Pa Musa Jallow Clarifies

Dear Mr. Mbai (Pa Nderry)

I herein re forward the initial letter and posting I made to you on 25th May 2008 that you were most kind enough to publish and so did Allgambian.net who was equally copied and the gambiapost forum.

I have no idea who Ms Ollie Saine is and why she chose to re-send my piece which is now old news and it could just be a case of forward or reply all, but I assure you that my letter then as even now had no hidden agenda or other purpose except to alert you on the hurt and despair that was felt by what I thought was unwarranted and unjustified labelling of persons due to ethnic or other origin that none of us have any control over.

Nonetheless I send you and everyone assurances of my highest considerations.
Assalam alaikum.

Pa Musa Jallow

----- Original message -----
From: "pa musa jallow" <pamusajallow@eml.cc>
To: dialog@gambiapostforum.com
Cc: Panderrymbai@gmail.com, papak196@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 08:24:56 -0700
Subject: Printing of the names of our Jola Compatriots serving the
Gambia   Government

Dear Pa Nderry,

First I apologize for the presumption that you or anyone will listen to
me but as a Gambian, a Pan African, a Muslim and a Human Being, I am very disturbed by the above direction.

I respect your right and role as a journalist and your dedication to all
issues Gambian but as humans, we can all make mistakes. I believe that maybe your intention is not to stir ethnic antagonism and even maybe to reveal what you perceive as President Jammeh's ethnic biases but I think what you are doing in this particular case is the right way to go about it.

But I urge you to review this stand as even if you are right you risk
also being reverse ethnicist. [I am sure you are aware of victims of
racism and racists become reverse racists]. One can ask why are you only selecting the Jolas, when a greater majority of people in Public and Civil Services of The Gambia are non-Jola. Where are the Fula, Wollof and Serere secretaries, PROs et cetera working for the APRC government.

As a brother, I think what you are doing is not useful and helpful and
some of the names on your list are Civil Servants not Political
appointees. They have every right to work for the State and like many of us, who worked for the State, that has no bearing on our political leanings and our ethnicity is one thing we did not choose, being an accident of birth.

I am adding my humble voice to this because I find it perturbing. We should not discriminate on the bases of ethnicity, race, creed or
national origin.

You, Pa Kemo and myself are all Gambians in the Diaspora, we face this daily as Immigrants and we still expect that our human and civil rights will be respected. So in return, let us respect the human and civil rights of such persons as secretaries serving with the Gambia Government.

To be fair to you, I am also disturbed by the attacks on Mr Dida Halake based on his ethnic and national origins, we may disagree strongly with him and/or his ways but that should translate to his being originally non Gambian or his ethnicity.

If you have a beef with senior public servants and President Jammeh, I believe you have every right to write and criticize them because they are Senior Public Officials and in the public domain, I still hold that their families are private and not fair game.

I hope and urge you to please discontinue this particular line of attack and I send you and Pa Kemo both my regards.

Pa Musa Jallow
Nottingham, UK

PS - Pa Nderry, I used to work at The Gambia Civil Aviation Authority from 1995 to 2002 and I was dismissed and arrested/investigated several times and at length by the NIA before my travel documents were released.
I have since left The Gambia and worked for the United Nations in post conflict countries namely Afghanistan and Sudan and now work in the UK and Ireland. So I am not an apologist for the APRC Government nor seeking any favours from anyone.  I have seen the real results from ethnic hatred and have personal experience/relation with Rwanda and
Rwandese and all these people that got caught up in the ensuing genocide had justified reasons in their own minds but they were wrong.
No person, ethnic group, race, or creed has a monopoly on right and/or wrong.

I urge you to visit the Charles Taylor trials at the Hague to see some
of the consequences of hatred and know why we all should be careful about our own roles. As salam alaikum

http://charlestaylortrial.org/

--
 pa musa jallow
 pamusajallow@eml.cc