Dear William,
Wan seke yo!
Many thanks. We must all admit that you are a goldmine of information and explanations that contribute to reason and promote understanding!
However, considering that you were an avid APC man in 1967, I'm all the more bewildered that you ask WHY we should depoliticize the Army. The Professional army. Even a Nigerian can answer that question most idealistically.
You say that "the Wuries are not Temnes/Themnes but Fullahs" – Yes sir, I am aware of that. The Wuries, Abass Bundu, perhaps one or two Banguras too? The late Mr. Lamin Siddiqui gave me a good run down of the history of Gbinti when he was here (in Stockholm) - I once took him to The Swedish Institute of International Affairs where a Syrian Professor from Harvard - an expert of terrorism, was holding forth - come question and discussion time Mr. Siddiqui introduced himself as a former minister of the interior - and - the experienced and self-assured speaker that he was, asked his question (it was about the Middle East and started with the words, " Why is Israel dragging its feet" ) and after the show the American consul came dashing over to give us his card...please visit us...Anyway, Mr. Siddiqui tells me of Fullahs who grew up in a Temne environment like Gbinti, became acculturated so to speak - and that if you speak Themne, you are accepted by Temnes. It's the same with Arabic...mostly...
It's a very sad tale that you tell - of the murder and decimation of Temne people for which crimes you squarely lay the blame on the heads of the APC. If that must be a permanent shadow that follows us like the Holocaust and truly, all poetry must be banal after what has transpired yet your further elucidations/ explanations in this world of cause and effect, painful as they may be, are most welcome for our education or edification...
Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of your latest epistle. You are getting better and better! You are fond of provoking me aren't you?
I must say that you sound like a stiff upper lip, bitter old Creole Negro (Anglo- Sierra Leonean) luxuriating in exile in London and missing home , when you start complaining and saying things like, "The country has gone to the dogs"
But let me hasten to modify that perception: I quite understand that people tend to be proud of their royal lineage. The Bangurahs have been extensively sowing their royal oats throughout West Africa and they are also descended from the loins (lions) of Mandinka warriors are they not? When I think of the Bangurahs I quite understand and sympathise with the dilemmas of a surname like Hamelberg and the numerous relatives in Germany, Austria, Holland (Hamelbergh) - not to mention the wholly English ones still on my paternal side - just as you have the Bangurahs from Mali through Senegal to Sierra Leone. I'll tell you the best when I return from Yorubaland...
Indeed, I unreservedly admire you beating your chest, the royal blood corpuscles beating in your noble heart and veins: the last time I checked you were being lumped together in the same diplomatic cadre with Dunstanette Macauley (I only talked to her a few times) and my dear friend Donald George. The only people missing from that diplomatic bag are Sylvester Ekundayo Rowe and I guess Claudius 'Dayo Thomas a onetime bass guitarist in our band; the last I heard about him he was something like first secretary serving in the Sierra Leone mission in Italy. Please indulge my reminiscing, for me it's a kind of note-taking, gathering some loose strands together, as I'm also working on my own "mouth, sweeter than water". Donald George and I go back a long ways – when he was a neighbour to Mr. F.B. Harding he used to be sort of our football coach at Kissy Dockyard when he was a senior civil servant and I was in the fifth form, met him again particularly in the late 90s ( of the last century) when he had a shop about an English mile away from where my mother lived in Edgware - you probably heard about the English geezer who came into his shop – no respect , took out his pecker and at his leisure emptied its liquid contents , all on Donald's Persian carpet? And then, what did Donald do about that kind of racism? Donald went into the back room, grabbed hold of a mighty shovel and I think that it must have been on behalf of Chief Bai Bureh and the jihad that he delivered one - just one on the impudent intruder's "pakoh" – when the poor fellow, woke up and finally staggered to his feet he got himself a bottle of beer with which he limped over to the nearest park, and we are told that, sadly that is where he eventually expired. And the case that followed? Well, you know that Donald was a lawyer and the rest is now a part of post-colonial history.
Sir William, how am I supposed to react when you start waxing chauvinistic with statements like "Prior to the Stevens and his APC administration of April 1968, the Temnes/Themnes were the most empathetic, impartial and virtuous of all the ethnic groups in Sierra Leone"
I hear you: "the most empathetic, impartial and virtuous of all the ethnic groups "
Am I supposed to take that as the apocryphal edition of Saint William Bangurah's New Testament Gospel of the Temnes? Indeed, prior to April 1968, didn't the Temnes on several well noted historic occasions massacre their Creole Settler Brethren? Let bygones be bygones? I guess so. The last time I met Shaineh Taqi was at Donald George's ( shortly after the Chief Justice of Nigeria had departed from those premises) - so I guess that aspect of murderous history is all healed... sealed. (Politically – and please correct me if I'm wrong, in more recent time – at least as far as I can remember, haven't the Creoles been much closer to the Limbas and the Temnes, than to the Mendes?
You might think that this is an atrocious example: In my very considered opinion, the Mendes are like the Jews and the Temnes are more akin to my good friends the Palestinian Arabs. (I could expand on this theme at another time if you so desire)
Agers = Asher?
You ask me, am I accusing the Temne people of "Shoot first and ask questions later"?
No Sir, I do not impute any such impetuosity to the Temne people. Reminds me of this Nigerian guy and the climax: "I'm going to teach you a lesson!"
You say that "Most of the Temnes/Themnes used to be missionaries, now they are all mercenaries."
Your statement is reminiscent of the late Brother Gil Scott-Heron saying in "The Monetary and the Military" what I quote here:
"The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary, use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary, they make so many decisions that are arbitrary"
I must return to take up some other matters that you have raised from the dead, it's now 5.30 am in the Stockholm morning and I feel like asking you about your Yonibana wisdom, since I'm fascinated by etymologies of words, "yoni" being the word for ant in Krio - is it a Themne loan word that got incorporated into the Krio – just as swegbe was incorporated and when Emerson used it all the scholars were adrift in the ocean of ignorance and poor me, yours truly not a scholar of anything at all was also adrift until I was redeemed by my Yoruba professor who told me that swegbe in Yoruba means "fool" – at which point, I saw the light....
In Stockholm the sun rises at 7.36, so it's time for me to wish you a good morning Sir William and have a great day!
Sincerely,
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