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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Senegal clashes as archbishop says Christians insulted |
| 2010-01-02 |
| Security forces in Senegal fired tear gas at a crowd hurling rocks on Wednesday, as violence erupted after the archbishop of Dakar accused the president of insulting the country's Christian minority. Several dozen young people threw stones at security forces Wednesday outside Dakar cathedral, an AFP journalist said, as worshippers leaving the service tried to reason with the angry crowd. The clashes broke out following a New Year message from cardinal Theodore Adrien Sarr, the archbishop of Dakar, who accused the government in the Muslim majority country of insulting Senegal's Christians. The archbishop said President Abdoulaye Wade had made "damaging remarks" about Christians. He added it was "scandalous and intolerable that the divinity of Jesus Christ, heart of our faith, is called into question and ridiculed by the highest authority of the state." The archbishop was angered by Wade's comments on Monday about Christian churches -- the president said Muslims view churches as places to "pray to someone who is not God." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #11 Desertification from sheep/cows? No question: it is glaringly obvious. Here and there you can see a spot where the plants haven't been gnawed away, and it is a few inches above the eroded rest of the soil. The land is littered with cast iron cow pies, which don't seem to fertilize anything (a year ago somebody was suggesting to import Egyptian dung beetles to see if they could get the dung in the ground to do some good). Gotta have those sheep for Eid/Tabaski, though, land be damned. |
| Posted by: James 2010-01-02 22:32 |
| #10 Naaaaaaaaaahhh |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-01-02 18:34 |
| #9 I mean, maybe if the muslims could give up some of their recreation they'd have a little more vegetation. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2010-01-02 18:32 |
| #8 Goat jokes may or may not be getting stale but I wonder how much the goats have to do with desertification in the north. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2010-01-02 18:30 |
| #7 Bright Pebbles, most of the peanut crop from Senegal goes to Europe. FYI Nimble, the goat jokes are getting stale. |
| Posted by: mom 2010-01-02 14:49 |
| #6 Didn't a lot of Americans get an Allergy to peanut farmers in 1981? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2010-01-02 14:13 |
| #5 They farm peanuts as a cash crop and raise sheep and goats. As a recreational crop? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-01-02 10:12 |
| #4 Senegal looks something like this: The Senegal River, the first navigable river south of the Sahara, is the northern border of the country. The French glommed the Senegal Valley in the 19th C.; the river took them into the hinterlands of North Africa. They built their colonial capital at the mouth of the river. Senegal is a French-speaking country. Government paperwork and schooling are in French. Most urban areas use a tribal language, Wolof, for day-to-day communications, and there are a dozen or so other tribal languages in the country. The British glommed the Gambia River Valley, and so at independence The Gambia became a separate country. Of course, the borders go right down the main streets of a number of villages. This gives the census bureaus of both countries a lot of headaches. The northern, more desert areas of Senegal are overwhelmingly Muslim. They farm peanuts as a cash crop and raise sheep and goats. Further south, below The Gambia, is the Casamance River Valley. The Casamance area tribes are more animist and Christian. The Casamance is forested, and gets more rainfall than the north. So the Casamance feeds most of the rest of the country. Because they are ethnically and religiously different, there is tension that breaks out in violence. One would think that the northern region would appreciate the people who provide the produce that feeds the rest of the country, but logic doesn't apply here. Senegal has a species of imam called marabouts. The marabouts combine the authority of imams with the mystery of a tribal shaman. They're a little bit of both. They control a lot of business in the Muslim areas. They are the real power in the hinterlands, and have a lot of power in the cities also. Marabouts and imams also run talibe schools, which in theory teach boys to memorize the Koran (in Arabic, which they don't understand). In practice, this means that the boys are often begging all day and beaten or worse if they don't bring in enough money. Second Daughter would sometimes give the talibe boys food instead of money, because they usually don't get enough to eat. The University at Dakar has room for 20,000 students, and has 50,000 students. The university gave control of housing to student groups, which makes for some impressive racketeering on campus. There are few jobs in Senegal for college graduates except government jobs, so the housing situation gives the students plenty of training for Chicago-style government. |
| Posted by: mom 2010-01-02 09:53 |
| #3 That won't work. When you try, they melt. Some of them burn up and turn into bones and ashes. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-01-02 08:36 |
| #2 He might need to convert them first. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-01-02 08:24 |
| #1 "Christians insulted" I like that. Can we get archbishop of Dakar to give lessons to EUro "christian" leaders? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-01-02 03:44 |