Book: The Gambia-Senegal Border: Issues in Regional Integration/ Politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau
Author: Mariama Khan
Publication Year: 2019/2021
Genre: Sociology
Country: The Gambia
Book: The African
Author: William Conton
Publication Year: 1961
Genre: Fiction
As countries go, there can be few that are quite so bizarre as The Gambia. The smallest country in Africa, The Gambia is almost entirely enclosed by Senegal. Its geography is entirely defined by the Gambia River (which makes up 11% of the country’s total area), with the capital, Banjul, situated on an island at the mouth of the river as it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is barely 30 miles wide at its widest point.
Moreover, one part of Senegal, Casamance, lies on the opposite side of Gambia, which, for all practical purposes, cuts it off from the rest of the country. In order to travel to Casamance, a Senegalese traveler must pass into The Gambia, cross the river, and exit once again. This obviously presents unique challenges in terms of border control and international relations.
The reason The Gambia exists at all comes down to this project’s favourite topic, colonialism. The Portuguese crown sold exclusive trading rights on the Gambia river to English merchants in 1588. This trade continued for the next two centuries until Great Britain occupied the area in 1758. It was at various times considered an enclave of Sierra Leone, also a British territory, until a separate country was created in 1888. It remained a British colony until gaining independence in 1965.
Senegal, meanwhile, was for three hundred years under the colonial control of France. Following independence for both countries, the colonial languages were retained as a lingua franca between different demographic groups with their own local languages. This presents further challenges in terms of managing the geographical border between the two countries.
Mariama Khan is a Gambian born academic working in the United States. Her two books under consideration, The Gambia-Senegal Border: Issues in Regional Integration, and Politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, look at the challenges in policing and navigating the border between The Gambia and Senegal, as well as the history and cross border co-operation in West Africa in general.
The term used to describe Senegal and The Gambia as a whole is Senegambia. The Gambia-Senegal Border looks at how people living on opposite sides of the border negotiate customs check points, as well as the way transport and trade are coordinated.
The question that is bound to occur to anyone reading about Senegambia is, why don’t the two countries merge to become one and resolve many of these border problems, making Casamance contiguous with the rest of Senegal at the same time?
Khan dedicates much time to this conversation and why it is impractical in the short (and probably long) term. Casamance becoming part of The Gambia has just as many issues with a lively and, at a times, violent movement in the region to become an independent state on its own.
Khan uses the local ideas dome-baaye (the father’s child) and dome-ndeye (the mother’s child) as a comparison between the things in which The Gambia and Senegal are in opposition and the things in which they are in agreement. The former, in the language of the book, refers to areas where The Gambia and Senegal are in conflict. The latter refers to areas in which there is significant co-operation.
Politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau draws parallels with the histories of these two West African counties under colonialism and since independence. Guinea-Bissau was a Portuguese country with many of its population shipped to the Cabo Verde islands (also a Portuguese African colony) as slaves to work in the cotton and indigo plantations.
Both countries were once part of the pre-colonial state of Kaabu, which existed for three hundred years from the 16th to 19th century, until the region was formally partitioned between the countries of Western Europe. Kaabu was essentially a province of Mali, made up of modern day Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia and parts of Casamance. The historic state gives Khan a way to metaphorically unite Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia and circumnavigate the barrier of Casamance that lies between them.
Mariama Khan
I chose these two books because it is nice to step away from the purely fictional for a time. There is so much of Africa to explore on which academia can shed a light. One cannot live on authors alone. Besides, with one of the strangest international borders in the world, it is worth exploring how it works in practice.
Moreover, given how much Western Europe carved up West Africa into such small chunks and slices, it is beneficial to get an idea of the larger picture when passing on to other countries in the region. Senegal is one of those places from which I had already read literature in the form of Fatou Diome. I would like to reread them and some of her other books, as well as a number of other Senegalese writers. To Guinea-Bissau we shall also turn soon enough with the author, Abdulai Silá.
William Conton might be considered somewhat of a cheat. He was of Sierra Leone parentage. However, he was born in Banjul (then called Bathurst) in 1925, forty years before The Gambia gained independence.
I am unsure why Conton was born in The Gambia. His parents were descendents of Caribbean Creoles who settled in Sierra Leone when the country was established as a place for freed slaves. Nevertheless I have more than enough Sierra Leone writers to read to allow The Gambia to borrow someone who was actually born there.
The African takes place in the fictional West African country of Songhai (based on the pre-colonial West African Songhai Empire), as well as locations in England, including Durham. Liverpool and the Lake District. It is partly autobiographical, partly a bildungsroman, depicting the development of the main character, Kamara, as he is educated in Songhai, travels to England to study at Durham University (as did Conton), suffers injury and tragedy as a result of his love affair with a white South African woman, before returning to his home country and becoming a politician and campaigner for independence.
It’s one of those books, like Yambo Ouologuem’s Le Devoir de Violence (see: Mali) that is a decent first novel. The main character is a little stiff and conservative. He marries his first wife for political reasons and takes a second wife (Songhai being a polygamous country like much of real life West Africa) for practical reasons. Unfortunately, Conton did not write another novel for twenty years. 1987’s The Flights is touted as a kind of sequel to The African. By all accounts, it’s not very good.
Still, The African is generic enough that it could be set in most West African countries in the years leading up to independence and its immediate aftermath. The ending, which turns into a tale of revenge and redemption, is a little superfluous. The ending is ambiguous and unsatisfying, especially for we simple souls who enjoy seeing the villain get their comeuppance. But then the novel doesn’t give us enough information to reach a solid conclusion as to the alleged perpetrator’s guilt. It’s partially successful as a novel. Perhaps that is why Conton took so long to write another.
I suspect as we return to West Africa many more times during this project we will find like the Caribbean and the Pacific Island Region that the borders between its nations will continue to blur. Borders, as we have seen countless times in these entries, are political and arbitrary.
The Gambia might be the smallest country in Africa, but that means its cross border relations are all the more important, especially with the larger country that encloses it. Behemoths like China, India, Russia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo remain unresolved due to their sheer size. Like the Louvre, their treasures are too big to absorb in one visit (or indeeed, many). Smaller nations might have less to offer but they have more to appreciate.
The bizarrity of The Gambia’s size and shape are what make it unique. One can only hope it retains its character through independence from Senegal, while reining the dome-ndeye of Senegambia. That way we can still say in a non-official language: Vive la Difference. Vive la Gambia.
William Conton
