There are three things among others that I will never be embarrassed or apologetic for – My FAITH. MY RACE. MY TRIBE. These composed my identity and I can’t run away from. To disparage me by attacking them amounts to disrespecting and insulting my being. When that happens, I cannot reserve any degree of love or respect for you. It does not make me a Bigot, a Racist or Tribalist. You identity is Your Pride. I’m not going to be wearing it around my neck to hate, love, and embrace or discriminate. When that happens that’s when it becomes abhorrent and dangerous. Allah acknowledges, respects our (distinct) identities – Tribes and Nations in the Quran, and it was not for nothing.
‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).’ – Quran Surah 49:13
While we’re worried about President Jammeh and his government looting and misappropriating our state resources, abusing and exiling us, we tend to dismiss his public inflammatory rhetoric as ‘insanity’ and Jammeh rants. In doing so we are giving him the green card to continue this dangerous path.
What we may be involuntarily doing is fanning his sadistic and dangerous fire by ignoring his incendiary and deliberate tribal diatribes that could plunge the little Gambia into ethnic and civil chaos. From recent history, we’ve seen how ethic violence in Bosnia, Rwanda and Burundi could lead to an annihilation of a whole ethnicity and their identities, fueled by idiots like Yaya with a platform. Fortunately for us, thus far Jammeh is the only Gambian propagating tribal hatred and discord.
I’d not have any qualms with Yaya Jammeh the person having the sentiments he has towards Mandinkas. That is his prerogative. What troubles and disgusts me is Yaya Jammeh the president of the Gambia’s incessant obsession with vile remarks, insults and threats towards a particular group of people because of their ethnicity any time he is accorded the opportunity. As a matter of fact, Yaya’s discomfort and resulting vitriol towards the Mandinkas has gone beyond verbal pronouncements to become executive and government policy where they get targeted, discriminated and marginalized. For an elected president to comfortably state or make it a policy that he prefers one particular tribe to another is not only discriminating but troubling, despite swearing to serve and execute his duties without fear or favor, affection or ill-will.
For far too long, we have avoided this conversation in the mainstream discourses for fear of being labeled tribalist. It makes us uncomfortable. For 20 years, we’ve watched Jammeh say the most disrespectful things on TV and political platforms about a particular tribe and we passingly condemn or laughed them off. Habitually, he’d go to a predominantly Mandinka communities with the likes of Yankuba Touray and the seyfos warning and threatening them against tribal politics and division, setting the stage for Yaya to masturbate rubbish while our parents shamefully grin. He’d wag his fingers, raise his voice at them and call them, their kids unpatriotic souls and enemies of the country. What a disingenuous lie! Objective is clear and the mission defined. This nigga is a divisive, hateful being. What would my parents and I gain in hating the Gambia? Why would I set the one place I call home ablaze?
‘WHO TAUGHT YOU TO HATE YOURSELF?’ Malcolm X asked his people. Well let’s ask ourselves the same question. Could you imagine a little white boy walking around in a black neighborhood screaming “NIGGER!’? Or a black boy in a Klan town singing ‘Cracker Cracker!’ So in as much as I want to squeeze the living soul out of Jammeh, I have to be realistic that the Mandinkas made him this comfortable to even have the audacity. If I am comfortable enough to tell your derogatory things about your family, I must have sensed how you feel about your own. I cannot respect a man who pisses on his people just so he could fit in.
Since 1994 there has never been a shortage of Mandinkas used by Jammeh against their own. From Almamo Manneh, Baba Jobe, Tabora Manneh, Yankuba Touray, Kaba Bajo, Momodou Sabally, all would jump at the chance to berate their own parents and their identity just to be close to the president. But good old Yaya ends up destroying them one by one and move to the next. Ndey Tapha Sosseh aptly argued this in her piece a couple of years ago. Yaya will continue to insult us because WE let him. We insult ourselves by running and fighting over his crumbs.
So Who Taught Us to Hate Ourselves? Yaya Jammeh. He is not stupid. Jammeh has succeeded in beating the esteem out of us with the help of shameless, selfish and embarrassing Mandinkas to an extend that we are afraid and embarrassed to identify ourselves as Mandinkas. The Gambian Mandinka is the only kind you’d ask ‘where are you from?’ and he responds with ‘I was born in Jarra BUT I went to school in Kanifing’. We’re the only one’s you’d ask ‘What are you?’ and we tell you ‘My mom and dad are Mandinkas but my aunt’s co-wife is a Hausa’. God forbid you mistakenly take them for a UDP sympathizer. They’d swear that they’d detonate a grenade at a UDP rally. Yaya Jammeh has succeeded in emasculating us. He’s succeeded very little efforts, to have us shun our identity and embarrassed to speak or admit being a Mandinka in public much more before him. He understands the psychological domination, and then dangles a position before these greedy, low self-esteem idiots and they drown each other in a gas tank just to please him. Gathers and calls them filth and scumbags, and they applaud. It is a shame!
I dislike President Jammeh NOT because he is a Jola or he’s from Foni. And will not follow that with the qualifying statement that ‘I am not tribalist because my friends are Jolas’. I have never seen the need why people use that defensive line when they do not have hold such feeling. I do not support him because I do not agree with the way he runs the affairs our country. This has nothing to do with his tribe. I will not support him because he has become more everything that he claimed was wrong with the first republic. I cannot be voting or remotely working with an elected president who has no respect for his nationals. In a conscious democracy, Yaya would never utter such slurs towards a demography that has numbers on their side knowing that would cost him. It wouldn’t happen. So I am not asking anybody to vote against Yaya on tribal lines, but I will unapologetically ask that you turn your backs against a man who shares nothing in common with you and does bat an eye to disrespect you in your face. This is not just for the Mandinkas but anybody who respect decency and frown on the hatred propagated by Jammeh. Today he has his arsenal on the Mandinkas, tomorrow could be you. Politics is an interest game. You’d be foolish to continue voting for a known tribalist and imbecile SOB.He can get raped by a gang of apes and contact ebola for all I know. This nigga disgusts me!
Pata PJ
Ends
Jammeh’s hatred and bigotry towards 45 percent of The Gambian population which is mandinka ethinicity is not new and it has been part of his overall objectives , policies and inherently discrimination or target of this group . This is why I believe he has succeeded in putting in place tribal ( jola) hegemony by appointments of majority of his tribe in most senior leadership positions. Selfish mandinkas like baba Jobe , Bajo, sabally , and others politicians helped this erratic and imbecile to systematically exiled , eliminate , prisoned and discriminate against mandinkas. Attacking someone identity or tribe is not only bigotry but ungodly. I don’t blame Jammeh for his ignorance entirely but my Blame to goes to Gambian people who continue to allow the idiotic leader to prepare for sowing the seed of tribal discord and possible civil confict. Whenever jammeh felt threaten especially after UDP and militia police stand off , he will use hate speech against mandinkas while military fail to use extra-constitutional means to prevent possible tribal conflict. The failure of military or popular uprising to preserve national security and interest by removing him will lead to jammeh’s continuous propagation of hatred towards mandinkas. Politically , Jammeh is using hate speech against mandinkas so that he can set other tribes to hate possible Udp candidate who might be mandinka and also to generally blame mandinkas for all his failures. It is past time Gambian people accept the truth and get rid of this menace of our country .
Max our people are divided, Jammeh is using this division to his advantage , Lincoln once said “a house divided against its self cannot stand”
The Mandingos are divided , the country is divided this is why Jammeh can do what ever he wants
The mandinkas he is insulting today will be glad to take his positions tomorrow even the ones he jailed
Foroyaa is dead
It’s all about what I can get at the expense of others.
If an issue doesn’t affect the average Gambian’s family he/she won’t care .
Sabally and the likes are hoping and praying to be recalled
Jammeh is scared to death because of the recent UDP standoff so he is trying to survive by dividing tribes
Guess what? the price of a bag of rice is the same for all tribes
The Wollof were also insulted. This because equating five Wollofs to one Mandinka is an insult to the Wollof.
It all happens when wrath befalls a country and a lunatic becomes president. A president of a country tells you a lot about the people of that country though sad to say. The level of our collective state of mind is indicated in what you see around you in the Gambia. It is a small country but yet dusty, full of strewn garbage in urban areas and without a significant infrastructure. This is simply because its people lack a collective mental positiveness thus caring less for their future generations..
” THEY LET HIM “, the writer wrote…..
No, they didn’t….We did…Let’s not “hang” this shirking of National duty and responsibility around the “necks” of the Mandinkas alone…It is a collective failure..We have failed to put Jammeh in his place, when he has gone out of order and said inappropriate things or committed unconstitutional acts….We have made it a national hobby to either shut our mouths on such occasions or worse still, publicly appease him (either by begging for his “generosity” or “forgiveness) and this continues to inflate his ego beyond imagination, and drive his insanity further, towards self destruction or a national calamity….Such an eventuality is inescapable because something got to give…
I agree with comment @Brikama that to equate five Wollofs to one Mandinka is insulting to the Wollofs, even if that was not the intention…But I doubt whether he cares if the Wollofs and Fulas felt insulted by his “anti-Mandinka” remarks…Perhaps,the only homogenous group spared from Jammeh’s insults is The Gambian Women…He has insulted Gambian Men, Youths, Soldiers, Traders, Students, Religious Leaders…Almost everyone…The man’s insanity is no longer a doubt…What is doubtful is the degenerative stage of his mind…
Bax, women probably were not insulted by Jammeh but an unfortunate part of their population are initiated prostitutes in Yaya’s stolen ‘home-coming-roots-festival’ in Kanilai, and sexual properties of his junta. Isn’t prostituting them not the worst thing could have happen to them?
• The tribalism illustrates the consequences of prejudice, But some instances like this one, Is nothing other than Anguish , Weakness, Grief, Misery, Despair and Jealousy, Yaya Jammeh harbor all these from poor childhood to State House, we have no choice but reestablish the origin and identity of this man.
we’re also forced to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.
Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud of, would use the last resource of the country to which he never contribute a single thing into, he is ready to defend all his faults and failures, only to help himself for his own inferiority.
Weakness is what brings ignorance, Tribalism, Homophobia, Desperation, Cruelty, Brutality, all these things that will keep the whole society chained to the ground, So this is not Mandika only problem, because tribalism is learned behavior toward persons or group so is every body’s problem, but if Mandinko’s choose to fight alone they have every right, and in this case I support fight fire with fire tactic . My advice for you though , don’t fight Tribalism with Tribalism.
Bourne, that is definitely a sad situation. IT IS A SMALL COUNTRY BUT YET DUSTY; FULL OF STREWN GARBAGE IN URBAN AREAS AND WITHOUT A SIGNIFICANT INFRASTRUCTURE. This is definitely the case if I want to tell my self the truth, and much more disheartening yet when Gambians from communities across the whole country will organise into COMPINOS and go slave themselves in the presidential farms in Kanilai. This in my opinion, is not due to the lack of intellectualism but indeed to the lack of light within the confines of our hearts.
I have said it here over and over that this Yahya Jammeh is a threat to every single Mandinka in The gambia and also the peaceful co-existance of the tribes in The Gambia.
Mandinkas have been living in The gambia since the 11th century and have been the first settlers of most part of the country including Basse, then known as Turamakang Tenda signifying the visit of the renowned mandingo general under Sundiata Keita, Turamakang Trawally. This visit made mandinkas in the then Kingdom of Mali to become aware of Gambia, then known by mandinkas as “Kambi-yaa”, meaning Kambi’s place. In the 16 century, there was a mass mandingo migration from the East of the then Mali empire to The Gambia. A further mandingo migration from Kabu was recorded in the 17 and 18 Century. It continued right up to the 19th Century when mandingo villages like Bantatu in Fulladu were founded mandinkas. Most of the land mandinkas settled on in the gambia were uninhabited making the mandinkas the first settlers in those parts of the country. So yes, mandinkas do not own Gambia but we are an integral part of that country and we will not abandon it for anybody’s comfort or pleasure no matter what. Get this in your skull Mr Mandinkaphobic.
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The insults are demeaning but aren’t new & will only end with the ousting of the Murderous kanilai Killer Devil; so we will go to the wire; NO retreat, NO surrender to the bitter end…..!!!
Just like others before me, I too believe it shows the troubled state of mind of the Predatory Murderer
which is getting worse gradually with time. Evil kanilai Murderous Beast is right; Mandinkas are out to terminate its Evilness; will NOT rest until the country taken to hostage is salvaged; it’s our birthright to tactically endeavour collectively to reclaim the motherland from decadence by all means necessary with minimal repercussions to the population….
Insulting people & tribes will not deter anyone from our desired aspirations of reclaiming the country; we will see who lasts the struggle; the masses versus the Evil Satanic Murderous kanilai Butcher & aid-abettors….
God helps & bless the collective endeavour to salvage Gambia; Ameen.
It is human nature to live in the past and not in the present moment. A brave does what he does living only in the moment, keeping it moving. He takes his wins and losses with a grain a salt. This is why the brave have no problem fighting battle after battle, that’s what makes him the brave, he has no regrets. On the other hand a coward constantly tortures himself by rethinking the past. Every time he does this he relives the event having the pain and regret come along with it, over and over. This is a form of self-inflicting torture; this is why he’s a coward. Let us look forward and collectively build up the future of our children and the grand children, every single Gambian has responsibility of the social and development of the Gambia. The mistakes had been done from day-one-, but that those not mean, the future too would not be successful, no turning back, let’s move forward under unify umbrella that would be the only solution to fix the past. May Allah guide us all?
Very cons’TROY’ctive ‘fight fire with fire tactic’. Isn’t that the best tactic.
Jammeh’s tactic is to insult Mandinka speaking people in general terms knowing fully well that Mandinkas supporting his party will not ascribe the insults to them and that those Mandinka speaking people who are not supporting or benefiting from his regime would be the likely ones to get annoyed by it and who would in turn insult the Jola speaking people and even other language groupings so that it would appear as if there is a tribal problem in Gambian politics between ethnicities when it in fact there is no such thing.
So as you can see to follow Jammeh’s tactic to isolate the Mandinka speaking people from the other ethnic groups has an objective of creating animosity between them where he would pretend as their saviour from the so called Mandinka domination.
My advice is that the opposition should not swallow that bait this time around. They should ignore Jammeh’s tactic and concentrate on their own tactics by continuing enlightening the electorate on their programmes and what have you. The more the people collectively understand his tactic of pitting them together for his own interest just because of his fear of losing them, the more he would be isolated and eventually defeated.
Let us see Gambia as our collective property and home and accept that it equally belongs to all irrespective of ethnicity and other parochial considerations and refused anybody with ulterior motive to cajole us into conflict camps for political gain.
Let us not accept going into such lengths in trying to narrate history to show how Mandinka speaking people settled in those areas earlier than others out of context which would only serve the negative objective of efforts in unifying our people even if such narrations are historically true.
What Jammeh is doing is harming only himself and no one else. Insulting and threatening people will not serve any good purpose apart from isolating oneself politically. All groups are affected by the system and it behooves on all to unite and change it for our common good. Anything short of that is foolhardy.
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So even reciting Mandingo history against insults is negative? You are having a laugh.
Look guys, no particular tribe in The Gambia owns that country. It belongs to all the tribes including the Mandinkas. We the Mandingos are not and will never accept to be treated as second class citizens of The Gambia. The Mandinkaphobics need to understand that.
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Yaya jammeh suffers from inferiority complex. He so wished he was Mandinka but will never be Allah abarika…. his negative utterances towards mandinkas I will like to think has shamed all Gambians across the nation. He so wishes he was part of mandenkolu -sundjata seelu hence he values a single mandinka that high…..the people of the Gambia will use their intelligence and wisdom to get their nation back sooner than he thinks. Only jammeh and his gang will go down his way Allah.
Can any one confirm that this mandinka insult by Jammeh even took place as reported by Freedom this time around.I spoke to people in the Gambia but none could confirm it this time.
I spoke to someone recently from the Gambia and the person did not hear about Ya Binta and Minah Manneh or Yusupha Lowe.The people I spoke to on the phone seem to be very cautious with what they say. You cannot say,’yaya jammeh’ not even in your house.
To be definite with one self Salam, Jammeh’s pronounced hate for or his inferiority complex to Mandinkas, started when the hour hands of the AFPRC clock started ticking. No doubt that hypocrisy of half minded Mandinkas and all other tribes enabled him so, to be sure of such an ignorant and inferior attitude in him.
Who really cares to confirm where that lunatic has messed up and where he has not, at this point of time and state of the Gambia?
Salam: Thank you for asking the question. I have tried to inquire but could not also confirm it. What i am told is not directed to Mandinka speakers only but to the general public. My informant said Jammeh dismissed the Alkalo of Wassu because he the Alkalo blamed the organisers for not informing him regarding the meeting of the president in the village. He said people begged him to forgo the oversight which he said he accepted.
Informant said after the meeting, information came to say that the Alkalo was dismissed.
The informant also said Jammeh insulted the elders at Farafenne because he said they did not attend his meeting; that he was calling them foolish old and poorly clothed elders. That he said if anyone does not support his party or him and if he/she dies, he/she would go to hell.
My informant could confirm those statements but he said he could not confirm the word Mandinka in his statements.
Can anyone else confirm from sources in Gambia?
Sometimes as people, I think we have a tendency to be evasive of the facts within us and so we will game play them in arguements. I can run and run and run but, never can you run away from myself.
meant to write, ‘but I can never run away from myself’
Salam do u kno what u talking about.
Bakau, Salam and his likes are the ones who would rather see or have Jsmmeh’s insulting of mandinkas going unnoticed or unchallenged. It is not sustainable my friends.
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Salam jallow , majority of Gambian people did not know who is real jammeh. If they know who he is , they would March to people’s house In Banjul to finish him or flush him out . So it is irrelevant to ask whether this time he did his bigotry and hateful speech against mandinkas . What other prove do you need to be satisfied that he hate mandinkas when there are plenty evidence for all to see , unless you want to tell me that you are too ignorant about the Gambian politics and Jammeh’s erratic behaviors .Since Jammeh came to power , don’t you know that every time he felt threaten he would use hate speech against mandinkas . Yerro Ba , The mere fact that he rudely Insulted those elders in farafenni and other places clearly tell you he is tribalist and bigotry . Am sure if he has respect for his mother , he won’t insult someone’s else . Remember , it was the same Jammeh who indicated that falie Baldeh insulted his mother , and he won’t forgive those who insulted his mother .
The first time I walked in the Gambian embassy in DC to apply for a Visa was back in 2008, when I introduced myself the first thing that came out of Sanyang’s mouth was Oh Mandinko.
The hate doesn’t stop with Jammeh. While I do not duel on the anti mandinka sentiment I think we should be honest with our selves and recognize it.
Many years ago, I had a grand Pa who would querry every news I bring for him from town with the statement ” did you hear it from the radio. For him the only credible information is one that comes the then Radio Gambia. For Yerro and his kind, the only news about Gambia that will satisfy them is one printed in FOROYA. Let them remain in their closets and keep supplying lame and wooly explanation for Jammeh ‘s idiosyncratic behaviour. When we see bigtotry we know what it is and will call it out.
I for one is not taking it for anybody; Mandinkaphobia. What the heck is gone wrong with these people??
According to testimonies in Jambur village, they heard a loud or big explosion by a nearby bridge…….. BOOOOOM. This is an approximation of a line in the Foroyaa newspaper on Hon. Ousman Koro Ceesay’s murder. That kind of a reporting is why I lose confidence in them from being my mentors in constitutional and civic rights affairs since. I have never seen any journalism as naive as that. I can’t still get it out of my mind.
Yahya Jammeh knows that his days are numbered, he played all his cards now but the last card he have to play is tribal card. All what he is trying now is to bring a tribal conflict which can make him stay for a little longer. We have to know that Jammeh is in a very dire situation at moment. He is confused, isolated, the economy in mess, no Taiwan, no Qadafi, no Allah’s bank etc.The gulf Arabs who use to pump him money when he visit them with a Quran in his hand, came to know him, they don’t want to see his face now an example of which is, when he last went to Qatar, they send their minister of transport to come and pick him, not even the foreign minister.We have to also know that Jammeh will prefer to be kill than to leave office because he knows that, the doors of ICC are open waiting for him.
Mohamed Keita
Basel ,Switzerland
Thanks Pata. I will just repeat the same thing as I said in another article by Yerro Jallow. It is amazing that a small and inconsequential country like The Gambia may go down in History and the Guinness Book of Records as the only country ever to produce a president who speaks without his brain. That president is none other than Sheikh Professor Yahya Jammeh. Yahya has certainly beat the records of General Idi Amin, Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Hastings Kamuzu Banda and P.W. Botha – all former presidents who have distinguished themselves as completely queer presidents in their dealings with their compatriots. It beats my imagination how, out of over a million sane people, this small country is able to produce such an uncouth and a world-class buffoon as president. Is this man representative of Gambia and Gambians? I ask because the man is an embodiment of absolute folly and embarrassment who continues to make The Gambia a laughing stock everywhere. Anytime Yahya makes a statement, one wonders whether what one physically sees as a full-grown man in “Grand Boubou” is in fact not a five-year old child cavorting among his peers. It is no hyperbole to say that Yahya Jammeh always makes off-the-cuff remarks without thinking too deep about the consequences. I mean, we know he is “Sheikh Professor”, but that does not give him the license to go on stage to utter the sort of balderdash that comes out of him as president of The Gambia.
Wisdom, in all its ramifications, is supposedly enhanced by knowledge, experience and age. That means with time, knowledge and experience, humans are expected to be wiser and more mature. If this is indeed true, then Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh is expected to be among the renowned Magi in the country, if not on the entire African continent. However, what is embarrassing and sometimes so baffling is that after 21 years in power and 21 years of travel around the globe meeting different peoples, Yahya Jammeh continues to grow at the expense of his mind, evidenced by his comportment. In any case, the Mandingos, like any other tribe, will continue to exist willy nilly.