The Changing Face of The Gambian Youth - Le Big Fitna Series: Part 1 of 2

In this edition of Fitna, I'm posting this article below that was posted on one of the Gambian website some time ago.  Please read on.

Sunday 9th September was the final day of this summer’s weekend beach parties that has now become a regular feature of life in Serekunda and Banjul. For a decade now, every saturday and sunday, the Youth in Banjul, Bakau and Serekunda converge at the Palmarima Beachside to have a good time. The numbers attending these parties have been increasing over the years and on Sunday September 9th,  the event hit a climax, pulling a record crowd of an estimated 50 000 youngsters. To cater for the teeming tens of thousands a whole market for snacks and drinks have been blossoming with total volumes of sale reaching D3 million per weekend. This year’s summer events saw the blending of business with pleasure as the two rival mobile telephony service providers, AFRICEL and COMMIUM, each provided stages and equipment for live shows on the beach. The musical shows which are held outdoors are interspersed with alternating live band appearances and the playing of recorded music that sending the Youth wild and frantic. For many youngsters living around the Greater Banjul Area, the whole summer was a hilarious party on the beach. Every Saturday and Sunday evening, starting from around 5 in the evening, tens of thousands of them could be seen marching through the alleyways of Serekunda or waiting to join commercial vans to converge on the beach and party till after midnight, or at times, when there are no rains, till the early morning of the following day.

Hordes of threatening baton-wielding policemen and soldiers also encamp near the venues supposedly to keep law and order.  In fact, these law enforcement authorities pose the greatest threat to peace of the parties by constantly harassing and occasionally roughing up people. The amazing thing is that there are hardly any incidents worth mentioning as the youth have their fun together, dancing, cheering and clapping. One cannot help admiring the peace-loving nature of the Gambian way of life. Such massive gatherings of young people in other countries would have been inevitably embroiled in fist-fights, stabbing and other knifing incidents if not the clatter of gun shots. While there is some occasional smell of burning marijuana grass here and there, alcohol is rarely seen even though there are number of bars around. The bar owners however are not that happy with the presence of thousands of potential customers as should be expected.  The organizers have not provided toilet facilities so the youth storm the surrounding restaurants, in long lines leading to the toilet rooms of the surrounding bars and restaurants and effectively messing them up for the owners. The owners are also not happy because the youth have very low purchasing power and cannot afford the exorbitant prices in the restaurants. The Youth resort to the ad hoc market of the food and drink hawkers nearby.

Unemployment among the Gambian Youth is officially put at twenty-seven per cent but seventy-two per cent is much closer to reality. But far from the hardships of unemployment, the squalor of homes, roads and shanty towns, they are able to create an enclave of illusory paradise and escapism on the beach. This particular sunday however, the parties come to an abrupt halt because it was the last one before the coming in of the austere and puritanical month of Ramadan. By the time it ends in the middle of October, schools would have been opened and the beach cleared of native Gambian considered as “bumpsters”, in wait for the mass arrival of European tourists.

One striking thing with this new form of Youth activism is watching the teenage girls prepare for the sunday beach festivities.  Some of these young girls are barely thirteen, but are all dressed in semi-naked tight-fitting outfits that vividly show out the shapes and outlines of both their backs and front, or dangling down jeans that reveal the naked skin of backs.  One would think that the masses of youngsters were out for a party of sex on the beach.  Ever so often, one is tempted to further wonder if their parents were not home to see how their children were dressed when they were leaving for the sunday beach parties. They look excessively emancipated, and yet they come from homes where most of the time, Islamized patriarchy is the order of the day; where women do all domestic work while men are seen chatting, playing cards or drinking green tea; in homes where women are beaten up regularly and most believe that Allah made men superior to women and their lot is for the bed, kitchen and the rearing of children. The contradiction has baffled both Muslim elders and stupefied learned observers.

Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy once said that to be a youth in the country nowadays is not easy; we could not agree more with the Vice President. Six years after Gambian Youth were given the right to vote and made to believe that the Jammeh regime was wholly and solely theirs, their favorite Gambian leader ordered to shoot down fourteen of them when they dared protested against the brutality of members of the security forces who raped one Gambian youth and killed another. That disillusionment is further strengthened by the fact that jobs were increasingly getting scarce and every employed Gambian was getting more mouths to feed while prices of basic goods were scaling higher and higher everyday. Poverty was getting out of hand and the numbers of school dropouts were multiplying exponentially each year. The plight of the school-system itself was difficult to fathom. While the number of schools have increased substantially and the comfort of the buildings much better than before, the quality of learning has been degenerating frighteningly.  Gambian students have been found to be performing much less than students from other West African Anglophone countries in all the regional exams they share. The few students who perform satisfactorily often soon find out that there is a mismatch between what they have learned and what obtains in the labor market. The Gambian school is without ideas of innovation, flexibility, inspiration and without touch with the realities of life. By the time the Youth leaves or drop out of school, he or she has become so dispirited with learning that it becomes more comfortable to assume intellectual numbness and social detachment and get totally involved with avenues of escape like love, sex, music, football games or the exodus to Europe and North America. A dedicated few go into religious fanaticism, wielding prayer beads and preaching against the temptations of Satan.

Source: The Gambian Journal