GAM WRIT ERS

ADDRESS FROM GAMBIA
Presented by Lenrie Peters

Mr. Chairman, Fellow writers,

I bring you warm greetings from the people of the Gambia, and in particular from the Gambia Writers' Club. Our club, like our new independent state, is a young one which came into being with three aims in view:

(a) To encourage Gambian writers by providing an outlet for other creations - we now run a quarterly Magazine.

(b) To provide a forum for writers to exchange ideas through discussions, seminars, readings, etc.,

(c) To create a link between Gambian writers and the vast body of writers around the world.

To my best knowledge, this is the first time the Gambia has been invited to these conferences, but I am not inclined to put it down to the fact that we may have been forgotten in the past, though, of course, we are quite accustomed to being forgotten.

However, you will understand that by the mere fact of initiation into this brotherhood of Afro-Asian writers, the greater is my sense of privilege and gratitude on this occasion.

I have been deeply impressed by what I have seen and heard so far, and I would take this opportunity of asking our hosts, the Kazakhstan Union of Writers, to convey my special thanks to the Director, the orchestras, chorus, dancers and singers for the memorable evening of music and dancing on which we feasted two evenings ago. And indeed also the members of the circus for their equestrian, gyrating and seduc­tive skills. Even without my stethoscope, I could hear a thousand hearts beating in unison.

To paraphrase an utterance by the late Pandit Nehru, 'We are little men sent to tackle great events'. My country Sir is a small one with great problems. Yet I would urge this gathering not to equate our contribution necessarily to our size. In a world where quantity is often all too readily available, quality becomes a sought after com­modity.

We live in difficult times, Mr. Chairman, and the all pervading problem for the African writer is one of isolation. Isolation very often by the mere fact of his writing in a foreign language, isolation from his own the continent. But this isolation, far from being sterile, grows like cancer to subdue his talent and to tear apart, country from country, tribe from tribe, and man from man within his socio-economic and political environment. Consequently, we arrive at the fact that the just priority for the African writer outside his service to his community is that African unity. Unity or stagnation is the slogan, ladies and gentlemen.

Here I would defy the German Philosopher, Nietzchc, by asserting that brother­hood like charity, begins at home: and must begin at home before it can be exported abroad, and indeed I intend no xenophobia here.

But African writers must know each other better on their own territories, understand their varying problems in order to avail themselves of a broader plat­form for their inspirations.

I believe that such associations can only strengthen their links with other poets and writers abroad. I would invite the Bureau of the Afro-Asian Writers to con­sider whether or not it will be possible to hold regional conferences in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, quite apart from major gatherings of this kind here in Alma Ata.

Today, everyone is his brother's keeper, so send not to know for whom the bell tolls. Writers of Africa and Asia as they come together must recognize that their countries must take a large measure of responsibility for the wrongs which assail them. It is mere humbug to pretend that all our ills came borne on the forming nostrils of insane bulls from abroad. There is much we can do for ourselves which remain undone, much we can accomplish on which we turn our backs.

How many here can get up and boast that in his or her country, there is no neglect of the poor in favour of the rich that there is equal medical facility for all that the infant mortality rate is negligible; or indeed that justice is both done and seen to be done by and to all.

I suggest that when we travel abroad and the polemics are flying about us, we must keep our sense of reality. If politics is the art of what is possible, let us firstly discover what can be done and then embark upon it with energy and due concern.

The past lies fallow behind us or at most haunts our dreams. The future lies before us; so let us seize it by the horns, and bend it to our purpose. Moderate the accusations and the recriminations against the past along which path lies confusion and decay. That confusion which led the West Indian cricketer touring Australia to write home as follows:

"Dear Aunty Sally:

The weather here is beautiful. I hear you can't read fast, so I am writing slowly."

It is my belief that we in those virgin lands of Africa and Asia, and I use the word virgin very advisedly; have a great opportunity before us. An opportunity which we must not let slip by. With courage tempered by wisdom, honesty, selflessness and basic humanity, we at least have a chance to avoid those tragedies which have overtaken the industrialized world over recent centuries.

Here in this noble city of Alma Ata, we see the subtle and aesthetic merger of the new and the old. We see the foresight and planning which have gone into its gardens, streets, buildings and into that aspect towards which all our efforts eventually turn, consideration for the human person, Let us steal a page out of this book, for it is of far greater importance what we take away from this Conference, than what we may have brought to it.

Let future generations never accuse us of being., as Eliot puts it, "Men with heads full of straw" and even if we are condemned to measuring out our lives in coffee-spoons, at least let it be damned good coffee.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are pledged as writers to reveal to our utmost capacity, the essence; of the human condition. To illuminate the human spirit and in so doing to lift it out of the bondage of darkness and to drag it towards the light.

Let us; let us move towards the light.

(Ndaanan, Vol. 4, 1974: Pages 4-5)