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From: "saul khan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reply to Alpha's Some proposals for Gambia-L
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 21:56:15 GMT
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Alpha,

I'm sorry if I interpreted you wrong, but you haven't answered my question.
Who are these politicians who are using ethnicity to get to power? My whole
point is, we can move forward w/o perpetuating old, yet false stereotypes.
Talk to any Mandingo speaking person who grew up in the Banjul environs, and
you might be surprised at what you hear. It's no different than the kind of
prejudice that black people face here in the US from whites- despite this
nonsense of a Mandingo majority in the Gambia. If I sound overly sensitive,
it's b/c of my childhood experience. I have vowed not to let anyone get away
with perpetuating such stereotypes - however subtly they put it. What you
said in your piece is identical to what some lawyer (Caryol?) said in an
interview w/ the Observer just before the elections - only  he was more
direct. And Grey-Johnson, the former ambassador to the US said the same
thing in an advertisement in the Washington Times early last year: "during
Jawara's era, it was the dominant tribe against everybody else." I still
have a copy if you want to read it. So I'm not jumping at shadows.

I've told you the mixture in my own family. And you might find it
interesting that I might be married to a Jola woman by now, if I didn't
leave the Gambia when I did. I have real friends from all creeds that make
up the Gambia. So, Alpha, if you want to raise national issues, don't beat
about the bush. Say exactly what you mean, and we can take it from there. I
have as much contempt for most Mandingo politicians as you may have, but to
hold a whole group of people responsible for our nation's decay is criminal.
It matters not, whether you've only insinuated this, or said it directly. If
I'm wrong about the politicians you're talking about, I'll apologize. I'm
all ears!

Saul.


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