Que pensez-vous de la culture soninké ? A-t-elle un avenir ?

[Fodyé Cissé]

J'ai suivi les discussion depuis le commencement. Comme je n'ecris pas la langue francaise tres bien et aussi mon clavier est anglais, je vais essayer de sumettre quelqueles mots en anglais. Un "marenmen" peut traduire ca en francais pour nous tous. Merci en advance.

N Marenmun, Sooninkon, I am writing this in English so that we can internationalize this discussion and bring in more people. The matter of culture is extremely important. Mande culture, of which Sooninke culture is a part, is extremely important for West Africa's Sahel Region. The Mande culture is the culture of Sahel West Africa. It is now a dead culture and the cause of its death is clear to us all if only we are willing to observe and live with the Truth.

Arab culture and Arab religion are some of the more important of the many and diverse causes of the death of a once valiant and a once dynamic culture even with its cast social bases. Our near Ancestors converted to Islam and therefore Arab culture and became more Arab than the Arabs. Muhammad gave them the tool to liberate themselves and recover their lost religion but they did not see it because they did not want to see it. The African needed only the "LA illa, in lalla la." As you will notice this is where I have stopped for once we continue and state that "Muhamma-dara-sur-illlah, you destroy any chances of continual generational renewal. Muhammad is the Law. We do not need this law; it is for the hard-hearted Arab. We need direct access to God. We need to meet God using our own language not via a foreign language.

This is very important. If it is true that the Sooninkon ventured west from Kemet, Ta Mery, (Ancient Egypt), then we lost the knowledge that was the foundation of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Moshe-Moses-Musa was our Ancestor and what he originally taught the Hebrews is not what has been faithfully transmitted. The point is that the Sooninkon, who we descended from, also had the same knowledge. Like the Hebrews, we lost the original. This original, fundamental knowledge is the bases for all sound cultures. We have to rediscover this profound knowledge and link up with the Divine Powers to re-establish our own direct relationship with God.

There is no reality but the reality of God-La-illa, illal-la. This is its true meaning. With this you can seek your way to the original. "An du tu". Is there a Sooninke whose divine mother has not told him or her this ageless, timeless, most spiritual advice? True religion is about "An Du TU." We lost this and sought name, fame, social status, wealth, power., etc., etc.,...

So, we now see the true cause of the death of the Mande culture, which is Kemet culture, Ancient Egyptian culture. If we do not put aside Arabism under the rubric of Islam and being a muslim, the Mande culture will vanish from the surface of the earth.

The second important reason for the death of the Mande culture is the cast system. All the peoples of the world who have advanced to meet the challenges of Life and living in the modern era have done away with the cast system. The Mande world and the West African ethnic groups who have copied this cast system are being run by ancient elites who have lost their privileges to rule because they could not meet the challenges of Life and living adequately. They failed because they have adopted Arab culture; they have failed because the Europeans rule the African continent; they have failed because they could not implement an educational system that could free the minds of the young so that they can adequately face the challenges of Life and living. They have failed because the people who were once the most urbanized of the human race, the Mande peoples, have now become villagers ruled by a small narrow "debegumun" (villae heads) who live in the seventh century instead of the twentieth century. We have descended from been dwellers of large urban centers with a central government to disparate villages run by people who care only for their privileges and not the well being of the whole people.

Check this village mentality among the Sooninkos the world over. How many rich Sooninke is heading a modern company employing one thousand people? Yet, they are among some of the richest people in West Africa. But their wealth serves only themselves and their families. This is what I call the village mentality. The elites of each Sooninke village zealously guard their privileges and care little about the kind of mass education that the Japanese nation put in place to meet the challenges of Western expansion around 1884, if I am not mistaken. The village elite run away from centralization because they fear for their privileges and their ranks.

Sooninkaaxun was powerful only when we had a well administered centralized system of governance. It is all Mande culture, with the Sooninkon playing the vital role in business, administration, and all facets of culture during the Wagadu era to the Mali era to the Songhai era down to the small kingdoms era up to the ascendance of the Europeans.

You are in France because no one will fight to bring about a new culture. We run away rather than fight for change at home. I am writing this little contribution in California, USA, not Kombo Gunjuru, the Gambia, where I was reared. I am not writing this in Bakel, or Gidemagha, or Bundu or Fuuta or in Kayes. This is because, like my father before me who deserted the Sooninke world first, I see nothing progressive in the Afrikan world today. However after decades of long and hard studies, I am heading back to do what I am empowered to do, to change the mentality of the people via Right Education. This is the way out-Right Education. The people of the African Diaspora who return to provide this Right Education are the salvation of the continent not monthly transfers of money from abroad. These monies are like poison. They deny the villagers the skills to live dynamically and vibrantly. These monies are a curse and not a blessing. We are now raising a generation of young ones who will not develop any Life skills in their own environment.

Therefore, may I stop here for now with these cautionary words. There is no living Sooninke culture or for that matter Mande culture. We have to create a new one. We can do this successfully only when we are rightly educated and are totally and absolutely FREE. First Freedom through Right Education and then this new culture will germinate organically. This is the promise of the DAUSI, isn't it? A NEW AWAKENING! A NEW CULTURE! A New Society! A New Civilization! The question is our individual responsibility towards this renaissance.

O N Bire Jammu do Xeeri! Ma ta tana. http://www.soninkara.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hi sajokuumba Kamara,
I, personally, do not agree with lots of your assertions here.

You are saying that “Arab culture and Arab religion are some of the most important of the many and diverse causes of the death of ” our culture…., that, “Our near Ancestors converted to Islam and therefore Arab culture and became more Arab than the Arabs.”
I really do not agree with this sentence.

First of all, the Soninke people (I prefer, rather than the Mande people) are not the only people who converted to Islam. Across the five continents around the world, you will find thousands of other ethnic groups and people who also converted to Islam without denying themselves, without repudiating their ancestors traditions and culture. So are the Soninke.

Because, remember, the Soninke people are one of the earliest people who converted to Islam, assuming that the Wagadu empire started at the 5th century AD and that the conversion took place before the dislocation of the Ghana empire.

From that time to the 19th, up to the 20th century AD, the Soninke people have been transmitting their culture from generation to generation.
They are good Muslims, but the aren’t Arabs. They have been practicing Islam during centuries, but they never denied their culture for the Arab culture.
What about colonisation? What is the impact of the European Civilization and now the Globalization on the Soninke culture? I think we should ask ourselves these questions to find out the main reasons which are causing the death of the Soninke culture.

The second point is about what you call “the cast system”. Again, here, you are building your theory based on “the Arab culture”, because, you said “They (The Mande world and the West African ethnic groups) failed because they have adopted Arab culture.” Again, I am obliged to say again that they did not adopt the Arab culture. They just converted to Islam.

You said further that “they have failed because the Europeans rule the African continent; they have failed because they could not implement an educational system that could free the minds of the young so that they can adequately face the challenges of Life and living.”. This is true. But, I am not sure I have understood what you meant here. Because, for me, an ethnic group can preserve its culture, transmitting it from generation to generation, without implementing an educational system, sophisticated as some European people. If you go to Amazon, you will find lots of ethnic groups who preserved their culture and who never had a contact with modern civilization. On the contrary, it is modern civilization that is currently killing these cultures.

If all the historians agree that the Wagadu empire was one of the powerful and strongest black empire (Kwame Nkrumah gave the name of this symbolic empire to his country – Gold Coast), I have no doubt that the same people still have all the capabilities to reorganize themselves in order to build a new stronger empire. But slavery and colonisation annihilated all these possibilities. For further development of this theory, I suggest you this book : ” The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. Author : Randall Robinson”.

These were just some thoughts I wanted to share with you.
Regards.