TRIBUTE TO ONE OF AFRICA'S GREATEST ARTISTS AND THINKERS! GAMBIA'S EBOU MADI SILLAH By Baaba Sillah mu Sabel February 2006 In 1958, I was still a pupil at the Leman Street Infants School. My class was to represent the Mohammedan School at the annual Inter-schools Physical Education championships. Class 3, my Class, was detained in order to work on some new exercise routines and work-out drills. We left the School premises rather late that evening and on my way home with some School friends we walked along Leman Street heading towards Hill Street. Just after walking past Luumen and all the way up to the Farage Holdings at Hill Street, there was some extra-ordinary work of Art on the pavement. They were all line drawings in Charcoal. Like all novices, I found the work of Art quite astonishing, it caused me a fair amount of consternation. I was completely awed. This was something I could at the time hope to find only in Comic books. I started viewing the Art from the Luumen end but one of my school friends who lived in the neighbourhood and had had some experience with this Artist's peculiar order and form of Pavement Artistry, said to me that in order to make sense out of the drawings, I ought to start viewing them from the Farage Holdings and head towards Luumen. This way, one could view graphically a whole film of 'Zorro'. I heeded his advice and saw the opening scene where Zorro emerges from a distance in a rocky landscape riding his horse. He had a mask over his nose and mouth. All that was visible on his face were his eyes, his forehead and his Cowboy hat. Well of course what is a Cowboy without his pistol? Zorro had two, one on each side pocket. I combed through all the slabs of the sidewalk and each one of them was a complete screen, action-packed ‘til the very end. Zorro was the victor and of course, we identified with him as young boys will. All the way home we kicked and punched and simulated the Zorro manoeuvres. I asked for the name of the Pavement Artist and was told that it was Ebou Sillah. The name did not ring a bell but someone mentioned that he was the brother of 'Debs'-Suleiman Sillah. It all fell into place as Suleiman himself was already an accomplished and known Artist in his own right. Debs could even at that tender age draw the Life-cycle of the Mosquito, the Puff Adder and a house built out of bricks. This was something that most of us in his class could not contemplate doing. In 1960, Abdu Latif Njaay, opened the first Arabic Madrassa in Banjul. The Pupils came from different age-grades, from diverse backgrounds and quite a few of us had very distinct personalities. Njaay Saasu, Abdulaay Jaak, Badou Saar, Goora Nyang, Chuuch Njaay, Marie Ngooda Saar, Mam Yusu Faye, Chaanador, Baay Ndongo Faal to name but a few. For some reason both the attrition and the recruitment rates of the Daara were high. It was only later I figured out why. However in this constant state of flux came a new entrant. He was called up in front of the Class to recite Surratu Yassin. He was clad in a pale yellow tee shirt and a pair of grey shorts. The young man stood there and without the slightest hesitation, without the Koran and without the assistance of a Prompter, recited the Surra. We were impressed. The comment that the Ustas made after thanking him was that the young man recited the Surra with a rummy Pulaarr accent. Later on we gathered that the young man who was around fifteen was a former pupil of the famous Koranic teacher, Baaba at Musante. That young man was Ebou Madi Sillah and this was my first meeting with the Artist in flesh. Ever since that day, my contact with Ebou remained. Most people inadvertently call us brothers. This may largely be due to the coincidence of our surnames. The truth is that Ebou and I are close friends, notwithstanding the geographical distance that lay between us. I spoke with both Ebou and his wife Joorr, barely three weeks before his passing. Our closeness can be attributed to our commonly held convictions of conserving and defending a set of shared values and principles. Born in 1946 in Banjul at Orange Street, Ebou grew up in the Street-wise neighbourhood of Half-Die. He was schooled in Banjul. Later on he went to the School of Art in Dakar and to the University Of Dakar in Senegal. Ebou continued his Education in Canada. He returned to Gambia and up until his demise was a Lecturer in Art at the University of The Gambia. It is not my intention to go into his Career path as others have done so quite ably. What I intend to do however is to examine the influences that might have impacted on the mind of this highly educated man who could engage anyone from every strata of society and discuss subjects as widely different and varied as Art and Zoology. I want to discuss his work, his outlook on life and his World view. The son of a Shipwright Ebou spent a good deal of his childhood growing up around the harbour and Port of Banjul. He hails from a proverbial Senegambian extended family with its attendant ramifications and nuances. A child of the post war era, born a year after the end of World War 2, Ebou saw first hand the ravages and excesses of Colonial rule and savoured its tipple at the Colonial School. Senghore and Cessaire's Negritude were powerful intellectual pulses beating in tandem with the agitations of the independence movements, the rise of African Nationalism, the cries of Uhuru and 'We want Bread and Butter’ and the post-independence African respublica. One could readily glean from the above that even from an earlier age, Ebou's influences were legion. Some or all of these factors combined will have had a colossal impact in shaping a copious and robust mind - Ebou’s mind. It is already evident that through his teachings and his work Ebou has and will continue to leave an indelible imprint on Senegambian Art education and Senegambian cultural history for generations yet unborn. Up until the early and mid sixties, he was known to all as Ebou. Soon after the Cuban missile crisis, the growth of Black Power, Flower power and the Student rebellions in France and in England, after he became an avid subscriber and reader of literature from the far left (Gramma etc), after he had read all of Nkrumah's works, ‘Paabi's works’ (Ebou's term) and became involved in Trade Union activities, most notably, the Bread and Butter Strike of 1958 and the 61 Workers Strike, after he had read Fanon, Cheikh Anta Diop, Debray, Marx and Lenin, Sekou Touray, Malcolm X, Padmore, Du Bois, James and Richard Wright among other seminal treatises, he became a total convert to Pan-Africanism. He hungered for Africans to participate in the modern world. He lamented Africa's 'technological arrest' and hankered for Africans to break away from this and master machines, excavate the minerals out of the earth organise themselves, grow strong and become truly autonomous and self-governing. Ebou revered and cherished the Pan-Africanist ideals and lived by them. By the mid sixties, the name Ebou had become interchangeable with Comrade. Armed with the gospels of the times, Comrade engaged with every one - young and old, boys, girls, the poor and powerless alike. Comrade embarked on a crusade and indulged all who cared to share with him the prevailing doctrine-'Soxlasi'. Yes! Another one of his terms meaning ‘the Struggle’, the big issue at hand, change. Comrade's home was everybody's home. His meals were shared with the Comrades. These were good times and hopeful times too! Most of the African colonies had attained constitutional independence. Portugal still held on to her Colonies. The peoples of Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique embarked on a bitter and painful Armed Struggle. The emerging so-called independent African Countries were given an Anthem, a flag and a Constitution raked-up from Marlboro House or Paris. In other words, at independence we had inherited a state apparatus reeking of Colonialism and entirely inimical to the interest of Africa. The consequences of this were what is now felt today and known as Neo-Colonialism - a state which was not geared to the development of the people, but one which coerced and condemned them into accepting an appendage status. Lumumba was brutally murdered and with him went the aspirations of the people of the Congo. It gave imperialism the chance to dig its heels into the rich mineral resources of that country. Paabi in Ghana was overthrown thanks to the British, American, German and Israeli Agents. He was lured to Hanoi to mediate between the Americans and the Vietnamese. He never made it to Hanoi because the coup happened while he was in China. This Hanoi mission was very much encouraged. To encourage him to go, the Americans even promised to stop the bombing of Hanoi to make sure that his plane arrived safely. The coup took place just 48 hours after he left. The British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was in favour of Nkrumah being assassinated at Accra airport before he left for Hanoi, just to make sure. The Americans were against it. They thought it would act against them to make a martyr of him. They thought it would be sufficient to get him out of the country and that they them would never hear from him again. The story repeats itself throughout the African continent. In independent Africa there have been well over 70 coups. The Western technology of destruction still decimates Africa. Paabi's book “Neo colonialism, the last stage of imperialism” had a profound impact on Comrade’s thinking and indeed on that of many of his contemporaries. The book opposed the workings of monopoly capitalism in Africa. This book so alarmed and offended the Americans that they suspended all aid to Ghana. Comrade’s thinking now started to veer towards Armed Struggle. This is understandable viewed against the backdrop of the apathy and the reactionary nature of the newly independent States and their leadership. An additional impetus came from the sit-tight white settler States refusing to accept black majority rule. Dedan Kimathy and his movement, Mau Mau, had successfully delivered a nasty blow to Kenya's sitting White Oligarchy's pride and arrogance. Following were a proliferation of armed movements. FRELIMO, MPLA, ZANU, ZAPU, PAIGC, etc. I left The Gambia for the best part of ten years and had little or no contact with Comrade. During this period, I was caught up with life's trials and tribulations in Europe and when I got back we were together again as colleagues at the School of Education at The Gambia College. He had gone to Dakar and back and had obviously mellowed in many ways though the Lion in him still roared. He was disillusioned with the struggle. Many of his erstwhile Comrades became turn-coats, some escaped into religion as a way of buying their way into positions in the Civil Service; others came unhinged, some became mad and others went into exile. Comrade now turned into his Art and a serious study of Political Philosophy. By now he has become a family man and the demands of daily existence compete with his other pastimes. In one of his lucid moments, I caught him doing some work for an NGO and listening to his Jazz under the shade of the lime tree at his backyard in Kanifing. I played the devil’s advocate by asking, How could this Art you are doing engender a positive change in The Gambia? His reply was prudish and combative. Art has the ability of creating and forming bonds with our social political and economic worlds. In what way, I probed? Art in Africa he said, is functional in the sense that when we make a piece of art, we ensure that it has a direct utilitarian value. We make Masks to perform some ritual. We share it with one another so that it is not owned by a rich Collector or connoisseur. We at times carry our art in the way we dress, the way we plat our hair, our choice of the chewing stick and fan we carry for a specific occasion. And so on... Look all around us, he continued! Art is diffused through our lives. Listen to the Fishermen and Builders and their work songs; watch the suggestive dances; every facet of our lives is associated with Art and rituals. Even to kill an Animal, we perform some ritual that connects us with the gods, the ancestors, the life here and the after-life. Above all the way of performing the ritual itself is a form of art. To some, Ebou is an enigma. His detractors in the former Gambian regime saw him as a loose cannon. This is a label he shares with a few other Gambians who also refuse to kow-tow to oppression and intimidation and are creating paradigm shifts in all spheres of existence in a Society that is hugely conformist and intolerant of difference, not on principled grounds but for the sake of posturing and for grovelling purposes. One just need to hold views that fall outside the realm of mainstream thinking to earn such derogatory labels Thankfully, this entrenched bigotry has started to wane as younger Gambian people are beginning to challenge such backward and deeply entrenched views. A maverick till the very end, Comrade lived by the sweat of his brow and always had the plight of the poor and powerless in his heart. The last time we met in my house at Kololi in September together with Gumbo Touray, Ibrahim Lowe and Lord Sallah, a heated debate sparked off over the role of the intelligentsia in National development. Ebou’s last most profound statement I recall was 'You guys need a referee and I have appointed myself,” he said wittily, ‘You are all intellectuals! Your intellectualism is absolutely meaningless unless it becomes combative and situated within its proper context and within its appropriate organisational framework so that it can auger well for change.” I could carry on endlessly citing a whole raft of Comrade-anecdotes. I will not do that. However, I cannot conclude without making reference to his light-hearted side. There were indeed many other sides to him and this was one of them. Comrade had a terrific sense of humour and was very apt at coining the most colourful metaphors under the sun. I am sure that no one could write a fitting eulogy without making mention of his jibes. He would have liked it. In one of my trips 'back home', Comrade's first comment was "My Brother, have you come to view the Indian film.... Sunyu Gaanyi dungyu Nit.?" A combatant till the very last! A luta continua!! Comrade Ebou, if I could, I know I can, I will sing you the song of Baninde. For you have said no to oppression For you have defied the oppressor through your work and deed. If I could, I think I can Praise you for putting back the honour of the meek and the pecked. If I could, I think I can, Thank you for making us see that Art is change And change is art. If I could I think I can Agree with you that Art lives forever while men and women come and go. Comrade Ebou, while we put you to rest and bid our farewells, We thank you again for the wisdom you bequeath to us - The knowledge that Art is for ever And that knowledge is power! BAABA SILLAH mu SABEL FEBRUARY 2006 ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤