Dear Editor,
Leila Ram alleges in her letter under the caption “Some want to create division”, that there is a stratagem by some to portray the PPP/Civic Administration as anti-religion. Well how about that for balance huh? Apparently Miss Ram has no problem with the PPP/Civic Minister of Home Affairs attempting to portray certain religious groups as terrorists, or Minister Fox’s faux pas in using slavery as a guilt trip agency to stifle religious protests over gambling enabling legislation. Perhaps more than anyone else in Guyana, Minister Fox is best qualified to be cognizant of the absurdity of her remarks in a nation where the bulk of Christian religious membership is comprised of the descendants of those bruised, battered and decimated by the abominable slavery she referenced. I sincerely hope that she revisit her remarks, especially since she is a product of Christian religious nurturing.
And as if Miss Ram didn’t know, there are and have always been divisions in our society. And there will always be divisions in this society of ours as long as wrong continues to be a decision of who did what, rather than a determinant of what was done.
The double and triple standards that have become the norm in Guyana today are stifling, and as each day goes by the steady plane of reality is being slowly but surely shunted aside for convenient truths as defined by those occupying the power space.
What’s good for the goose is denied to the gander, and the justification for it all seems to be based on the arrogant reasoning of Humpty Dumpty as expressed in his comment to Alice in “Through the looking glass” that quote, “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”. Only two years ago we were eagerly justifying the extra-judicial extermination of folks suspected of or charged with committing crimes. Our fears and angst made obsolete all notions of “due process”, “innocent until proven guilty”, and “rule of law”. And look at us today. We are poised to rent asunder any argument against or caution of the government’s patronage of others under legal suspicion or indictment. No I am not changing my tune that it is wrong to punish people before they are found guilty.
I am merely pointing out the manner in which we selectively cull right and wrong from situations and events based on our association or lack thereof with the principals.
Yes indeed, large portions of the Christian world abandoned their religious principles and gave, sometimes tacit, other times overt, succour to the enslavement of mine and others ancestors. But Christianity is not the only body or group eligible to be tarred with that feather. When it comes to the chattel slavery of Africans there is nary a culture or group that can escape unscathed, the accusation of collaboration. And appended to that is the reaction of many in Guyana last year when the call for reparations was made by ACDA. As I recall the notion that fuelled opposition was that Guyana and Guyanese of today cannot not be held liable or accountable for what occurred to the ancestors of Africans and of course, also our Indigenous peoples, hundreds of years ago. Well shouldn’t the Christian World also enjoy such exemption? Just asking.
The President in divorcing the Government and party from the comments of his ministers is said to have intimated that they were speaking for themselves as private persons. Now is this a new paradigm that we are establishing for 2007.
Throughout the past few years the President and his party have blamed many actions by individuals on groups and organizations that they were a part of, or might have been part of in the past. For example, we did not separate the criminality that was suspected of being ensconced in Buxton from the overwhelming good people of Buxton, even when the victims came from that community.
With every violent criminal episode that shattered our sense of security and well being we sought and embraced cathartic relief from vilifying and labeling an entire village as criminals and ne’er do wells. How far we have traveled in just a few months?
Martin Luther King said “There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don’t have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it”. The construction of the Guyanese society continues to favour pillars that are contoured particularly and lean in a manner that is comforting to those now in charge of such construction. All those distant from that centre like me can do is to keep banging on the doors of sensibility, hoping that maybe one day they will open and take heed.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
Atlanta, Georgia
