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Let’s selfishly safeguard our
religious co-existence -President Jammeh urges Gambians Courtesy: Gambian News December 30, 2009  The
Gambian leader, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya AJJ
Jammeh, has called on Gambians not to take it for granted that
Christians and Muslims have ever lived together as a family that is
characterized by mutual tolerance, love and respect, and must continue
to make every effort to nurture and selfishly safeguard this
co-existence as a nation with a common goal and future, despite the
respective ethnic origin, social status, and more importantly, different
religions.He further urged Gambians to make every effort, to live humble lives like Jesus, by standing for what is right, advocating for justice in the world, visiting the sick and the lonely, sharing with the need, fight against evil and disciplining our children for a better Gambia and by extension humanity at large. This was contained in his annual Christmas message delivered on the eve of Christmas day last Thursday as the country braces up to celebrate this great day. Below we reproduce the full text of the president’s message: As Christians all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ known as Christmas, I wish to sincerely thank the Almighty God who made it possible for us to witness yet another Christmas Season. I would also like to take this opportunity to wish all Gambians and residents of The Gambia a very blessed and happy Christmas celebration. As we celebrate this year?s Christmas, let us remember that it is a feast which reunites us with our families, friends and loved ones. In this way, it provides an opportune moment for us toe valuate our attitudes and relationships to each other as a family, a nation and even as a human civilization at large. Essentially, Christmas anniversary is an occasion during which we can reflect on our deeds in the past years and possibly consider changing those negative attitudes and behaviors of ours so that this celebration will not only bring blessings and good our families, but to humanity at large. Celebrations like Christmas also evoke a sense of belonging to a group, family, or community. As Gambians, let us not take it for granted that, Christians and Muslims have ever lived together as a family that is characterized by mutual tolerance, love and respect, but we must continue to make every effort to nurture and selfishly safeguard this co-existence as a nation with a common goal and future, despite our respective ethnic origin, social status, and more importantly, different religions. As we celebrate Christmas, we must try to compare our life styles to that of Jesus Christ and other prophets of God. The life of Jesus is an epitome of hard work, humility, service to humanity especially to the needy, the sick and the poor. I sincerely believe that, if we are not living exemplary lives attributed to those prophets, it could provide a motivation for us to change and repent for the great glory of our children and humanity. The Christmas anniversary provides a moment of reflection and hope for the future. However, when we look at our society today, many of us will realize that it is characterized by extreme dishonesty, greed, hatred, evil, violence among others. This clearly shows us all the extent to which we have turned our backs on our creator the almighty God since some of these evil attributes of our human society are against the teachings of the prophets. Hence, this makes the celebration of important feasts like Christmas more meaningful to us as a nation, and as a creation of God. I wish to urge all of you to use this occasion to value humanity by caring and sharing with each other particularly the disadvantaged in our society. When we look around the world today, we see a lot of disadvantaged people, exploited countries; children and women being killed in areas of conflict the world over. Yet, many seem not to be concerned over these evil deeds as there is very little being done by us as a society to arrest the situation. Therefore celebrations like this one should be used to sincerely pray for a positive change of heart on the side of perpetrators of these heinous crimes, so that peace and moral uprightness could be restored in our society. It is only when we live God-fearing lives that we can experience a society free of evil and a world of peace, progress and prosperity. This cold be done if we all stand together to fight excessive greed and blatant wickedness and strive to live contended lives as well as share with the less fortunate in this way we can create a future free hate racism and violence for our children and for posterity. Let us make every effort, as Gambians and as a creation of God, to live humble lives like Jesus, by standing for what is right, advocating for justice in the world, visiting the sick and the lonely and sharing with the needy as well. We must always fight against evil and disciplining our children for a better Gambia and by extension humanity at large. As we celebrate Christmas this year, let us be cognizant of the temptations often associated with the joy of Christmas celebrations; such as excessive drinking, use of drugs, reckless driving and violations of the law. We must not loose sight throughout our celebration so that it will continue to be a blessed, joyful and prayerful feast for all of us. May the Almighty God shower his blessings, protection and guidance on our families, offices, departments and ministries, and on the country in general so that we can collectively achieve our national goals of peace, living in peace, progress and prosperity at all times. May the Almighty God guard, protect and bless the Gambia at all times always. Merry Christmas to all of you and God’s richest blessings. |
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