By Titus Boye-Thompson, London
The game is getting bigger as many fishes enter the pond. What is however disconcerting are the tribal and ethnic slants that the game seems to be absorbing right across the spectrum. So from a nation that used to enjoy its politics to a country of division, hate, violence and consuming tribalism. This is a very bad picture for Sierra Leone.
It has been so bad that even the overlapping of Ramadan and Lent was not enough to protect the much valued religious freedom we used to enjoy. A political upstart saw need to enter a Mosque and deliver hate speeches against the Creoles of Freetown (tribalism) and a broadside slight on Christians (religious hate) mush to the utter consternation of all. What is at stake is the politics of survival and in that altar has been sacrificed the principles of civility and tolerance.
Freetown and the Western Area are undoubtedly the metropolis of Sierra Leone. The capital is now blurred as the demography meshes with the topography but what is plain to behold is the melting pot solidarity of the entire Western Area, its cultures and traditions that held it together throughout our history to build this place we call Freetown. In the milieu of this development trajectory, we must never forget that Freetown was founded on the back of slavery and the untold sufferings that resulted in an activity that gave rise to the dispersal of Africans throughout what is now regarded reservedly as the Diaspora. So it is with a sense of repair that Freetown secured for itself a safe haven and through time has come to depict that melting pot resilience and forgiveness of the African spirit. Returned slaves have never turned on any indigenous tribe to wage a war of retribution but have endured life in this land of their return, have strived to build farming communities in Leicester, Regent and Waterloo, fishing villages in Tombo, York and Goderich, cities of Kissy, Murray Town and Lumley and generally cultivated life in very difficult terrains such as the Mountain villages of Gloucester, the valleys of Grafton and Devil Hole and Bathurst. In all of these areas, the descendants of these freed slaves have etched a life of progress and inspiration to act as a beacon to other communities and tribes of this nation we call Sierra Leone.
When we look at the development of these peoples who are regarded as “settlers” or “strangers” to the nation state, we see a spiral of resilience, courage and longsuffering but altogether, we see a community that not only built itself, raising itself from the bootstraps but also one that extended a helping hand to others to help them grow alongside.
In the event, there are several stories of people from indigenous tribes who were integrated into Creole culture and traditions because of their affinity to the Creole way of life. Many Lokos, Temnes, Limbas, and Susus who are the indigenous tribes of the North and West of Sierra Leone and those who came close to the Creoles later converted through marriage or otherwise into full grown Creole families. Not that there has ever been any barrier to that assimilation, it was always natural because by definition, the Creoles were themselves members of such tribes but just that many had lost the tribal tint of their DNA and the very essence of being a Creole is the shared affinity to a way of life. The Creoles in themselves are not a tribe and any reference to Creoles as a tribe is detrimental to good reasoning.
In the more contemporary sense, the identity demarcation of tribes in Sierra Leone cannot be ascribed to Creoles for the simple reason that such would inevitably result in double counting. However, some of those who take on the identity conscript to its outer limits tend to ascribe attributes to themselves that they do not deserve. A clear example of this is visible in the rantings of one Sylvia Blyden but as many have observed that this individual may be suffering from a mental disorder, the less said, the better.
This article merely seeks to point out that the Creole culture and tradition is one that supports the melting pot and tolerant society. Creoles are not the obnoxious type, nor boastful or jealous of the achievements of others. Those who subscribe to such talents can easily be identified as “brought up” or descendants of integrated tribesmen integrated into the Creole way of life by their expiation in village communities. For example, those who know of the Creole inheritance know full well that many Lokos in Regent were integrated into the Creole way of life and a very notable example of that ilk was Solomon A. J. Pratt who became a popular and skilled politician, engineer and theologist and of course, a celebrated member of the All People’s Congress. It is a shame that one of his off springs has now become a prostituted personality, a political chicanery and a veritable nuisance by her behavior that smacks of a disturbed personality and a totally unhinged person.
The historical schematics of the Western Area points to some significant characteristics and behavioural demographic, to the extent that the issues now raised of tribe and religion are altogether abnormal and discombobulated within the general psyche. Freetown’s people have a peculiar resonance for certain precepts. For one, they accept and respect the contributions of the Creoles in the creation of the Western Area and the relevance of the Creoles to the development of their own interests. In the event, any random poll will tell you that the people of Freetown prefer a Creole indigene as Mayor and also as Chairperson of the Western Area Rural Council, and for various reasons which this article would not go into.
Secondly, the political prerogative of the Western Area is APC and the people of these parts will vote in the APC candidate at every turn.
Finally, when it comes to religious issues, the Western Area has always been a melting pot because from its inception, the communities have always been distinctly religious but together in culture and traditions. So the concept of religious tolerance is ingrained because we are talking about a people who have long been interrelated through marriage and affinity. Finally, while they do not hold any scope for claiming that the Mayor of Freetown must be a Creole, it has always been the genuine wish of Freetown’s people and an unwritten rule of the APC Party to support the Creole, candidate for Mayor so that in the very least, the people of Freetown are given a chance to vote in a Creole into elective office because this is the only arena where they can legitimately make that claim.
For these reasons, it makes a mockery of intelligence and common sense that people like Gento Kamara and Sylvia Blyden, the much vaunted ticket of the SLPP, should come out and make such glaring aspersions on the Creoles, or to the people of the Western Area, and this only exposes the fact that these people do not belong here. In effect, the current SLPP stance and campaign strategy for the Mayors of Freetown is a fallacy.
There is only one Mayor, and there is only one Her Lordship, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr for that position.
Sylvia Blyden is not Creole and Mohamed Gento Kamara does not hail from Freetown.
Quad errat demonstratum!