Joking Relationship: Our Priceless Living Heritage

 

 

There is too much hatred, jealousy, confrontation, extremism, and aggression in our world today. We therefore need kissing points and shock absorbers to help save humanity from eventual self-destruction. Such kissing points can be found in our living African heritages like “Dankuto” and “Sanawya.”

 

Unfortunately, the Western curriculum, the psychological damages of colonialism and hypocrisy of the African elites of the day, politicians and intellectuals alike, make it difficult for Africans to adequately search their ancestral archives. The works of historians, anthropologists and authors like Patience Sonko-Godwin, Cheikh Anta Diop and Amadou Hampâté Ba are like deem lights in a bottom less pit of misrepresented African heritage. Culture is more than just music and dance. It is about what we wear, what we eat, what we say, how we see ourselves, how we deal with each other and most significantly, how we think.

 

The joking relationship is a sophisticated diplomatic tool that can effectively diffuse tensions, break deadlock and clarify sensitive issues. The end of the Kabu-Kansala war established the Dankuto joking relationship among the former warring ethnic groups of the SeneGambian basin. It can be compared to the “entente cordiale”of 8^th April 1904 between France and the United Kingdom following centuries of animosity. We in Africa and The Gambia in particular, have all what we need in solving our problems if we value where we come from. As Oumou Sy, the Senegalese fashion icon said, Africans do not have to give up their culture for the sake of cosmetic modernity. She said Africans should keep developing their civilization according to the needs of the time. Nigerian author Chinua Achebe of the “Things Fall Apart” fame once said that even the most valued tradition becomes obsolete with time. This in my understanding means we should be promoting our progressive values while challenging the harmful traditional practices that are hindering progress. It also means resisting divisive activities that reduce us to mere tribes and slaves.

 

In The Gambia, cross-tribal marriages have helped, and continue to help, strengthen the jovial bond and erode the exclusive ethnic barriers. At the height of the recent debate on tribalism, I told a friend that if I were the President of The Gambia, I would marry a wife from each of the ethnic groups of the Gambia to strengthen our national unity and harmony. I think Gambian tax payers would be willing to foot the bills of my all too important presidential harem while I serve my term! Please don’t laugh if you have teeth problems!

 

I spent my kindergarten days in the Kinshasa, D.R. Congo and I am very grateful to my mother for sending me back to my village to rediscover my Gambian and Sarahule roots. I grew in a microcosm which was like a miniature Gambia or Africa. All the major tribes of the Gambia live in our village. My paternal lineage provides the village Alkalos and my maternal side the Imams. My uncles and grandfathers married not just Sarahule women but also Fulas, Jolas, Mandinkas, Wollofs, Jahanka, Bambara, Temne, Dioula and you name it. As long as the woman is hot and beautiful, her national, ethnic or economic background did not matter; bad old boys! Despite the fact that my grandparents were Islamic scholars and ran Islamic Sufi mystic schools of the moderate Tijaniyaa Denomination, we had non-Muslim palm wine tapers in our village co-existing and interacting with us Muslims in peace and respect. I grew embracing tolerance and the permanent quest for wisdom. I was equally exposed to Western Education and Islamic Theology with room to make my own judgments, albeit responsibly. Imagine this in an African village setting which is often portrayed as a backward or primitive by some “civilized experts!” I am just proud of being Gambian and African!

 

During my primary school days, I felt for a very beautiful Fula girl from the neighbouring Fula village. This girl with the sweet name “Molingel” was better than the virgins in paradise advertised in the Holy Qur’an. Her name Molingel sounds like “morning angel” and she was in the true sense of the word an angel. Every Friday of the academic calendar, our School Headmaster, Jerreh L.K. Manneh, a native of Kiang Jenyerr, would organise sessions for traditional African songs and the pupils would sing in rotation. When Molingel sang, I got high blood pressure or as the Nigerians would call it “a go shakara.” Sadly those conservative Fula “Mawdos” married this rare diamond off before I could grab her. Were they not just wicked? They spoilt the girl’s education and subsequently denied me my deserved smooching moments. I say don’t laugh. A promisingly hot romance between a Fula angel and her Sarahule prince was strangulated in cold blood. I was later on compensated by Molignels bombastic Mandinka successors at Sukuta and Nursat Senior Secondary Schools. It is nice to be bad!

 

To keep seeing Molingel, I would volunteer to go to the Fula village to collect our weekly milk supply from the family entrusted with our cattle assets. The cattle herders would prevent us from looking at the girls balancing calabashes on their heads and cat walking elegantly along the farms singing romantic and provocative folksongs. My fellow kids and I would mock the herders by singing “ngainako yata Paris” which means “a cattle boy will not go to Paris.” They would run after us and beat us. In protest, we would wash our faces with the collected milk and pour the rest on our clothes, compelling them to milk the cows for a second time as they could not let us return empty handed. Oh, teenage misdemeanours!

 

My people, why torture your nerves over Yahya Jammeh and his politics when our collective Gambian heritage has a lot of rich stuff for us in stock? I am not surprise that Jammeh recognized this joking relationship during his son’s naming ceremony. Sincerely writing, I personally witnessed Jammeh as a very jovial and humorous person. But I think I can beat Jammeh in a humour contest. However, until I see concrete admissible evidence linking Jammeh with the inhuman activities being said about him, I would reserve my conclusive judgment on him. I know power changes every human being but that is not an issue here.

 

I am just wondering whether my brother Jammeh is not seeing the Gambian beauties under his nose. I mean, the Mandinka girls are brave, the Wollof girls are sensual, the Fula girls are smart, the Sarahule girls are innocent and the Jola girls are modest. The Tukulor girls are the epitome of authentic natural beauty without “hesal” skin bleaching and rotten body creams.

 

If there is anything I missed about the Gambia, is the rejuvenating smile of an elegant Tukulor black belle. Whenever I see a Tukulor chick, I feel like a boy in hot store of Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Roll Royce cars! I wish could marry or at least make one my mistress. Any man who is looking for an additional unspoilt beauty from 21^st Century SeneGambia should marry a Tukulor lady. They are among the last remaining exclusive trophies for the spoilt kids of my calibre. Please note that the bottom-line of any fruitful matrimony is tolerance. No matter how sweet a woman is if you do not invest time, resources, energy and patience in training and understanding her, you won’t enjoy her.

 

To the moral apostles who would like to accuse me of promoting obscenity, I say sensuality and romance are part of our living African heritage just like the general joking relationship. Are you not hearing men debating that the Senegalese women can pamper their husbands better than the Gambian women and the Wollof ladies often become the darling wives in polygamous marriages thanks to their small romantic tricks? Don’t tell me you never heard of the Fulanic nyamu jodo (eat and settle) love portion verified few days ago by my brother Tejan Nimaga of Bronx New York at thegambiaecho.com. I believe in love and in the celebration of love without cultural hypocrisy. Where can we place the indigenous seductive dresses and lingerie accessories like “chang-als”, “bechos” and “jeljelis”? They are made in SeneGambia! La vie est belle (life is beautiful). Chill out boys and girls and to Hell with the moral hypocrites!

 

I would like to quote Lamin Sabally’s “reminder that the Gambia has a unique national heritage and cultural norm embedded in our collective ethic diversity in unity in the form of a nationally cherished joking relationship which must be preserved for posterity.” Let us develop our progressive living heritages irrespective of ethnic, religious or political affiliations.

 

My thanks to Femi Peters Junior for his new column “LEE AK LAHLAE” at allgambian.net. Similar thanks to PK Jarju for his thought-provoking “PK’s Beef”. Despite his hard stance and my softness towards Yahya Jammeh, I firmly believe we are all in the same process of nation building. Our Gambia is the ultimate winner in our common civilized battle of ideas.

 

Long Live Tolerance, Dankuto and Sanawya!

 

Peace and Love from

Bubacarr Sankanu

Bubacarr@gmx.net