Editor,

I agree with President Jammeh. I don't think his comments on Zimbabwe are to take advantage on The Gambian people, as others might have thought. There might be some differences of opinion, but in this particular case of Zimbabwe and President Mugabe, I do believe that the West is behind all the tension in that Southern African nation.

The question is how long will it take us, Africans, to learn from our own history and know what we went through, where we came from, where we are heading to, and what we really want?

Mr Mugabe is a great African like Nelson Mandela who was only just a few days ago removed from a terrorist list in the United States, after 90 years of fighting for freedom, not only for Africans but for the rest of the human race.

We Africans should be wiser and start taking our own responsibilities. The Western media will do whatever it takes to give Mugabe a negative image.

I hate seeing my people dying like flies.

Anlas Kanteh

New  Jeshwang

President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh has proposed for the creation of a Union Government at the AU to accelerate efforts for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by 2015.

The Gambian leader, who was speaking in an interview with the GRTS on Africa’s march towards the attainment of MDGs, said this ‘Union Government’ should have a secretariat, which could be transformed into commissions with executive powers to implement certain “things” in the interest of the continent. The president noted that this is different from the popular dream of the United States of Africa.

Although the president was unsure about whether other African countries would achieve the MDG targets (water and sanitation), he was upbeat that The Gambia will attain the targets by 2015.

The 11th AU Summit

The Gambian leader arrived at the Egyptian Resort of Sharmel-Skeih, last Sunday morning, to attend the 11th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union Heads of State Summit. He was received upon arrival by the Egyptian prime minister, Dr Ahmed Nazif.

There has been no ordinary problem, so common to the world than the need to reduce, by half, the proportion of people without access to sustainable safe-drinking water and basic sanitation.

At the summit, President Mubarak of Egypt, called on his counterparts to be frank in discussing the issues and in finding strategies for security.

The Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, who is the current chairman of the AU, said that the union is committed to its march towards economic and political integration. President Kikwete said the agenda has, however, been the most divisive of the union, with some camps favouring an immediate establishment of a union government, while others favoured a gradual approach.

But President Jammeh believed that these divergent views could be cross-fertilised and a resolute step taken to create a distinctive entity for people of African origin. His views on creating a roadmap to instituting the integration process were shared by other African leaders.
 
In an interview with journalists, King Swazi III of the Kingdom of Swaziland, expressed optimistism that a common ground would be found and a final resolution designed to achieve the new African dream.

In his farewell statement, as his tenure in office comes to an end, President John Kuffour of Ghana said the underlining principle for a successful Africa lies in its efforts to form a unified body, a vision nurtured by Kwame Krumah, until his death.

Zimbabwe crisis

At the end of the summit, a draft resolution was issued by the AU Commission, urging the political leaders of Zimbabwe to reconcile their differences, honour their commitment to initiate dialogue and form a government of national unity.

President Jammeh also supported the draft resolution bill for Zimbabwe, adding that it was in the best interest of the people of Zimbabwe.

“We are a new crop of African leaders who will stand up to defend African integrity and African interest. This message, especially that of Zimbabwe, showed to them [the West] that we are independent,” said President Jammeh.

Palestine’s sovereignity

Mahmond Abbas, the president of Palestine, paid tribute to the AU leaders, for their efforts and role in the quest for a free Palestinian territory. The region, he told the commission, aspires to regain its independence and put an end to its refugee status.

Amre Mussa, the secretary general of the League of Arab States, said hypocrisy and political  interference have been shaping the future of Middle East.

First ladies’ meeting

As the African heads of state were deliberating in a close door session, the 6th General Assembly of the Organisation of African First Ladies Against Aids also gained progress. Fatou Lamin Faye, the secretary of state for Basic and Secondary Education, represented the First Lady Madam Zineb Yahya Jammeh at the meeting.

During his stay in Egypt, President Jammeh had several bilateral talks with his counterparts, including the Libyan leader, Muammar Ghaddafi and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.

Editor,

Please allow me space in your widely read newspaper to commend the organising committee of the just concluded Roots Homecoming Festival hosted by the Gambia.

To me, the programme was not only meant to reflect on the past but has also enabled those in the diaspora amongst others to come back home and share the joy with their fellow  African brothers and sisters in Africa. As the saying goes, as long as you are black, you are an African no matter where one found himself in this world.

It’s of no doubt to my mind that the organisers towards these successful event must have play their role by making the programme to be all inclusive, as for the first time in the history of the festival to be moved from the urban to the interior thereby enabling mass participation by Gambians towards the programme.

Before I put my pen down, may I say again bravo to the organising committee of the Roots Homecoming Festival especially Momodou Joof, director National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) and Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA).

Fatou Sarr

Banjul

The Gambia Epilepsy Association, on Tuesday, organised a press briefing at its headquarters in Serrekunda to sensitise journalists about epilepsy. Speaking at the briefing, Anthony Zimba, the executive secretary of the International Bureau of Epilepsy said that epilepsy is a condition and not a disease. He added that, most people think that epilepsy is caused by a demon, or is an African disease and has to be treated with local medicine.

“Epilepsy has many causes. Some are caused by infection in the brain and others are genetic and when one has the condition, it has to be diagnosed at the hospital and by a doctor,” he said.

Anthony Zimba also stated that their mission to The Gambia is to meet journalists, governments, health practitioners and the community at large, to see how they can come up with a campaign strategy against epilepsy in The Gambia.

For her part, Tanya Spensley, the patron of the Gambia Epilepsy Association said that her association’s objective is to help people suffering from epilepsy and bring them together so that they can have better treatment. She assured them of their continued commitment to render the services as expected.

The immediate aftermath of the Second World War, followed by the attainment of independence (as in the case of the then colonized African nations), saw the emergence of a multitude of international institutions; some global and some regional. Regional bodies like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), constitute supplementary groupings that seek to address issues that closely affect their member states.

As in the case of just a handful, regional bodies tend to be more effective than those with a global base. This, of course, is so because while regional bodies, thanks to proximity, can meet and share information on a more regular basis, the same thing might not be said for those with global membership. And also, the close cooperation that exists between the constituting member states of these regional bodies is made possible by the composition of the socio-economic and cultural background of their people.

The 34th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of States and Governments of ECOWAS ended in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, last Monday. And if reports coming from there are anything to go by, then its custodians need warming up; because it has not been living up to expectation. Dozens of protocols have been conceived, yet the body has virtually nothing to point at. Non-implementation of these protocols, as in the words of the host president, had profoundly impacted on the efforts at promoting the collective growth and development of the respective national economies of member states.

With a mission statement encompassing a wide-ranging domain, the body’s goal embraces economic integration as a top priority. This is particularly important in that you cannot achieve any meaningful economic integration in the absence of a binding, credible relationship.

This is based on the common argument that it is only when we share a common identity that some level of trust can be established to warrant interaction among our people in the region. Any tangible economic integration therefore demands, as a prerequisite, some political ties between the parties concerned. For instance, we will need a closer cooperation between the respective customs and security institutions of member countries to ease the burden innocent citizens go through. Our agricultural and natural resource base are so diverse that a well coordinated trade relation will put the region at an advantage over rival regional bodies.

Issues of security and illegal migration, also demand that the countries that make up ECOWAS quicken integration and solidify agreements that commit them to maintaining peace. One of the reasons for Africa’s persistent underdevelopment is that we have spent a great deal of time, since independence, fighting amongst ourselves.

Connivance of governments with clandestine, rogue groups, with destabilizing intent, has ensured this.

It is imperative, therefore, that ECOWAS looks at issues like these and identify ways of fixing them. All this will warrant collaboration in not only providing information, but in conceiving ideas that could help engage those youths who venture onto the seas.

Youth activism is nothing new in this country. And there are so many youth organizations in the Gambia that even the National Youth Council itself cannot afford to account for them all. But there are those that have been able to make so much impact that, one finds it difficult not to remember them. Among them are those that engaged in real activism. By that I mean activism against the injustices meted against poor countries like the Gambia, by countries that are supposed to give us a helping hand in our stride to rid ourselves of the bondage of poverty. One such organization is AYCAH.
 
The acronyms, AYCAH, stand for Africa Youth Coalition Against Hunger. It is a sub- continental organization that was founded in April, 2006, in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal. AYCAH-Africa was founded by inspired African youths across the continent, who are very conscious of the fact that Africa was less economically and productively independent. The woes of this continent seem permanent, despite the abundance of raw minerals in its soil, the rich fertile lands it has for agricultural ventures, the highly rated, quality pool of intellectuals and experts it is giving birth to on a daily basis, particularly in the youth sector.

The world has come to realize that this omen this continent faces have also got to do with the under privileged situation it found it self in, thanks to the unequal treatments it receives from international organizations (bodies) to the advantages of the other parts of the world (developed world). This couples with the prevalence of civil conflicts.

AYCAH-Africa spread its arms in eleven African countries, including the Gambia. It focuses primarily on effort to combating hunger, poverty, and arm conflicts, high rate of youth unemployment, HIV/AIDS, amongst others.

AYCAH-Gambia is like any other structure of the main body (AYCAH-Africa), established in the eleven African countries to serve as branch and officially mandated to represent the regional body. The Gambia’s chapter participated in the first ever-continental youth conference against hunger, which was held from the 10th to 17th April 2005, in Banjul, The Gambia. It was during this conference that the idea of AYCAH was conceived and given birth to, a year later, at the Dakar conference, in April 2006.

Although, after the Banjul conference, many Gambians were enlighten and realized the dangers in the on going growth of hunger and arm conflicts, a little progress was made on the realization of AYCAH's objectives as no single structure was officially put in place or mandated to take charge at the country level at the time.
 
Purpose of formation

Although, as stated above, The Gambia has over the years experienced an unusual proliferation of youth organizations, quite a little effort had been directed in the area of food security and the fight against hunger. Until the formation of AYCAH, the fight against hunger and food security in The Gambia had received a joint attention from the youth sector, despite the fact that a greater number of people are conscious of the implication of the scourges of the problem. Indeed, many people have actually gone as far as conceiving the idea of fighting against hunger and ending armed conflicts in Africa, but apparently all their effort just went down drain, rendering their wish mere dreams. Orientation, sensitization, as well as resource mobilization strategies for the fight are either in short demand of or non-existent.

The strategy AYCAH intends to employ in an effort to attaining its objectives is to work in solidarity and in partnership with the poor and the marginalized people, facilitate them to defend their interest and control the productive and social resources necessary to secure their human rights and entitlements. At the same time, it aims at creating an approach to development that does not create new poverty. The strategy would focus on information dissemination, capacity building, lobbying, as well as to equip people with knowledge on the impact of IFI, the impact of trade liberalization, EPAs, etc..

If you want to reach them, you can simply try:

The national co-coordinator

Africa Coalition Agianst Hunger

C/O The National Youth Council

Independence Stadium

Bakau.  Tel. 9781067

In a book I was reading recently, The Boat Boys, written by Papa Jeng, the historian Hassoum Ceesay, had this to say about African writers in the book’s introduction: “African writers must be responsive to the burning issues of their times, our writers should not crave for the time to be able to afford to pen odes to flowers or rivers while the continent burns! Writers must write about

the issues affecting the people, immediately.” First, let us clear up a particular point screaming for attention. The term ‘writer’ is quite vague: it includes poets, novelists, playwrights, journalists, and a whole medley of scribblers. But in its stricter application, we use it to refer to those who write literature: poets, novelists and playwrights fairly easily suggest themselves, and some journalism aspires to literature; still, the main distinction of literary works is that they are works of the imagination.

If Mr Ceesay’s introduction had been to, let’s say, a collection of political or sociological essays, then I would not have had any reason for my essay; but, as it happened, his was to a novel, and that got my wrist all twitchy and bristly.

Mr Ceesay’s view is an old one, and is of a literary credo which, restless with ‘beseiged intensity’, seeks to hold literature or art generally to a kind of ‘moral audit’. its tone of seriousness, insinuating, as it does, the idea of an “armoured pen” in the service of the moral majority, makes it easy fodder for the majority of us to unquestioningly swallow..And once swallowed, it turned into a fetish, a mantra, and like all mantras, this one came fully armed with a name: engagé.

Literary critics usually contrast this creed with “art for art’s sake”, or ‘degage’, if you like: the notion that an artist’s sensibility should be the sole spring of this art. This view though never had a wide appeal, and i imagine that in “oppressed” societies, such as ours, the doctrine of engage will get the nod each time -and it isn’t difficult to see why: when interests are near and pressing, art for art’s sake does rather look frivolous and tangential, like a luxury, you know, as if “language had gone on holiday”. Besides, who can resist the earnestness, the standing-on-the-moral-highground posturings, the slightly overdone maquillage, of engage? I was en-spelled by the doctrine, once.

When I was at high school in Banjul, in the mid - 1980s, engage was a word hot on every self-styled radical’s lips.  In fact, those with the hottest lips (not necessarily the deepest radicals), sought to conflate the doctrine with nationalism or patriotism. It was a most unfortunate confusion, for it allowed some to perch themselves on Mount Kilimanjaro, so to speak, and work their sophistical witchcraft on young impressionable minds. And it worked! the mixture got us all dislocatingly giddy with oppressed pride.

But that was then - our critical faculties were barely learning to crawl - and this is now, but now the faculties are tottering, (in confidence) with humility; and a lesson or two, learnt from all that tripping over, wrapped up the tiny feet.And here is an example of a lesson: If wanting a totally “committed” art is engage’s shortsightedness, not wanting any commitment at all might be degage’s. Neither is capable of giving us a balanced expression of any society.

The opposition here, then, is an artificial one, for it could be said that the doctrines are more complementary than antithetical, as each has its just emphasis in the creative process. True art, we are told, is born of the encounter, on equal terms, between the artist and his society. Any slave/master relationship will not only defraud us of the truly educative value of art, but art then wouldn’t be even able to deliver the ends to which it was perverted. Here, we get a lose, lose situation. For that reson, we had better understood the nature of art, give it its optimal condition of folurishing, and let it do what, at the best of times, it has always done: prefigure a future for man.

you would have noticed that I’ve been using “literature” and ‘art’ interchangeably. Well, I’ve been doing so because what is true of one is largely true of the other, in fact, literature is also referred to as the narrative art - so to my pedantic reader, please, grant me the licence, though I’m not writing poetry (was that pedantic?) anyway, back to the point. Works of literature are “representations or imitations of reality as it might be and perhaps is”.

This definition quite clearly covers art generally, because any piece of imaginative work is a ‘representation of something. A representation though is, by definition, not the thing itself: a work of art will therefore always stand at a “slight angle to reality”.

This raises all kinds of troublesome issues. For one, it reflects the long-noticed crack between language and reality - which is a whole subject of its own - but for our purposes, it raises the prospect that a work’s angle on reality might be ‘mistaken’ or indeed ‘faked’.(Yes, reader, a work of literature, like the famous “ah”, can be faked!) Hesiod’s Muses, I’ve been told, were wont to tease humans on the subject: “we know how to tell falsehoods that seem real, but we also know how to speak truth when we wish to”. In this, as in most things, an “interpretative patience” is what the doctor ordered.

If great works appear to stand “well-angled”, such that they seem to “lengthen their shadow” across centureis, they do so, I believe, propped up on the twin towers of “autonomy” and “disinterestedness”. My point should become clearer after we’ve trekked into the nature of our understanding and of the creative imagination itself. It’s all quite certain to me that we can never fully grasp the mysterious nature of art without such a trek.

“The understanding”, according to the Engligh philosopher, John Locke, “like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself. It requires art to set it at a distance and make it its own object”. In other words, the mind doesn’t have a mind of its own, but through our imagination, art can become its mind.

Art can set the mind at a distance, make it its own object of study, and thereby see it when it doesn’t think that anyone was looking. “Thought trying to catch its tail” amidst all the anxieties, vanities, blind-spots, and everything else that makes up a mind. When art succeeds in putting before our eyes the understandings (or misunderstandings) of the mind, that creates a space in us for authentic self-awareness; which is quite, quite indispensible to evolving, uncertain, and hopeful people, such as we are.

And this is where the notion of disinterestedness is particularly important: without it we can never obtain true authenticity; for the needs of reality lie in patient study, a sense of truth and sincerity. “Things near us are seen of the size of life: things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding.” It goes then without saying, that the less deceived are really the people of the future.

The creative imagination is a most baffling feature of the human set up. And the first thing to be said about it is that no writer can determine what appeals to his. I call it nature’s ambassador or representative in man. I think it bears a relationship more to nature than to society. It resembles nature more in its autonomy, freedom, contradictions and variety; and in its play of chance, accident, fortune and adventure.

Only on its grounds, can we re-imagine the boundaries of our lifes. If there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in any philosophy, it is so because, art, not philosophy, does such ‘impossible’ dreamings. What was once strange and erroneous may very well become normal and acceptable: it is art which discovers the undiscovered, and dreams up the unprepared-for and the unheard-of. So when give it its autonomy we are really giving ourselves a chance to discover “another way to authenticity”.

The American essayist, Cynthia Ozick, got there first, in her book, What Henry James Knew, suggesting, rather seductively I think, that a “book may know more than its author does, or it may know different things”: more about its own matter, more about its own mood and motives, and certainly more about the author’s thread of thought. Literature, the argument goes, is written neither by the brain nor by the mind, but by the sensibility; and each discovery by the sensibility is in fact a discovery of theme, though the author might not be aware of it. True art then bears a relationship not to society per se, but to society’s vitality.

I also want our writers to write about the ‘burning issues’, but I do not believe that the indirections of art can serve the immediacy of our need, in any direct way.

Practical reason, rational concepts, organised and systematic  frameworks of discourse - these are the tools and processes which stand the best chance of solving the “burning issues”. Politics, sociology, or the social sciences generally, to which the burning issues properly belong, have adapted mathematical techniques - “deduction from ‘self-evident’ axioms according to fixed rules, tests of internal consistency, a priori methods, standards of clarity and rigour proper to mathematics” - as their favoured method of discovery.

These techniques discover quantifiable properties of what is revealed to the senses, whereas art discovers immeasurable ‘qualities’ revealed only by the sensibility. The great novelist may moonlight as a pamphleteer, but he will never confuse the two. He would have known that “journalism is the first draft of history”, not fiction. And that great literature takes its rise from the depth of memory, as only memory writes deep. “We find the inner future in the past in which so much that is eternal was enclosed.” The present is never around long enough; hence any art inspired by the merely ‘present’ can rest assured of a speedy ride to oblivion.

Now, to the creature, the creature which has been fluttering about for attention, in all this: what is the role of the artist in a time of struggle? The answer is quite simple, really; and i’ll begin my answer by posing another question: What is the point of asking art to do what it patently cannot do, thereby giving us less, where we should expect more? If the artist succeeds in producing genuine art, the question resolves itself, indeed it does not even arise. Art can contribute successfully, efficiently, to the struggle by being itself; rather than its looking over its shoulder, to politics or ideology or any of the various ‘ologies’ and ‘isms’ which, as if playing musical chairs, take turns, one becoming fasihonable today, another, tomorrow; ism upon ology upon ism ad nauseum, while the great works will outlive all of them.

Art is not so much in the loftiness of the subject matter as in the “artistic modulation and balance” of that matter. Its formal and technical patterning undercut any simple congruence between it and life. The poet, on being told of the death of his daughter, cannot burst into a poem - after the man has shed his tears, the poet will have to knuckle down to his rhymes. And his rhymes when fizzing with life will almost always lead him to unscheduled detours. The creative process is always a voyage of discovery.

In the end, the “test of greatness is the page of history”. There are books being written today that would be read in a hundred years from now, and others which would be “still-born at press”. Only Judge Time will decide. But when literature is working successfully as such, it gives us a means “to withdraw from the details of our lives and to understand existence in terms of its general significance”.


Occupied with morality, it certainly is, but not necessarily with moralising. By its method of obliquity, its by-indirections-find-directions-out kind of stealthiness, and in the autonomous “play of wit, ideas and language”, literature keeps our certanties dizzy all the time; for it creates a realm where doubting never ends. And the lessons we learn from great books will run through the fabric of our growth, educating the emotions. In fact, the great lyric poet, Rilke, believes that the future enters into us that way; in order to transform itself in us long before it hapens.

“Knowledge is coarse, life is subtle, and literature corrects for the distance”: it lets us live with the distance, ie, its charms and incantations creep into our souls and lay upon our wounds. And as if performing a religious rite, the charms purify the wounds; and slowly, tiny flowers of faith will begin to grow on the wounds, in time. Then with this faith, we can wear our “tattered dress”, head held high, and walk into the “perpetual overhang” we call the future.

The just concluded International Homecoming Root Festival has been rated as the strongest and best in West Africa.

Speaking to Tourisphere at the offices of the Daily Observer recently at the end of this memorable festival, Mr Ikechi Uko, Chief Executive Officer of African Quarterly Travel, has applauded and rated the International Root Festival as the best among the five international events that have global recognition in West Africa.

Ikechi Uko who was accompanied by Mr B Nkeruwem, the president of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), he said that “Africa needs to transit and begin to market its culture. When people appreciate your culture they will appreciate you. And they will give you some value. That is the reason I am very impressed with the success of the International Root Festival because tourism now is about people and heritage.”  

According to Ikechi Uko, the kind of facilities and environment available in the Gambia, in compare to some other West African countries, are sufficient for tourists and tourism industries. He added that “The Gambia have efficient and people that are calm. This makes the country distinct from other African countries where there is lot of religion problem and crisis; it is a good example to the whole world not only Africa.”
 
The travel market guru has also confirmed that the 9th Edition of International Root Festival is the most robust among others since 1996. He noted that “Gambia has an opportunity as the market leader and the most developed tourism destination in West Africa to tap into the huge human capacity available in the region because there are 250-270 million people in West Africa.” He emphasized “if just a million of them can come to the Gambia it will boom the country tourism industry and sell the rest to the world tourism market.”