Dear Editor,
Re: President Jagdeo gives lecture to UWI team in Guyana for academic exposure
I am writing on behalf of the Canadian Guyanese Centre for Human Rights & Social Justice (Centre), a group of Guyanese Canadians with deep family ties and relationships in the land of our birth. We noted in a recent GINA news release that President Jagdeo shared Guyana’s policy perspectives on a number of issues to a visiting delegation from the University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine Campus, Trinidad. According to Dr Mark Kirton who accompanied the delegation from the Institute of International Relations, the Head of State enlightened the students on Guyana’s vision, hopes and aspirations for its own development.
We are wondering if the President would have touched on Guyana’s vision for religious and social harmony and how this is crucial for facilitating development objectives; and if in so doing he was able to mention that lecturer, Dr Kean Gibson, seems to continue to have the support of UWI in respect of her writings and media views in relation to Guyanese and Caribbean Hindus and other groups.
On December 29, 2006, the Ethnic Relations Commission of Guyana (ERC) issued a decision which agreed with the Indian Arrival Committee’s (IAC) complaint that Dr Gibson’s book, The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana, “peddled and spread racial hatred in Guyana among its principal ethnic groups, and that it had as its central theme that Hindus in Guyana were oppressing Afro-Guyanese.” The commission agreed that “the publication was deeply flawed and profoundly unscientific. And so the work must be regarded as wholly lacking in academic character and as representing nothing further than the personal views, unfortunately distorted and regrettably prejudiced, of a private individual.” As a remedy, the ERC concluded that, in the interest of greater ethnic harmony, public institutions carrying a copy of the publication withdraw it from general public circulation.
We of the Centre note that Dr Gibson acknowledged the UWI as the source of support funding for her research for the Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana, as well as for a follow-up book on the same subject, Sacred Duty – Hinduism and Violence in Guyana (2005). Because of our concerns over the misrepresentations of Hinduism and the potential for harm to Hindus and Indian-Guyanese resulting from the views expressed in her writings, in December 2008, the Centre wrote the Vice Chancellor of UWI recommending that an international panel of independent and knowledgeable scholars on Hinduism be asked to review and assess these and related works by Dr Gibson, who, incidentally, is identified as a linguist by UWI and not therefore an expert on religion. We also asked that UWI, as the funding institution for her research, should dissociate itself from the views of Dr Gibson as expressed in her two books.
Regrettably, after promptly replying to our letter and indicating that he considered our complaint against Dr Gibson to be serious and promising to investigate the matter, the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar now appear to have been neutralised in pursuing the promised investigation.
Meanwhile, Dr Gibson continues to articulate her slanderous views against Hinduism and Hindus with impunity. In March 2008, the late Mr Norman Faria, Guyana’s Honorary Consul General in Barbados, had cause to write Dr Hilary Beckles, Principal of the Barbados Campus, UWI for allowing the institution’s logo to be seen along with the logo of the Central Bank of Barbados on the advertising flyer promoting Dr Gibson’s lunch-time lecture to mainly secondary school students on ‘The Issue of Race in Guyana,’ in which, Mr Faria claimed that she made “inflammatory” statements, which he cited. And, earlier this year, on July 3, 2010, it was drawn to our attention that Dr Gibson was seen on Verizon cable channel 451 Mzh (Washington, USA) on a TV programme called Carib Nation Television being interviewed by Derrice Deane, where she was propagating the same falsehoods about Hinduism and Indians in Guyana.
In a letter of April 8, 2010 which we received from the Registrar of UWI to which we replied on June 23, 2010 (and, further, in July 12, 2010 to the Vice-Chancellor to remind him that he had written us saying that he considered our complaint to be serious and promised to investigate the matter) Dr Gibson is reported to have told the Registrar that she couldn’t find an internet presence for our Centre; as such, she argued that she didn’t know who her accuser was and hence could not provide a “comprehensive reply.” This discourteous response dismissively ignores the fifty-five pages of detailed critique of her two books which we provided to UWI in December 2008 to support our concerns about the evils of her misinformed and misinterpreted views.
Guyana’s President, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo and Caricom’s Secretary General, Dr Edwin Carrington have both been made aware of our genuine concerns through copies of all our letters to UWI. Moreover, last June in Toronto, President Jagdeo acquired copies of the book Under Attack! The Caribbean Indian by Veda Nath Mohabir (the writer of this letter) which goes into greater depth and detail in revealing the shallow research and knowledge of Hinduism, and the hateful and dangerous views espoused by Dr Gibson in her writings which, in a similar vein, were considered by the ERC to be “wholly lacking in academic character”; and which in conclusion we condemn as slanderous against the universally acknowledged sacred superlative spiritual values of Hinduism.
Yours faithfully,
Veda Nath Mohabir
on behalf of the Centre
