Talk:Talibes

Cleanup goals
This needs some major editing, but I think there are parts which can be saved. Street kids in Dakar are known as Talibes, and it's an outgrowth of traditional religious leaders and students living by alms. But the word (it's just Arabic for Students) means everything from Madrassa students, to adult followers of specific teachers, sects, to students (religious and secular) to the Taliban in central asia. So this needs to be re-written as West African (especially Dakar/Bamako) specific usage, and be about BOTH religious students, and street kids, both where they intersect and where they do not. There are plenty of religious students (or followers of Marabouts) who are not children and/or do not beg. As there are plenty of homeless Dakar kids who are not students.

Also, this article was written by some Christian missionary who seems to want to see all (Muslim) religious teachers as exploiters. Not only non-encyclopedic but also just wrong.T L Miles (talk) 18:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments, and would like to comment that the status of the "Arms of Love" organization cited is questionable. After repeated attempts to get in touch with them regarding their intervention claims on their website, I was denied information and the right to visit their "orphan house". Shortly after, the information about the Dakar house was removed from their site. This information should be read with this in mind.12602TES (talk) 15:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12602TES (talk • contribs)

I am actually (up right now--at 2 a.m.!) in the process of working on a paper on talibes in Dakar. I agree with the above criticisms: there ought to be specificity in terms of the region, country or city being discussed. While most street children are talibes, certainly not all talibes are sent out to beg in the streets. The notion that all marabouts are out to exploit their students for profit is false, and I believe a common misconception in the West. Anyway, I have never put anything up on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure how I would go about doing, but once I get this paper finished (fingers crossed!), I would be happy to condense and then use it to supplement this article. 76.121.184.57 (talk) 09:57, 6 May 2009 (UTC)