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Dear Editor,
Letters have surfaced on the topic of Reparation including one by a Professor Emeritus, Gokarran Sukhdeo and others. All dealing with the question of Reparation. I assume the height and interest is occasioned by the visit of former Prime Minister Blair of the UK and the Descendants of the former slave owner, the Gladstones.
Space and time will not allow for a corrective response to the many falsehoods and misguided beliefs contained in those correspondence. For now, I will deal with just a few.
Dr. Persaud links in his convoluted Afro-centrism, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther KIng (Jnr) and Nelson Mandela. I recommend that these writers do as I have done, spend time in the UK perusing records and documents available in London. Beyond that, I had the opportunity to meet with Nelson Mandela in March 1990, when I represented my country at a Namibia Independence celebrations. I had the opportunity to meet with Mandela who had the previous month been released from prison.
I met with white and black Africans and learned first-hand, more of what took place in South Africa and Gandhi’s stewardship while there. Briefly Gandhi’s campaign was on behalf of the Indians and colored people of South Africa and at no time, did he evince an interest for the plight of the indigenous black people of South Africa. When he was thrown out of the cabin reserved for whites, his concern was that he and Indians were being forced to share the cabins and toilets with black South Africans. Perusal of records shows that Gandhi in Durban once referred to black Africans as savages.
So to link Gandhi with Mandela and Martin Luther King is ludicrous and does violence to the different nature of the activism of these three Internationally acclaimed personalities, and those who write so pompously. must avail themselves the opportunity of the truth of history. The environment of then and now and the mindset of those who helped shape the world we know today, some for better and some for worse.
When the Gladstones gave an apology at the University of Guyana last Friday, and at a ceremony the following morning, there were protests by a certain political party. The following day, Saturday morning at ACDA Headquarters in the presence of the Gladstons, I commenced my address by saying that their apology demonstrated courage, decency and an interest in justice and hoped that the apology was merely an initial step to reparation.
A fundamental requirement of anyone using the accolades so described by the learned Professor, is before they speak or write, careful enquiry and research is a sine-qua-non.
As I will advert to the aspects of the letter he wrote, there was no research and there was no concern for the truth and I hope that this gentleman would be kind enough to help us. First, before his next adventure I advise him to secure a copy of the Moyne and Venn Reports dealing with the sugar industry, which in essence considered the majority Indo-Guyanese’ condition in the early part of Guyana’s twentieth century.
Useful as he dabbles like a bull in a China shop on the question of slavery and reparation, he listens to a lecture delivered in London by Patrick Robinson titled “Emancipation without reparations is hollow,” published in Stabroek News of Monday, 28th August 2023 on page 8 – In the Diaspora.
In the lecture by Patrick Robinson, former member of the International Court of Justice observed. He reminded us that and I quote that “ The transatlantic chattel enslavement of African people is the starkest example of man’s inhumanity to man in the history of humankind. It was unmatched for its duration of over 400 years. Unmatched for its barbarity and dehumanising characteristics – demonstrated in the 18th century by the Englishman Thomas Thistlewood, whose favourite punishment for an enslaved runaway from his plantation in Jamaica was to coerce one of the enslaved to defecate in the mouth of the runaway, whose mouth was then gagged for about three hours. Unmatched for its sheer scale, demonstrated first, by the length of the pernicious triangular crossing from Great Britain to Africa, then to the Caribbean and to the Americas in the infamous Middle Passage in which over a million died and back to Britain, a distance of over 12,000 miles or 19,300 kilometer; and second by the number of persons enslaved who fought to give meaning to that freedom.”
Dear Editor, I will avoid the tedium of responding to the many twisted Statements in Dr. Persaud’s letter but comment on the major ones.
First he introduces the term Afro- centrism and Indo-centrism and accuses the PNC of being divisive. The PNC that I know always sought unity. It is not the PNC that made Apan Jaat a clarion call.
It is interesting that he connects Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King (Jnr) and Nelson Mandela. This is a clever ruse but I dealt with it a few paragraphs earlier. You see dear Editor, throughout recent history, black Africans everywhere, in spite of their sufferings have always been willing to forgive, but this must not mean that in the case of Afro-Guyanese, we forget or even worse be stupid and accept that our place is on the ground floor in the mud and dirt.
Let me now advert to a serious issue and a hurdle which Guyanese of every hue must now face. When the Dutch recently offered an open apology for their role in slavery and the slave trade, the incumbent Prime Minister of England, Mr. Rishi Sunak said he was not prepared likewise, meaning that for him reparation could not be a matter of importance
I am disappointed but not surprised. There’s an intellectual Hindu tradition that believes that Hindus are descended from the same branch of the human family as the Anglo-Saxons.
I was part of a decision to facilitate a monument in Gandhi’s honor in the Promenade Gardens in 1969, a place where in 1823, several African slaves had their heads cut off and placed on staves. But records show that while Gandhi was in South Africa, his campaign, his speeches were only directed to the concerns of the Indian and coloured communities.
After what should have been a reasonable analysis of our post-emancipation history, Professor Persaud proceeds to state that it was Indo-Guyanese who contributed to the well being of Afro Guyanese. He doesn’t say where, when or how. On the contrary, he failed to note that it was the very teachers and nurses of African descent who willingly and lovingly taught Indo Guyanese and brought them into the mainstream of a western white cultural environment and allowed them using their industry, sense of purpose and determination to rise to the top.
I have oftentimes expressed my admiration for many Indo-Guyanese in business, commerce, the professions and sports. We’re grateful and proud of those Guyanese. They say half truth is just as bad as an outright lie and to say that slavery and indentureship are similar is an absurdity. Just as his contention that Indo Guyanese helped Afro- Guyanese.
In his effort to promote President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo, he states that they are the architects of bringing people together. The joke is that he mentions President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo and Prime Minister Mark Phillips in that order. That is not a mistake but those who know the PPP and Guyana, would recognize that since 1992, the PPP Prime Ministers provide what some naughty folks call ‘comedy relief.’
We must carefully note statements made by some people. The Constitution makes the Prime Minister the First Vice President, but we know Dr. Persaud’s statement unwittingly let the cat out of the bag. I’ve dealt with this elsewhere, but Guyanese are sensible enough to know who are the puppets and who are the puppeteers and those whose business it is to fool the people.
Incidentally Dr. Persaud, the Bhagwandins, Ramracha and others extol the virtues of President Dr. Ali. Of course there is Mr. Vassan Ramracha who seems interested in my religious beliefs and is repeating old mischief and I wonder if he was complicit in disturbing UG and the ACDA Meetings, when the Gladstones visited to make an apology for enslavement..
As I write this letter, there is one written by Gokarran Sukhdeo, Stabroek News of August 29 titled “Important elements are missing from reparations dialogues,” which appears to have a semblance of balance but there exist a fundamental flaw that if we are seeking reparation for enslavement, indentureship should be included.
From a practical standpoint therefore, apart from the odious nature of comparing slavery with indentureship, any effort to seek reparation and justice for the descendants of the Manumitted African, that effort, that initiative will be delayed forever and ever, if the two systems of slavery and indentureship are seen as parallel and requiring equal treatment.
What is worrisome, if we look at the great United States of America, there, in spite of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement, more than three generations ago we still have white supremist attitude today, as seen in Jacksonville, Florida. Not to forget George Floyd’s incident recently. Are we seeing that attitude emerging in our country?
Guyana must stay focused, for what with the contortions in the lucrative oil blocks saga, we all face the prospect of forms of re-enslavement. For whatever reason, the PPP by their recent organised protest seem intent to deflect a way from the just cause of reparation. Reparation to at least heal the deep wounds extant..
The reasonable, honest descendants from Madeira, China and India must know that they came here as free men, they came here, were paid, not so for the Africans. Indentured Labourers came here and were able to maintain an identity, which was a foundation upon which they built. Not so with enslaved Africans. The Indentured Immigrants who came were able to identify from whence they came Not so with the captured Africans.
Immigrants, if they wished, as some did, could return to find their cousins and grandparents. Not so with the captured Africans. In the case of the Indians, they were able to bring their drums, and religious paraphernalia. Not so with the African, who to make sounds used discarded steel drums and because of his resilience and ear sound, produced the modern musical wonder instrument,the steel pan and the steel band.
When the Immigrants came, even though small, they were paid for every hour of work., Not so with the Africans. When the Immigrants came the British Parliament had already instituted regulations of amelioration on the plantations. The African, when freed, was given not one cent, but the British government paid the slave owners handsomely for the loss of each slave -man, woman and child. From the records, one slave owner was paid 20 million pounds sterling, To make a nexus about slavery and indentureship is certainly The compensation included for creole slaves (those who were born here) who were freed in 1834.
The enslavers of African people were paid 20 million pounds sterling in the loss of their property, that is the equivalent of trillions of Guyana’s dollars today. There is no such equation about indentured laborers.
African women were raped routinely and maybe that is why today some folks see nothing wrong with ‘rape.’
So why and for what reason are some folks making a nexus between slavery and indentureship. Is mysterious and president Ali must be unambiguous and put an end to this charade.
Yours truly,
Hamilton Green
Elder