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

[sajokuumba Kamara]

Nous aussi, nous (Sooninko) sont les gardiens de quelque chose de divin. Découvrez-le. Il est disponible. Et c'est la mère et le père de l'islam, le christianisme et le judaïsme. Tel est le défi.

I would like us to continue this dialogue on Soninke Culture. It is of grave importance because the Soninke Diaspora is now an extensive one. Time was, this Diaspora was an all African affair, except for small colonies of students studying in the Islamic world, principally in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Even in the African context, it was not an easy matter.

There is a tendency for Soninko to settle among other peoples. Even the vaunted Wagadu was not originally settled by the Soninko. Wagadu's settlers before the advent of the Soninko were the Kagoros or Kagolo. (I would like to posit that between the two, there is no difference. The Kagoros came from the same country as the Soninko. The culture is the same-religion, social structure, the matriarchal system of transfer of power, age grouping, etc., etc...) They were to settle among the off-spring of Maghan Kamara in Mande after the demise of the Ghana Empire. One could say that they were co-founders of the Mande Empire as contingents of Soninko accompanied Maghan Konate (to be latter called Sundiate Keita) to Mande to take on Sumanwuru Kante. The point I am making here is that they are many more Mandingo of Soninke descent than there are currently Soninko. There are more Janneh Mandingo than Janneh Soninko; there are more Touray Mandingo than there are Touray Soninko; there are more Dabo Mandingo than there are Dabo Soninko; there are more Cisse Mandingo than there are Cisse Soninko; there are more Berete Mandingo than there are Berete Soninko; there are more Gomma Mandingo than there are Gomma Soninko; there are more Sakho-Sawo Mandingo than there are Sakho-Sawo Soninko; there are more Barrow Mandingo than there are Barrow Soninko; there are more Jakitey-Kaba Mandingo than there are Jakitey-Kabba Soninko....The list goes on. There are now Cissoko Wolof, Kebe Wolof, etc,...not to mention the number of those who are now thoroughly blended among the Bamana of Mali and the Hal Poular of Senegal and Mauretania.

This goes to state that it is easy for people to lose their original identity and the culture that defines this identity. The Soninko in the European Diaspora are no different or rather will prove no different unless a strenuous effort is in place to impart the culture in the young ones at an early age. The success of this will definitely depend on the degree to which Soninke Culture is successfully harmonized with European culture, whatever that may be. As we have seen, it is much easier to adopt to an existing dominant culture than to adhere to your own or even create a new hybrid one.

Our problem in this forum is to come to a basic understanding of Soninke Culture. The challenge that was posed to delineate the elements or components of culture that could serve as a template for further dialogue has not being picked up. It would be more helpful if we approach it this way as there is no over-arching spiritual or philosophical belief holding the Soninko together today. One could state that the majority of Soninko adhere to the Islamic religion. This could be a unifying factor in a rather abstract way but it does not define Soninkaaxu in my mind. Islam did not originate from among the Soninko. It was adopted. What is it sitting on? This may be the key to understanding Soninkaaxu.

Now I will give concrete examples.

In France, there are three words or terms that define the logos, the ethos, and the pathos of French culture. These three terms are Liberte-Fraternite-Egalite. These three terms are what the storming of the Bastille has bequeathed the French. All French citizens have a legal right to liberty, fraternity and equality within the context of the law. Equally among the Soninko, we have the following which I shall try to render in Soninke:

Xaagan nta non; [There is no Ear][A Soninke has no FEAR]

Baxalan nta non; [There is no starter of trouble][A Soninke is a Just Human
Being]

Lenburentaaxu nta non. [There is no laziness][A Soninke is not lazy]

Although the Soninke statements are in the negative, I have taken the liberty to try to communicate the sense of it other than a literal translation. As we can discern, the Ancient Soninke Culture is founded on fearlessness as that is the only condition in which one can be free. Here freedom and liberty are predicated on fearlessness for only the fearless man can be free to enjoy liberty and be creative.

The second axiom is equally profound for it connotes a deep sense of justice. Never be a willful imposer of your ugly self on others by being the starter of quarrels and trouble. This axiom is founded on the first one as a free person does not start trouble with others. He is never the instigator of mayhem among people. This points to the right relationships with family, friends, and neighbors.

The third axiom teaches us industry, the work ethic. It teaches us to take direct responsibility of our lives and our communities. Before Islam, one can wager that there were no beggars among the Soninko. This is true for nearly, if not all, of Afrika before Islam and Christianity. There were no beggars because all were taught to be industrious from an early age and family took care of family members, and the clan took care of the member families of the clan and the tribe came to the assistance of the clan which is in trouble, which could have been a rare occurrence.

The language was homogeneous before the fall of Ghana and latter Wagadu. Since the settlement of Soninko in Mande and their subsequent dispersal, various settlements have evolved their own dialects. Luckily for them, they are intelligible. Since the advent of Islam, the language has witnessed centuries of islamization which has robbed it of its earlier creativeness, as it is incorporating words and terms from Arabic rather than coining them. This for me has been the downside of the Soninke adoption of Islam. A once creative people have turned into a borrowing people. Even the meditation practices of the maraboutic class, are copies of lineages copied from their fellow Sufis from North Afrika and Asia.

The danger is even more profound than what has been stated above. Language is the formulator of consciousness. Your conscious is its content and most of this content is in words. When you borrow more than you create, you will be lessening your intellectual prowess as you are making no demands on your intellect and mind. After over a thousand years of reading and writing in Arabic, there is no great literature, Islamic or otherwise, written in Soninke to my knowledge. Persia, present day Iran, was also conquered by the Arabs. They adopted the Arabic script and they fielded many great saints who poured out their soul in some of the finest poetry written by humans. Is there a need to mention Rumi, Saade, Atar, Hafez...? Many other Asian cultures adopted Islam and its canonical language-Arab. But they also wrote extensively in their own languages using the Arabic script. This was not to happen among the Soninke to my knowledge. However, there seems to be hope that this will end soon. Some of us are studying the language to pass on what knowledge we have come upon. This process, more than anything else, might lead to the literary unification and standardization of the language.

Isn't it sad to think that the Soninko left Khem with knowledge of writing and they lost it. Then they came upon it again via the Arabs and yet, after a thousand years, there is yet to be a standard written literary form of it much more great treatises written in it. This is one of our current challenges as we dialogue on Soninke Culture.

I will stop here until further notice. Hopefully, others will contribute towards this dialogue and present aspects of Soninke Culture that they are familiar with so that we can present an overview of the culture. From this, we can find out what to make of it and how to live it in the Diaspora, no matter where we find oneself.

Jammu do Keeri.