THE POSITION OF LITERATURE IN THE GAMBIA: presentation by Hassan I. Jagne

U.N.E.S.C.O. CONFERENCE ON "BOOK DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA"

LIBERIA - OCTOBER THE 16TH TO THE 20TH.

THE POSITION OF LITERATURE IN THE GAMBIA

Presented by Gambian Delegate, Hassan. I. JAGNE

(Vol. 3, Issue 1, March 1973)

Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, the Gambia very much welcomes the opportunity to take part in a Conference of this nature. BOOK DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA" is a theme that cannot but interest Gambians. The Gambia, in her present economic situation, and level of development, stands to gain immensely from such a scheme. For when one comes to assess the position of literature in The Gambia, one faces, rather unfortunately, an ironical situation. The Gambia being the smallest and oldest of the ex-British Colonies in Africa cannot boast of a single University. It has only one College - a Teacher Training College. Although the number of Primary Schools in the Country has increased tremendously, 93 to be precise, there are only five Grammar Schools in the whole of the Gambia. Three of these are located in Bathurst, the Capital, one is in Georgetown some 180 miles up River and the fifth at Serrekunda 8 miles from Bathurst. Of these Grammar Schools only one has a Sixth Form and that is the Gambia High School in Bathurst. Since not all, and not even most of the Primary School Children can receive the benefit of a Grammar School Education, it has been found advisable to open up many Secondary Modern Schools where the emphasis is not on academic training but on technical subjects. There are 17 such schools. It is only fairly recently that, apart from the Government News Bulletin (published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), the Gambia can claim to have five newspapers. Even most of these are published only twice a week. There is a serious absence of any daily newspaper in the Gambia. Part of the difficulty here is that the running costs of such printing concerns are too high for private individuals, with very little capital finance to bear. Coupled with this is the fact that with a small reading public it may not be immediately economic to embark upon more ambitious production.

With this background, the state of Literature in the Gambia is conditioned to a large extent by the educational standards of the people. The majority of the people, especially in the rural districts, are not literate in English. Some of these have acquired some reading skill in Arabic. I shall have more to say about this later. Illiteracy in English is more common among the elders. Illiteracy among the children of school going age is rapidly dying out.

Although education in the Gambia is neither compulsory nor free, with the rapid and extensive development in especially Primary Education, and with the sudden and insatiable desire on the part of the parents to educate their young, there is a great demand for Primary School places. At the moment, however, we have reached the consolidation stage in our Primary School System and now the emphasis is being placed on Secondary School expansion. More and more people arc now receiving the benefits of education and this may help to increase the Gambian reading public. In spite of the fact that there are no Universities or Colleges of higher education, the number of Graduates is rapidly increasing. This is a hopeful sign for book development as some of these Graduates may later take to writing books and pamphlets, and may help to generate an active reading public.

It is indeed ironical that having been under Colonial rule for some three Centuries the Gambia cannot produce an appreciable number of text books written by indigenous writers. Almost all the books used in our Schools have been written abroad and imported into the Gambia. It is now urgently necessary to encourage and develop Gambian Authorship. With the recent Currency change over, on the part of the British Government, to pound and new pence and on the part of the Gambia Government, to Dalasi and Butut, there is inevitably a serious need to either rewrite the Maths Text Books written in Britain converting pounds and new pence into Dalasi and Bututs or write new text books for the Gambia using the new units. One significant improvement worthy of note, is the increasingly prominent place being assumed in the Literature Courses of most Secondary Schools by books chosen from the African Writers Series published by Heinemann. This is a most welcome development and it is to be hoped that it will continue. These books usually are found to have more relevance to the African context. The time is also long overdue when Gambians themselves should write, for instance, the History, Geography and Sociology of the Gambia. I believe that the cultural heritage of the Gambia can best be presented to the outside World by Gambians themselves. Similarly, this is true, undoubtedly, of other African States. Very few Gambians have tried their hands in these. But as the number of highly educated Gambians increase, and if there are better facilities for writing and publishing one can hope that the future holds some promise. At least two virgin fields awaiting the expert hands of some Sociologist and Ornithologist are Gambian Societies, the Gambian wild birds. Both subjects present a wide variety and deserve a close study.

In the field of Literature there is some humble achievement but there are also great hopes for the future. Most of the novels, plays, poems and short stories sold in the few book shops have been written by foreign authors. Few Gambians have published their works. Outstanding among these is Dr. Lenrie Peters, a Poet and Novelist. Some of his works e.g. "SATELLITES", "KATCHIKALI" (both books of poems) and "THE SECOND ROUND", a novel, are here for display. All these have been printed overseas. Other Gambian Writers have written plays, short stories and collections of poems, but the lack of printing and publishing facilities is a serious deterrent. There is a great need for local printing facilities. The Government Printing Department is fully and quite rightly occupied with official work, and although it can sometimes accommodate some private printing work it does not solve the printing problem facing local writers.

In view of these difficulties a number of Gambian Writers, some of whom have never had the opportunity to publish their writings except in the local newspapers, got together in 1971 and formed the first Gambian Writers Club, of which I am proud to be a member. This club publishes a Literary Magazine entitled "NDANNAN" twice a year, in March and September. We are grateful that the Government Printing Department has been able to handle our printing requirements. The aim of the Gambian Writers Club is to encourage Gambian Writers some of whom have not had an adequate outlet for their talents. We have been encouraged by the reception of "NDANNAN", and if contributions continue to come in we hope everything will be well with the magazine. Copies of "NDANNAN" have been brought for display. The Gambian Writers Club also organises poetry reading sessions and plans to have literary programmes over the radio.

The inadequacy of library facilities presents a potentially serious situation. There is only one public library in the whole of the Gambia. This is the National Library - the former British Council Library - located in Bathurst, the Capital. The change of name was effected after Independence. The Library has three sections, namely: the Reference and Lending Library; the Children's Library and the Mobile Library. The latter caters for both adults and children. It is interesting to note that the Mobile Library has a fair greater membership than the main library itself. Part of the reason for this is that The Mobile Library covers all schools in the Provinces and the pupils are very enthusiastic about the library and are registered members. Once every month the Mobile Library goes up river via the North Bank, Lower River Divisions to Upper River Division. It then returns to Bathurst for maintenance before going to the Western Division. This is a most useful service as it makes it possible for pupils in the remote schools to have access to a good library.

The National Library has a vote from the Ministry of Education for buying books but the British Council sends it gifts of books now and again as was the case in 1971 when they sent 345 books. The Lending section lent out in 1971 (from January to December) 2,430 books. Each year roughly the same number of books is borrowed.

With a population of some 29,000, one Library is inadequate for Bathurst. But even there the one we have does not appear to be used much. This is evident from the Lending Section. In the year 1971 (from January to December) 1,409 (all fiction) and 1,021 non-fiction books were borrowed. One might have been tempted to conclude that perhaps the books stocked in the library were not appealing enough to the readers, but the contrary appears true. The library does have a wide variety of titles, and it is gratifying to note that almost every title in the African Writers series published by Heinemann can be found on its shelves. It could well be that the reason partly lies in the reading habits of the public. It must be borne in mind that education in the Gambia, as indeed in most parts of Africa, is primarily regarded merely as a means of securing a job and earning a living. In the present circumstances of an acute shortage of library facilities the school leaver who has secured a job may be tempted to think that all that is left to be done is to keep himself in his job. He has very little or no opportunity to read widely either for pleasure or to increase his knowledge; which could be very useful for his work. The result could be very grave: he could become resty and later degenerate into the state of semi-literacy or even perhaps illiteracy. To prevent this happening perhaps, if it is found impossible to have more libraries in the country, the present National Library could be extended and many branch Libraries opened in the Provinces.

There are few book shops in Bathurst. The Methodist Book Shop and the New English Book Shop are pretty good. The former keeps large stocks of text books currently required by schools. As the majority of Gambians belong to the low income group, there is great demand for paper backs, and the Methodist Book Shop finds that it has to turn over its stock of titles in the African Writers Series about four times in the year. They store an average of 350 books at a time. The market for hard backs, on the other hand, is very, very small in the Gambia.

It is rather unfortunate though, that the state of Arabic Literature in the Gambia does not compare favourably with English Literature. The main reason for this is that up to fairly recently Arabic has never been fully and properly taught as a language. All that was initially required and has ever since been the sole function of the Koranic Schools or "DARRAS" as they are locally known has been to teach the pupils to read the Koran, or more precisely to learn the Koran by rote. The inevitable result of this method is that most Muslims in the Gambia can recite verses from the Koran but few are capable of speaking Arabic. A few dedicated scholars have gone further to learn the language and thus are able to understand the Koran. Fortunately, a new trend has set in. Thanks to the Ahmadiya Movement, the teaching of Arabic is being revolutionised. The Mission has opened recently the first ever Muslim Secondary School in the Gambia. It is located at Serrekunda some eight miles from Bathurst. At that school Arabic is taught among other subjects in the curriculum. This a very notable improvement, when one considers that a Muslim Primary School has been in existence in Bathurst since 1903. The Mission also sells to the public low priced books and pamphlets written in English on the Ethics, Philosophy and Principles of Islam. This is an excellent idea as it enables as many Muslims as possible - who otherwise would not probably have the chance - to understand at least the rudiments of the religion.

A few Gambian scholars, inspite of the many difficulties, have, by sheer personal effort, studied and mastered the Arabic language. Some of them have even gone further to write Arabic Books. They have all, in their various ways, caught our chronic literary disease: the lack of printing and publishing facilities. A typical example is Alhadji Abdoulie Jobe. He belongs to a rare category in that he is literate in both English and Arabic. He has achieved a tremendous literary feat by producing a work in Arabic of high literary distinction in rather strained circumstances. He wrote the book entitled "The Garden of My Contemporaries" at the time when he was in Saudi Arabia, and he took only one and a half years, largely on his own personal resources. He has done an English translation of it but it has not yet been printed. A copy of the book is here with me and can be seen on display.

Another Arabic scholar, the late Alhadji Alieu Badara Fye, wrote a book on Arabic Grammar containing some 2,000 verses and was printed in Egypt. He also had encountered some problems of publication.

Yet another scholar, Alhadji Cherno Abubakar Jallow, the Imam of Bansang has written two books. One of them is on "THE TEJANI ORDER" and the other on, "THE LIFE OF THE HOLY PROPHET."

In concluding this paper, I wish to make some suggestions calculated capable of helping to cure our literary ills. Effectively to solve the problem affecting Book Development in the Gambia (and probably the same is applicable to a greater or lesser degree to other African States) it may be necessary:-

1. To effect some continuity of the reading habit cultivated at school, by providing increased library facilities, so that the school leaver may not relapse into the state of illiteracy.

2. To increase the number of book shops in the country, and also ensure that large stocks of paper backs are available, thereby making it possible for the majority of the people to have easy access to books.

3. To develop the indigenous Gambian language. A start could be made by teaching some of these languages in our schools.

4. To encourage the writing of our literature, social customs and traditions in the local languages.

5. To start the teaching of Arabic in more schools in the Gambia. Already it is taught at Armitage Secondary School, Mohammedan Primary School, the Bathurst City Council Junior Secondary School and of course at the New Nusrat (Ahamadiya Secondary School).

6. To provide adequate training in the printing and publishing trade.

(The author was at the time a teacher at Gambia High School)