Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter by Mr Mohan Singh captioned “Marginalisation requires detailed analysis, it can’t just be asserted” (08.04.20).
1. I continue with my position that statistical evidence is not needed to make claims and assertions on racism in Guyana. Dr Misir operates from a sociological perspective hence his use of quantitative data. I operate from an anthropological/ linguistic/ philosophical perspective hence my use of non-quantitative data. The fact that I do not operate from a sociological perspective does not make my interpretations any less valid.
2. Mr Singh cannot recall seeing terms such as “criminals” etc. being used to describe African Guyanese in the Chronicle and requested that I give specific examples. There was a letter by Shameer Ali in GC 8/10/2007, who following up on a letter by Frederick Smith in KN 7/10/2007, supports Smith’s claim that Africans commit 99% of the crimes in Guyana (I wonder where that figure was pulled from), and also added that Africans are lazy. There was another by Arnold Chance, GC 23/02/2008 who described the grief shown by the relatives of James Hyles in court as “lawless.” Eric Phillips, SN 02/042008, countered the claim made by Chance in GC 1/4/2008 that ACDA attended the ERC hearings (ACDA did not attend) where along with the Rastafarian Council, it was only interested in issues relating to sex and drugs – these are qualities of an inferior race. There was a psychological assault on the village of Buxton in a letter by Patsy Downey, GC 22/05/2005, where the people of Buxton were referred to as “low-life criminals,” “gun-toting vermin masquerading as human life,” and “filth.” There was a letter by Gladys Wilson, KN 14 /06/2005, stating that violence emanating from Buxton and criminals in the society should be met with even greater violence from the state since the perpetrators were “criminals,” “terrorists” and a call was made to “firebomb the rats.”
The language in these two letters are similar to the language used by the Nazis to define the Jews. They were labelled “criminals,” “demons,” “dogs,” “vipers,” and the Nazis spoke of “liquidating vermin.” Just as Wilson’s letter was calling for the criminals to die, so there followed the final solution to the Jewish problem. And in Guyana we have been having the systematic killing of Africans by the state. Some of those killed may indeed have had a criminal past, but everyone is innocent until found guilty in our law courts. The police and army do not have the right to be judge, jury and executioner. And very often there is a difference between the official story and that told by eyewitnesses. It is this difference which adds to the daily terror in the society. And the terror will continue not only because there are no official investigations into these killings, but no investigations mean that Africans can continue to be criminalised and consequently destroyed.
I have no problem with people who commit various crimes being called “criminals, murderers and rapists,” but the problem comes when an entire ethnic group is imputed with these attributes. A consequence is the fear expressed by Frederick Smith, KN 7/10/2007, whenever he sees an African male. It is the same fear expressed by the former Minister of Home Affairs (now Guyana’s Ambassador to India) when he stated: “Sometimes the fear of being a victim of a crime can be worse than being the victim of an actual crime.” (Guyana Review, May 2004). It is not only such fear that has led Frederick Smith to write a letter trying to support the marginalisation of Africans; but it is this fear that led the former Minister of Home Affairs to say he “would do it again” (associate with criminals) SN 28/04/2005; and it is this fear that has led the President to co-opt the army into the domestic sphere to get rid of the allegedly “bad guys.”
A letter by Janelle Jones, KN 02/03/2008, very rightly states that criminals have no friends. It is this lack of friends, since criminals are on the margins, that makes it very easy to kill them since no one will come to their rescue. It is this same lack of friends for Africans that makes it very easy to systematically kill Africans without any investigations being held, and even the opposition political parties do very little to assist them. The killing of Donna Herod and the destruction of the farmlands of the people of Buxton are two very glaring examples. But the main opposition party, the PNC, has readily come to the support of CN Sharma. This has happened because East Indians do not carry the group stereotype of being criminals. It is apposite to note that when Channel 9 was suspended for three days the opposition did not take similar action as they have done with Sharma.
3.Mr Singh notes that Buxton, Albouystown and Agricola are communities that are bent on crime. Here we come again to communities, and thereby residents, being inherently criminal. When Mr Hoyte had proposed an economic plan to develop Buxton and thus reduce crime in the area, this was rejected by the state. Crime in communities is not driven by choice, but by necessity. It is driven by a desire to live. But if you are deemed a criminal by nature, you have no rights, not even the right to life. This was brought out quite clearly in the letter by Gladys Wilson, KN 14/06/2005: “The call to improve conditions in Buxton is too little, too late. They have already become steeped in their criminal ways and need to die. …These people have to be treated as terrorist. Start to hang them high.”
In the light of this letter, we must not be surprised at the actions of the state in Buxton. Africans must take note of the crippling effects of criminalisation and the propaganda to blame us for our destruction when in fact the problem lies in structural or state violence. Africans came through more than 300 years of the worst type of slavery known to human history and we have the capacity to overcome the problems we are currently facing.
Yours faithfully,
Kean Gibson
