The Verdict
The Commercialisation Of Religion In The Gambia
By Adama Hawa
We are once again in the Gamo (Ziyara) season in The Gambia where everyday, on radio and television, as well as in other media outlets, we hear or read announcements of Gamos being organised all over the country, virtually on a daily basis, and they all invite President Jammeh and anyone else the organisers think would donate some money as special guests of honour.
This is once again another clear indication that most of these events have very little to do with religion but instead they have more to do with making as much money as possible from well-off people, some of whom are compelled to donate for various reasons. It is now a fashion for every little group as well as virtually all villages and little hamlets to organise Gamos where they invite people with influence, no doubt with the sole objective of making a lot of money.
As a result of this proliferation of Gamos, there has now emerged a clique of Talibes and pseudo-Islamic scholars going about looking for such events where they can be hired as preachers or singers, no doubt to make as much money as possible.
One may be tempted to ask how did The Gambia has come to this? While the answer may not be quite straight forward, certainly, the false image created by Yahya Jammeh and his group of pseudo-Islamists has played a vital part in this craze to use religion to make money.
We can recall that shortly after Jammeh and his military boys came to power, the first thing he did was to assume a queer form of Islamic dress, he then took the unprecedented step of constructing a mosque at State House and ordered the writing of Quranic Verses on all public buildings.
The next thing he did was to create a religious portfolio, which he assigned only to those more versed in the Quran, which was an indication that the idea was to only concentrate on Islam and completely ignore the other denominations, despite the fact that The Gambia is constitutionally a secular state. He also virtually brought the Supreme Islamic Council and the National Hajj Committee under the direct purview of the Religious Affairs portfolio by appointing only those who openly identified with the regime as their heads, thus making them de facto quasi-government agencies.
Therefore, since the assumption of power by the A(F)PRC regime, this country has virtually been transformed into a Caliphate, with Yahya Jammeh behaving like sultan rather that an elected political leader, with Islam playing quite a prominent role in the everyday life of Gambians. Every year, he spends millions of Dalasis of his ill-gotten wealth to sponsor people to perform the Hajj, no doubt to score some political points rather than earn religious blessing.
While such a development could have been good for the moral development of the nation, instead it seems to have had the opposite effect. This is because there is more hypocrisy in the way and manner it is being implemented.
As a result of such a posture by Yahya Jammeh and his psuedo-Islamist colleagues, the fanatics in the society like Imam Abdoulie Fatty and other fundamentalists seem to have taken advantage of the situation and started to impose their hardline Islamic dogma on the society, using all kinds of crude methods to achieve their selfish ends.
As a result of the activities of these fundamentalists, no doubt encouraged by Yahya Jammeh's psuedo-populist attitude to Islam, this once religious tolerant country was almost brought to the brink of an inter-religious conflict in 2003 when they attempted to impose the Hijab (veil) on the Catholic run schools. It was thanks to the stiff resistance of a majority of the society that trouble was averted.
It is a well known fact that the different religious denominations in this country that used to co-exist in peace and tranquillity since time immemorial have now been rendered suspicious of each other, thanks to these hardliners encouraged by Yahya Jammeh's false attitude towards Islam. We all saw what happened to the Ahmaddiya Jamat when Imam Fatty mis-used his unlimited access to the public media to launch a vitriolic attack on them. When they attempted to respond to such attacks, they earned the wrath of the regime and as a result, the Pakistani missionaries were compelled to leave the country for their own security.
This is despite the fact that the Ahmaddiya Jamat and the Catholic Mission have no doubt contributed much more to the social development of The Gambia, particularly in the area of education than Imam Fatty and his fellow fundamentalists would ever dream of doing.
However, instead of our religious leaders coming to the defence of the people against the accesses of the regime as they are expected to do, they would invariably all eagerly accept money and other gifts from Yahya Jammeh and they would openly sing his praises at every little opportunity they have. As a result, the gap between the people and these socalled religious leadership is getting wider and it is just a matter of time before the people think about alternatives.