnic feelings he is using.Do you remember the bees that Ebou Colley mentioned here?

Do you remember when people used to say that if Jawara removes his spectacles his eyes could kill someone who looks at him or when he looks at someone without his glasses? Bees and spectacles scaring democrats?!!! That is real real nonsense!!!

These are the tribal tendencies or self mystifications that leaders like Yahya use to terrorise people.Before Yahya came to power Mr Sambou I used to eat,drink and stay with him.I am not Jola but I know him more than you do-sure.At that time Yahya was not showing some of us all these stupid magical powers he is trying to use today.

Joe when justice Latey came he used the constitution and that should have been Yahya's red hat!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every tribe had ways to innaugurate rulers(kings) before democracy came to Africa.So is Yahya fine with that as far as it is a tribal thing that some of us comepare with his throne? Then that red hat automatically qualifies Yahya as a king and not a president.Latey or any judge would not use traditional methods to swear in a president.Even the Scottish and the British who colonised us have their abandoned or reserved traditional ways.But do they use those for elected leaders like Blair? No!

The constitution should be enough and it should be our tribe as a nation. Our national anthem should be the ethnic feelings we share in the open in that case.

My question is!!! should we revisit sewruba dancers and tribal mandinkas to justify what Yahya or any other Jola does today?! Not at all!!! Both the tribal mandinka and the tribal Yahya Jammeh are poison for Gambians. Prevention is far better than cure Mr Sambou.

 

Binneh S Minteh

New York University.