I identify as Mandinka in a Mandinka majority country. I am a Muslim, and we’re a supermajority here. I am a man, a dangerously dominant sex in this chauvinistic society. I’d never know how it feels to be a minority. But like many of us, a few times I felt othered. In one or two of those instances, some Mandinkas cut me off to talk about Mandinka things because they thought I wasn’t one of them. I could be a Jola, a brother to Mansa Appai, and hundreds of years ago, I was Serer. I was never bothered, shrugging all of it off like fali ye boo France. Why dwell on such ignorance when I know the power I carry with my triple Ms: Man, Muslim and Mandinka.
This was until I started my travels abroad, becoming a minority in those settings. I began feeling the quiet sting of being the “other” one. Some of those instances weren’t even remotely intended to be negative. Nothing could still be more unsettling than trying to find your place in a sea of people who do not share your racial, ethnic, class or religious identity. It gets worse when those individuals see you, sometimes unconsciously, as a suspect of their prejudice.
As I reflected through those experiences, I once thought of Aziz. I do not know what his surname was. He was from Senegal – or so I thought – so I naively concluded he was Wolof. He came to Brikama to work at a tailoring shop. He didn’t know a word of Mandinka. He’d come around, sit quietly by himself in a corner, and watch us chatter. We didn’t let him be. We had fun mocking and taunting him. After some time, he stopped coming.
I also thought of a strong, handsome boyhood colleague from Sittanunku in Nuimi. Ousman Balanta, as we called him, because he’s from the Balanta ethnic group. He was born there, spoke Mandinka fluently. In my vague memories, whether on the football field or in social settings, I could picture his struggles to fit in. His best friends were his younger brothers and cousins. Our best friends were always our age mates.
Those memories now fill me with a profound sense of shame, stealing away the fun I once thought I shared with them. Even as a child, or later a young person, there was no excuse for it. I wish I’d brought Aziz or Ousman much closer. I wish I’d stood up for them. I wish I’d asked them: what can we change?
I know my father would. I’ve watched him act as defence lawyer of sorts, and the de facto village chief for Ousman’s people. I sat through sessions as he mediated their troubles even among themselves. He even made us share a food bowl with them – something we didn’t like and grumbled about because they were “others,” including being non-Muslims. And, I knew my mom too would. I’ve watched her remove her headtie, tie it around her waist, and engage in a fistfight with people twice her size just because that person cut in line at the village’s only water tap and removed a minority’s or a younger person’s bucket.
I want my son to remember me like them. Unfortunately, I do not have the wisdom and eloquence of my father. And I do not have the courage and tenacity of my mother. So, in naming him, I mean my cute son, I chose a middle name for him: Kairaba. This was an intentional act, rooted in the wisdom of our ancestors, so that he’ll grow to embody its meaning.
That I find myself in journalism, and the kind of journalist I am cannot only be attributed to the strong hand of destiny. It is shaped by the values my parents held and passed down, my own lived experiences – times that I’ve belonged and times I’ve felt excluded – and a growing sense of responsibility to do better, for me, and where I call home. And I find so much peace in it. Behind my back, friends like Omar Wally, Buba Njie and Alieu Sowe call me “Jesus”. Sheriff Jr. wondered why I never got into “scandal”. Some said I don’t have opinions. I am no prophet. They know it. I know it. And I have very strong opinions. I have deliberately created a bottomless capacity to listen to “others”, to walk in their skin and even excuse their unjustified fears.
To me, being part of a majority or dominant group comes with responsibility. To recognise the fullness of the “others”. To act with empathy and full awareness of the sensibilities of those who do not share your privilege. Being a journalist requires careful detachment from, or to be more accurate, balancing of communal or ideological alignments with professional integrity and impartiality.
It doesn’t mean the majority or dominant group’s insecurities shouldn’t be tended to. They have sensitivities and we should be mindful of the destructive capabilities of a majority or dominant group that feels threatened in its own setting. .
So, Mandinka phobia also exists.
One day, a Gambian-born Nigerian friend asked if I truly am Mandinka because I was “too nice” to be one. I was deeply offended by her insult. Then, she explained that a lot of her Gambian friends are not Mandinkas. They told her the Mandinkas are hostile to non-Gambians.
What utter nonsense, I told her. Why is Gambia the Smiling Coast of Africa if Mandinkas are like that? And why is it consistently ranked as one of the most generous and peaceful in the world?
Then, another friend, a Wolof, born and bred in Gambia, but barely knows a word of Mandinka. She too once asked how I could be “this nice” as a Mandinka. “Point out one Mandinka that’s been bad to you,” I challenged her. She struggled. Then, she scanned her circle. Growing up, most of her friends were Wolofs. Now, most are Mandinkas. “And they’re all such nice people,” she told me, laughing. Then, she paused, thoughtful for a moment, before adding: “But what we were told when we were young was different.”
We all have experienced moments of derogatory and discriminatory attacks and exclusion based on lies told us about each other. We teach our kids to hate people they should love, play and do business with to become more sophisticated and successful in life. We claim to be more educated and more civilised. Yet, I’ve doubted – and still doubt – our generation would hold a Dawda Kairaba Jawara, a Christian, by his hands and ask him to lead us solely for his intellect and moral clarity as our fathers had done. We tend to choose leaders not for their vision. We follow those who echo our ethnic, religious and class prejudices.
So, the chaos triggered by Attack’s tribal rhetorics are just a microcosm of the dangerous level of intolerance and contempt we hold against each other. I know this because it is my job to talk to people from every group. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look at the data. More and more Gambians are reporting a growing sense of discrimination, according to various surveys, even with crazy high levels of intermarriage and family ties that stretch across ethnic and religious lines.
At the heart of it is a crisis of leadership. In fact, is there any leader at home?
The mushrooming of ethnic, class, and religious cleavages are primarily the handiwork of our leaders. I have actively searched for a credible and sustained effort by any leader to address the visible cracks on our social fabric. I could not find any. But I would not even blink to count dozens of sustained efforts to divide us. The leadership in the civil society leadership is no better, often drowned in these dangerous cleavages, muting or excusing horrible wrongs when the group they identify with is not affected.
In my experience, the leaders who mobilise and shepherd people like herds into these divisions are either corrupt or incompetent. Often, they’re both. Confront one corrupt or incompetent one and he’d run to hide behind the herd and claim that he’s under attack from a certain group. Call one ethnic meeting today, and these elites would rush in, claim the front row, and dominate the stage because they want to be seen as defenders of the community when, in reality, they need the community’s support for their dubious behaviors. They merely drop crumbs from their fancy tables in the form of football jerseys. Jobs for the youth and fence for women’s gardens are for foreign donors to do.
The Gambia is becoming increasingly unlivable. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Historians such as Hassoum Ceesay have noted that our demographic makeup and geographic context are what underpin our widely respected tradition of tolerance. Early colonial writers have highlighted how not a single region in the country is constituted primarily by one ethnolinguistic group, and the result is incredible.
Take my favourite topic, for example, food, which is inherently tribal. In many African countries, ethnic groups maintain their distinct dishes and rarely share them across those lines. We’re not like Senegal either, where one culinary identity overly dominates, forcing Senegalese to create ninety-something different variations of “benachin” to feign diversity. In our case, what has become cutely trendy in many Gambian households is how tribal meals are shared across ethnic lines, almost like a weekly schedule. Go to a Wolof household on a Friday, and you’ll find “mbahal”, a Jola dish. In a Mandinka naming ceremony, it is always “benachin”, a Wolof dish.
Imagine if this is used to brand and position The Gambia as some exotic destination for food and cultural tourism. Oh, I miss Rahma’s Kitchen.
Imagine if we create an annual national conference and festival out of our growing ethnic events where, on one single stage, we promote cultural understanding, celebrate our diversity and foster dialogue.
Imagine if we create a fellowship where young people from different ethnic, religious, regional and class backgrounds are paired with host families from communities different from their own, and over the course of several weeks, live, eat and participate in the daily life of host households.
Imagine if we create a system where children like my son could say, without hesitation, “I am Mandinka-Fula,” and to express his full identity. Why must a child born of two cultures be forced to choose just one?
It’ll of course take visionary leadership to see and harness the opportunities in our diversity. It’ll also take noble and people-centred leadership to create and nurture an environment where we would not teach our kids that Mandinkas are hostile, Fulas are betrayers or thiefs, and Wolofs are selfish. Stereotypes dehumanise. And when we dehumanise, we lose the capacity to empathise. We justify and relish their misery because when Pateh meets Lang Kudang, he sees hostile first, before a human being. That’s how genocide happens. That’s how ethnic violence happens.
I cringe at the claim that “Our Country” is what unites us when we do not even know our borders. What binds us, practically, is the state: the institution that manages our shared resources, represents our collective interests, and through the rule of law and moral leadership, shows us how to live with one another. Call it outright socialism, but is there a better idea out there! The Government must be up to the task of uniting us.
But our leaders nowadays seem to think that governing is all about building new roads and bridges from foreign loans, and even when doing so, they destroy the social bridges that connect our peoples for centuries.
We must change course. If that means dismantling our current governance structures, so be it.
And talking of daring to change our democratic structures, imagine a power-sharing model where the presidency is limited to two terms, and leadership rotates by ethnic group.
Let me explain this treason.
Ethnic groups would be paired through a raffle. If, for example, Akus and Jolas are paired, only candidates from these two ethnic groups would run, though the whole nation would vote. The Aku presidential candidates would pick a Jola running mate. The roles would be switched after five years as it’d be the turn of Jolas to be president. But power won’t be handed like that. There’d be an election after five years, and this time around, Jola presidential candidates would pick an Aku running mate. If the incumbent wins, they’d complete their two terms. If they lose, they’d still be replaced by a new Jola-Aku team to complete the two term mandate. After ten years, it’ll be Mandinkas and Fulas. Individuals within ethnic groups will be free to organise into groupings and even form alliances with groups from each of the other ethnic groups. Imagine if Mandinka supremacists can have ideological alignments with Fula supremacists, then problemolou be banta.
The trouble with this system is that Jahankas and Tukulors would soon say they’re a distinct ethnic group. I won’t be surprised if my Baddibunka cousins join them.
Ministers and parliament? Let Sherif, Lat or Katim conspire with me in this treason – I can’t be the only one to be guillotined.
And maybe – just maybe – we’ll get the best of each ethnic group to lead us. And if any Jaranka fool comes forward, the Nuiminkas would be there to send them back to the baboons. But then, what’ll happen to the half-kasolou, including the many, many Mandinka-Wolofs?
The Time Magazine once wrote: “Our nation is calling for leadership. Is there anyone at home? I read after them here, eight years ago. I am still waiting to see a raised hand.
