Eid Mubarak, The Gambia...

A little word of encouragement is needed even for the most valiant. Where I come from, it is said that no matter how fast your well-bred racing horse is, a little whipping with a riding crop motivates. My point being: to spur on one's government is different from "sycophancy," it motivates; just as being too saucy and condescending is no fair "criticism."

But that's by the way; it's official, tomorrow we celebrate end of Ramadan 2017. From my family and I to you and yours, Eid Mubarak and dewenati!

May all our good deeds be accepted. May the level of self-restraint manifested by us in this Ramadan be adopted. May we be more tolerant and overstanding and more open-minded to ideas. May we continue being brothers' keepers but be able to know when to live and let live, and when to let go. May we cherish rather than abhor our diversity. May Allah increase ours with joy, happiness and prosperity. May He bring peace to all chaotic places of the world. May the sick be healed and all departed souls showered with His Mercy.

Change is always happening...

Like it wasn't for some people last year or years before that, this year's Eid is not gonna be the same for others too. Circumstances change and so do people. In fact, change is always happening. Sometimes for the best, but also table-turning change that can cause one to look at one's fairweather friends and just want to punch them and their treachery in the face.

It takes a person of faith to accept and overcome grief motivated by change like that. The faithless and those who are quick to burn their bridges are caused to be in perpetual denial and anger. It's not easy but it should be expected; y'know, going back to how things were, back to rags even where one thought one's riches were forever, having to endure gloom though bloom once felt as if one's birthright, and times when one cannot but pick up humility as one's new habit.

When you're really good...

When you see them trying to change or tighten the rules of the game, or whatever it is that you're into, in the middle of it, and just when it's about your turn to perform, it's usually because you're really good. If you ask me, be energized - never say never.

Once I was a part of a dunk contest on a high school hoop along Via Augusta, Barcelona. Boy, I was on a roll like Dominic wilkins in his days. Some who would rather I lose, caught feels, decided to hike up the adjustable hoop to a lil above 10feet, but what they weren't told was that Lyke Myke was kyte... ha, elastic bruh! 

Us and our clichés...

I think we need a new cliché. I'm kinda missing that inordinate use of words like "impasse," "no-stress," "recuse," "unconstitutional," etc. and "blueprint" is tired.

On a serious note, fi kufi sanyon, Banjul moye daha Paris. Wye nak, before a "road map" for that, before all our beautiful ideas are forced to be moved from concepts to reality, before one dismisses the improvement of our newfound system so far, before any comparison between ours and Ghana's or Senegal's is considered valid, it's only fair that one asks oneself:

Do I become a negationist and pretend that our realities are the same? Is our political change a clean up or a smooth pick up from where the ex left off? What do we have as baseline if not hydra-headed social, political, and economic problems left unsolved by the ex-government? Me, given our circumstances, I wouldn't say a blueprint is long overdue. What's prolly overdue is the silence of some who've become overnight volunteer development con-sultants.

The #NewGambia discourse...

There's genuine criticism, but some baseless outcry is sheer nincompoopery - the difference between the two is usually not so deep that you cannot tell. As far as the #NewGambia discourse on here is concerned, the latter's what's prevailing and I think I'm also entitled to say this:

Just because your personal expectations were high and now hopes are fading doesn't justify you becoming a philosopher of pessimism. No government is in the business of addressing individual frustrations. So, feeling all upset about yours not being met yet is untrue to duty, it's selfish, unreasoning, and inconducive to that spirit of democracy that we all say we want to uphold. I just hope that reason will someday and hopefully very soon prevail on us all.

I am a Muslim...

I am a Muslim, was a Muslim from I was zero, taught to treat all people fairly; not for what they're said to be, or who I think they're, but for what I see and can prove of them - evidence over prejudice. This is why by Allah, I'd be a Muslim if I had to do it over again.

I hereby testify that the Islam that I know and the Islam of decent and intelligent civilisation has nothing to do with aggression, transgression, oppression nor any other 'ession' ending noun. In fact, it's common knowledge that oppression is a sin in Islam. So, all who says Islam is a threat to world peace is a bloody fraud, yeah.

The real threats to world peace are terror-funding politicians and we know them, those who profit from crime, the politics of terror, and today's islamophobia that's not even a phobia, just an attitude of fixed dislike, enmeshed with lies and hypocrisy - yeah, that’s it; groundless prejudice towards all who says Allahu Akbar. And because the bigger the lie, the easier to believe, some unthinking morons are being fooled and are now correlating Islam with violence.

But I am not going to be here fighting to protect Islam - that's not my job. Islam is God's to protect and He will. Mine is a personal spiritual struggle against evil, temptation, and for self-improvement. My job is to be a better Muslim, one who'll serve as an example worthy of emulation, one like the Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque. Mine is to give tidings, to "invite" (that's the word) to the way of Allah and to pray for personal salvation but also collective guidance.

I repeat... the Islam that I know doesn’t coerce; compulsion is forbidden. It is after one willingly believes that it becomes a must to obey regulations, majority of which are preventive of the spread of corruption. So if there are nutcases hellbent on creating mayhem by quoting half verses or tampering with punctuations in the Qur'an just to deform its meaning to their own agenda, that's theirs not Islam's and I'm not gonna apologise for that, nor will I on their behalf. Salam!

The #NewGambia observations..

The #NewGambia: I see many is becoming a volunteer auditor on here, and each trying to show how high he's on top of things - y'know, the urge to police and expose something shady about the public or the private sector.

Well, if I can't call it brave, I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. 

However, what I do find scary about it is how everyone's taking his opinion or hunch for a fact; scary because sometimes you think you're near when you're so far, until some rude awakening to the fact that your observation was illusory.