I am relieved that LMB did not offer false hopes that he and KMC could discourage or arrest the psychosocial phenomenon of BIMIEUS when he was asked how his council intends to address it. I’m equally pleased that he and KMC are working to offer alternative options for residents of KMC to consider.
As is the case most often in semi-literate to illiterate populations, problems are often misdiagnosed and obtusely addressed for remediation or for any measure of relief. Bimieus is merely a symptom of many other misguided norms, practices, and omissions, and I shall try to share some ideas on the phenomenon in multiple short essays, of which this is one.
If we survey the population of Bimieus in our region of West Africa, we discover that it largely comprises youth between 16-35 years old, and male. However, they have increasingly included female and younger crusaders. Their origin communities have been mainly landlocked and islamic communities, and largely high school leavers, whether English, French, or Madrassas. This demographic makeup, properly delineated, will stand us in good stead to offer the best possible alternative options for our youth to consider. The keywords in this first essay are ‘to consider’ because Bimieus’ demographics have expanded to include more and more coastal communities thereby concerning whole nations like Gambia, Senegal, and the two Guineas, bref, all of the West African Coast, thanks to the advent of foreign pirate fishing, oil drilling, and the narcotrade, and of criminal governments.
Bimieus before 2015 has been signicantly generational, but over the years since then, it has engulfed more and more newcomer families whose members had been the logistical middlemen and women prior, because the lure of the drugs trade windfall as a petit trader in the EU and US have superceded the attendant risks, excepting chance death by famine, slavery, abandon, or drowning.
For youth who grow up in single parent homes largely with their mothers and other female relatives, and whose fathers and other male relatives form the comprehensive diaspora populations, their dreams and realities are generally tethered to life or education abroad. They may mechanically attend school, even regularly and punctually, but their focus and attention are predominantly outside of the classroom and abroad. Both inside and outside of those classrooms, they are often regaled by pomp and pageantry from classmates and friends who have better off parents and siblings abroad. They continue to float in cloud cuckoo land of want, envy, and hallucinations, with no time to study or to improve on their language, grammar, communication, arithmetic, or science skills. If they are lucky and can afford it, they purchase passing grades and are promoted from grade to grade by poor quality and corrupt teachers of an equally corrupt and decrepit education department or ministry. The madrassas they attend are largely funded by foreign Islamic entities and their parents abroad, who have gone through similar madrassa experiences of rote learning. At the end of elementary and high school, if they are fortunate enough to complete the rubric, without any skill or adequate guidance, they join the network of mendiants, drug couriers and stevedores, petty traders, political acolytes, and tourist bumsters while they fenagle their escape to the EU or US.
This is the vicious cycle of an African youth’s life inside Africa. Promotion in decrepit schools and madrassas is largely purchased, and when complete, there’s no hope outside of being trafficked by the president, the madrassa middlemen and women, or drug barons. And when they finally escape, they often leave behind a wife and or one or more children who become totally dependent on them while waiting for their own opportunities or designs for escape. Generations of them create a labyrinthine hill of hopelessness, listlessness, and decrepitude. And their youthful leaders come from among this cesspool, and who will mortgage their lives and futures to the highest bidder, drug baron or slave merchant.
In the next essay, I shall look more closely at a system in Gambia, with a view to identify an antidote or two to Bimieus.