By Landing Colley
National Assembly member for Serrekunda has said he is willing to launch a dialogue tour that would aim at bringing both Muslims and Christian’s religious leaders to a dialoguing table on the rumbling issues surrounding secularism.
Secularism has created debate among people of the country, where some people are calling for it to be embedded in the new constitution while others protest against its inclusion in the new constitution.
Speaking during the adjournment debate at the national assembly, Hon. Halifa Sallah told lawmakers that: Hon. Speaker, I am ready to go into that constituency; get the Christian and Muslim leaders, move them into that constituency and we look at this constitution together and look at what secularism means so that people will have knowledge that will unify us as a people. I will be doing that in the month of January so that I will move from place to place.”
He added: “let them speak to the people. At the end of the day, I would explain to them because there is a science of society. And we have surrendered our brains to outsiders and we believe that Europeans are dictating to us. Members of Parliament are here at the ACPU, I was there with the Europeans. We talked about homosexuality. How did I treat it? Who question what I said? Not a single European Parliamentarian dares to question what I said because is rooted in knowledge.”
According to him, if we are going to be saved as a nation, as a people, we must seek knowledge and we must awaken our people, adding “the African people, the Gambian people are awakened. Nobody will take them to sleep again. They are now ready to talk and nobody will silence them. But ignorance will not lead. It is knowledge that will lead.”