Sam Mohammed Kromah
28 April 2008
opinion
According to H. VonLau, we exist and survive by making judgments. In this big issue that has supposedly been shaping the fate of the Mandingo people in Liberia, our judgments are based on simplifications and generalizations, on what we have heard others saying about the Mandingo tribe. All people, particularly in a democracy, should deal with and judge these two words - Simplification and Generalization, with caution. The choice before us is bad and misleading, simplification and generalization.
As one should know, generalization guides public opinion, public opinion influences and sometimes determines government policy, and government policy holds the fatal trigger of war and peace, particularly when the subject is citizenship. Let us, therefore, be knowledgeable and just in our generalizations and simplifications. I think, the best way of looking at a chain of critical issues is to set the proper perspectives, indicate the chain of events and their characteristics and above all, establish a sense of right and fairness, if we want to treat this all important subject responsibly.
In furtherance, it is generally accepted by many philosophers that one can be knowledgeable and yet not wise. The only known outfit that knowledge has to wear is wisdom. Then, what should one expect of a knowledgeable person in the absence of wisdom. (Common sense)! Many Liberians have always viewed that question from the peripheral as a 20-20 vision in addressing the legal status of the Mandingo tribe in Liberia. The tribe has always been viewed as extraterrestrial elements. Sometimes it is not only suggested that they don't belong, they are told. Even if born here, naturalized, came from another country, or appear here through some metaphysical process, it does not matter, they are all Guineans. The impact is so devastating; some members of the tribe are beginning to believe it. If for some reasons a few excel to a position of power by accumulating wealth, political achievement, or acquire special skills, they are treated differently, not because they are Liberians but only because they are exceptional. And, they will continue to enjoy that special treatment as long as they remain to be needed or relevant. The few that manage to fly over the coo-coo's nest, sometimes tent to alienate their brothers and sisters for fear of losing their social standing and acceptance, you see it everyday.
As a member of the tribe, analytically, I have tried to figure out or identify the fundamental reasons for this general perception that Mandingo people are not citizens of Liberia. Please do not take this as a joke. A significant number of our population is convinced that the Mandingo tribe does not belong here (Liberia) as they are all Guineans. I have, therefore, drawn my conclusion based on two major factors: The perceived and speculative closeness of the Mandingo culture! The Mandingo culture is perceived as not very outsider friendly, even within their own social settings. Of course and as a matter of fact, like many cultures, certain aspects are considered as not been outsider friendly.
However, it will take more then this article to explain and for others to understand. Notwithstanding, I will attempt to decipher the methodical connections, misinterpretations, misconceptions, and most important, the intrigues of the Mandingo culture by introducing four unfamiliar words that have majestically and judiciously sustained the socio-economic, religious values and entrepreneurial orientation of the tribe, throughout the years. These shared standard values are the four pillars that are considered to be the driving force of the culture; Fabadinya- the protection of your immediate family name and pride Sananguya - the protection of the dignity and glory of the sub-tribe, i.e. Kromah, Jabateh, Donzo, Kamara, Swaray, Keita, Konneh, Sesay, Jan'neh, Sherif, Bility, Soumahoro-Kanneh, just to name a few. Kamesanya -your natural competitors in the healthiest sense. Individuals that you don't ever want your ugly side to be seen by. The purpose is to maintain purity within the family name and not being associated with anything indecent act, criminal, immoral or otherwise. (d) Lami-personal conscience-individual sense of right and Judgment. Without a formal exposure of these terms, one cannot remain outside and fully understand the intrigues. These are the fundamentals and the essentials of the culture and
Islam-the masses of our members are mostly illiterate and do not understand the dos and don'ts of Islam. In the absence of a formal education, the religion is left with most people without much understanding. It is, therefore, practiced with personal values, feelings and cultural understanding as how God is, how He should be and how He's going to get you, if you fall out of line and that line is drawn and defined by individual values, that, I consider a major dilemma. As the saying goes, "from clarity comes understanding, from understanding comes knowledge, and from knowledge then comes a peaceful co-existence". The majority of our Liberian population does not know much about the Mandingo tribe, in its purest sense. In the absence of a clear-cut understanding of the culture, the tribe comes under a Big Indictment. What is the crime?
Being Foreign! (Of course, there's a natural tendency for human beings to form an opinion on anything they do not understand). These opinions are translated into stigmatization based on their own personal interpretations, biases and prejudices. This has manifested itself into an ugly opinion on the tribe. Though the perception that some Mandingo people are foreigners has some physical reality but not unique to the Mandingo tribe. The Kissi, the Loma, the Mano, the Kpelle tribes also come from Guinea; the Krahn, the Gio, and the Grebo tribes come from the Ivory Coast. The Vai, the Gola, the Congor, the Mande, the Gbande and the Kissi also come from Sierra Leone. The Congors largely come from the United States.
It is necessary to note that the hate against the Mandingo tribe was never ever at this level. All through the years, the Mandingo tribe was never as involved in politics as it is today. The tribe was only interested in business and trade. For that matter, the tribe acquired prime properties along the trade routes in most major cities. This was natural as others had no interest in these areas.( Note: these are descendants of pyramid builders and descendants and tribe's men of Kanka Massa Mussa of Mali, the man who destroyed the gold price in the World during his trip to Hajj in 1324, during which trip Masa Mussa reported in Cairo that his predecessors had launched two expeditions to discover the limits of the Atlantic). Of course, this created some problems but not as severe as it is today.
The 1980-2000 political problems awakened the political consciousness of the tribe. Members figured that their investments could only be protected when they had that political leverage. Their entrepreneurial aggression was converted into a political aggression, and that, many cannot stomach. Absolute ownership of Guinea is given to the Mandingo tribe. The mere entrance to Liberia from any neighboring country by any member of the listed tribe is considered a perfect fit, except the Mandingoes. Realistically speaking, some of their actions could be understandable, but could it be justifiable? As disturbing as that is, it would not have mattered so much if these actions were limited to just individual acts, but they are not. Some of these actions are institutionalized. Prominent people in position of trust and power that have means to deliver on threats that they make should be considered as major concerns.
Since we do not have a straightforward answer for this 160-year-old Mandingo problem and there seems to be no national efforts to address it, I do have these suggestions and recommendations. I sincerely think that if these steps are taken, it will finally take care of this epidemic Mandingo problem. Frankly, I do not know what the original owners were thinking when they allowed these cardinal errors.. I do not know whether it was due to recklessness on their part or they didn't just care as to how these areas were called or named. Why did they permit these prominent areas to remain with Mandingo names, particularly the ones that carry a part of our patrimony? Their finger prints are all over on some of our historical cities, towns, statements, rivers, just to name a few. We can begin by changing the names of some or all of the names they have on our history and also do what the Ghanians did to us during the late sixties when the shipped all Liberians back to Liberia. Let's ship all of them back to Guinea or put a lid on this citizenship issue.
Here are some of the examples of the names we've in Liberia:
Congor-Hunger - due to language barriers, the settlers always went to King Sao Bosso Kamara when they ran out of supplies. They always pointed at their stomach, suggesting hunger; The King referred to them as hungry people (Congor People) ; This was before the return of the victims of the aborted slave trip from the Congo, (two words are harmonious, Congor and Congo).
Nducor-deadly river - (paraphrased), like the capital of Mali, Bamako (alligator infested water), the Meserrado River was called Nducor. The river killed many traders due to its strong under current and high and low tides; Sinkor - Returnees -Guinea also has a Sinkor, referencing the same; Sao Bosso - slaughter that sheep Sao Bosso Kamara's Statement: "Haven't you sold your land to the settlers and accepted payments? Let the Americans have their land immediately. Who so ever is not satisfied with my decision, let him tell me so. I swear, if they oblige me to come back and quite them, I will do so by cutting their heads from their shoulders as I did to old King George during my last visit to the Coast".
King Sao Bosso Kamara was the only King who had a recording secretary. He treated the settlers with honesty and dignity, based on the four (4) Mandingo words I used supra: Fabadinya, Sanangunya, Kamesanya and Lami; the uncontested and unshakeable fulcrum of the Mandingo Culture. Sao Bosso's statement raises two disturbing questions that the Mandingos have not been able to digest. Actually, it is not known if it is due to retrospective regrets, on the part of the settlers, or a mere oblivion. (1)How can the descendants and tribe's men of such a King who justly warned other tribal kings (had the means to deliver on his threats and warnings) for threatening to take back lands that they sold and accepted payments from the settlers be considered foreigners, with no justification? And (2) how come, the descendants of these settlers are not rolling their sleeves to come to the defense of the Mandingo people? Did the parents tell them anything? I do not want to draw any conclusion!!!
This initiated voyage is not only going to stop in Monrovia, we will continue the journey to Mali and eventually to North America where the Mandinga (present day Mandingo) traded with the Native Americans under the leadership of Abubakar who was nicknamed as Bubakari of Mali who introduced the West African gold trade and the art of alloying gold with copper and silver into the Americas. Gold, so alloyed, was named after the Mandinga province of Ghana from which the art originated. This is the same group that introduced the cotton almaizar to North America in between 1307-1312; this was before Columbus got disoriented on the high seas, (a food for thoughts).
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The issue of mandingoes citizenship is no crisis to Liberians, but has only been politicized by some brothers who see themselves as most Liberians than others. Can you point to any mandingoe person and tell if they were born in mainland Liberia? Who have control the economics for more than 75? Who determine what you eat and wear in Liberia? Who free you from the terror of Taylor? During the last war in Liberia, Dr. Mohammand Sieriff is a mandingoe who left his wife and children here in the United States and went to JFK in Liberia to save women & children. Why he never went to Guinea? The issue of where you come from will again causes us our lives, should it not be address now. thanks
Jackson Zleh Towah Washington DC
Excuse me Mr.Towah, I am not trying to be ethnocentric, but your last name indicates you hail from the South-eastern region (Grand Gedeh)to be specific. I am cognizant of the fact that, there are some mandingoes who originated from the Republic of Liberia, but if you can take the current census there are thirce of that population of mandingoes that are currently residing in Liberia illegally, but claiming citizenship only because they have families that are citizens of Liberia. As regards to the economy, the goal of every businessman is to maximize profit. With that been said, if mandingoes from other West African countries feel that the Liberian economy is blooming, they will definately take advantage of it and invest, but this does not legimize them to be citizens. Over the past decades, there have been influx of business-oriented Chinese and Lebanese to Liberia, should that give them the audacity to say they are citizens without been naturalized? I am not, I was not, and I can assure you that not even my fly can be a fan of former President Taylor. But, Woe unto you! so-called true son of "Mama Liberia" who congratulates "FOOLS" for committing autrocities against our people in struggling to bring down the throne of an elected president. Mandingoes did not liberate us. We were liberated by the grace of the Almighty God and the International Community. Remember no war ends on the battle field. If we are to forge ahead we should be cooperative, and erase those bad memories that embraced the downfall of certain personalities only because we believe that they have served as a hindren to our success or tribemen.
The issue of Mandingo in Liberia is about the rule of law, and ignoring among Liberian people. If you governed by labelling some group of your citizens as foreigners because they are not using western names, them the problem are the policy makers.
Because most Liberian don’t event know their own history, I think is were the problem is, if people are un aware of there history, their sense of belonging is lost, to cover up they looked to other people for answer.
Most people in position of power are bias and using Liberian as bamboozle.
The policy maker need to be aware of issues affecting the people, because, some Liberian make career mainly on Mandingo hate. Like the immigration. The blunder made by Taylor and his partnered, was based on Mandingo hated.
But one thing must be lucid to all, is that Mandingoes are not asking for reorganisation, what we are asking is to respect, the rule of law, because never again Mandingo will allow the behaviours of some Liberian in the past. This is call in Mandingo Jasa.
Samuka Dolley England.
The only mandingo-Liberians are the ones from Barkieledo up in Loffa. All the others are dangerous illegal aliens. Don't let them fool you. Be of the hand that rocks the cradle. Your children and great grand children will have no place to live in the future. I need not say more.
Look, If Mandingoes want to be Liberians let them do it the right way. Not by chopping our heads off or by selling poison salt to us.Every Liberian know his or her place of origin. Nimba belongs to Manos and Gios. their forefathers fought tribal wars and died on that land. Grand Bassa belongs to Bassa people, Cape Mount belongs the Vai tribes . Loffa,well if they want to give their land to Mandingoes, so be it. As for the rest of us,we want them to be part of us. But not by war.
Well, I'm a Loma boy from Lofa and i know the Mandingo people, you cna't effer to give a mandingo man even small place to sleep in your home becasue the next thing he will think that he is better than you. That's one thing that i really loath dispise about these people. And then they will want to say that lofa belong to them and we're not giving them that chance no way.
The only Mandingo-Liberians are the ones from Barkieledo,up in Loffa. All the others are dangerous illegal alliens. Don't let them fool you. Beware of the hand that rocks the cradle. You children,grandchildren and great grandchildren will have no place to live in the future. I need not say more.
See all comments (12).
On the issue about Mandingo been foreigners or citizen of Liberia, is an issue that must be fairly discuss between the government(BIN) of Liberia where the mentioned tribe has a number in its thousand residing in Liberia. I believe Liberian don't need a conversation on this issue nationally and that those who are deem to get citizenship whether born or resided in Liberia for a number of years should acquire citizenship like the law of the land state. But one thing that i do not agree with is where applicable those coming from other African conutries should be treated in the same way Liberian would be treated should the visit or reside in their country...Like Guniea. I must admit that Guniean who are in Liberia and not citizen should respect the laws of Liberia and shouldn't claims Liberian citizenship through a family member status, what it's has seem to be that this issue to a lot Liberian including mandingos in Liberia, justfying the right to be citizen of Liberia through viltual means is not the right way to go about it, and Liberia should be robust, vigilant, resillient and firm by printing the picture as it is. Not all Mandingo in Liberia are foreigners...but there is huge amount that are not from Liberia or resident of Liberia.