Dear Editor,
It is becoming very obvious that the old timers writing Stabroek News (SN) editorials have a cognitive construct of racial prejudices which guides them. This I strongly suggest will bring that paper into disrepute. It will inflame racial tensions in Guyana’s evolving fragile political democracy with elections coming up. I have already evidenced Dr Henry Jeffrey’s reference to Indians “short-circuiting” democracy as if their numbers negate and deny them adequate democratic and human rights.
Stabroek News was born in an era where democracy was non existent, discrimination was rampant and the free press was necessary. Stabroek News brought new hope for those seeking freedom when it was born.
Whenever violence erupts at Guyana elections it is directed at Indians. Stabroek News and others will be held accountable for such violence if it occurs as it has now joined in fanning the flames of violence against Indians. This is directly evident in the SN editorial of March 15 titled ‘Elections invective,’ revisiting President Jagdeo’s Babu John rally at Dr Jagan’s memorial attended by some 1300 people. Twice in two successive days SN revisited Babu John.
“There are those who have suggested that the mathematics of ethnicity renders that approach a favoured one for the ruling (PPP) party” – SN’s editorial predicates its riposte by prior assertion that “it is the extent to which voters can be persuaded to revile one party or another rather than the merits of their respective manifestos that determines support at the polls.” The obvious conclusion? That since Indians constitute about 43% of the Guyanese population who mostly support the PPP, they will all be sheepishly whiplashed into subservient acquiescence into reviling the ‘other party.’ Stabroek News ignores the other 8% of Guyanese who voted to ensure the PPP of a 51% majority at the last 2006 general elections as if they do not matter. That 8% certainly were not voting for the PPP for race but their economic interests.
Obviously Stabroek News must explain this contradiction that the other 8%,like the 43% may have all been indeed voting on “the merits of their [PPP]… manifesto.” What evidence does the newspaper have for the conclusion that the 8% (composed of Mixed, Amerindian, Black, Chinese and Portuguese) voting alongside the supposedly 43 % Indian, now metamorphoses into this homogeneous mathematical ethnic Indian majority. Stabroek News now has bragging rights to a new found fame.
Apparently Stabroek News does not see the irony of the PNC selecting a man of war in Mr Granger as their standard bearer when so much controversy surrounds him. To his demerit he only won by 15 (he got 279) votes; the overwhelming majority of the other PNC 666 delegates either did not vote or preferred others. This still bespeaks well of that party’s reservations about Mr Granger’s suitability to be President of Guyana. Was the majority of PNC delegates also meditating on the negatives of Mr Granger knowing all he is equipped to do is fight wars and has no economic training like Mr Carl Greenidge? SN chooses to ignore this waving of a red flag at Indian bulls knowing full well the consequences. It was bound to be a precursor for resusitating fear and anguish to a flashback era in which Mr Granger participated in the destruction of our country. Stabroek News is no stranger to this era.
Even when the Indian-supported PPP succeeds in partnership links with others it raises the hackles of its opponents.When will it be acknowledged that Indians also crave security, survivability and fear cultural extinction. That their numbers and economic success are not guaranteed. That they anguish about being wiped out by intermarriage and military at-tacks, and view media onslaughts such as those of Stabroek News as bent on their demise.
Ironically Stabroek News now blames President Jagdeo for “the tone and content of what the President had to say at Babu John [which] has attracted the dubious sobriquet ‘cuss out,’ specifically for the reason that it contained a generous measure of alarming personal attacks.
Evidently, the President’s remarks were deliberate, measured and designed to evoke strong feelings of prejudice against individuals – not political parties but individuals – expected to oppose the PPP/C at the forthcoming general elections.” This is especially shocking coming from Stabroek News.
That newspaper now seems to actually believe that Dr Bharrat Jagdeo initiated aggression. Quite the contrary, President Jagdeo must be concerned as President of all Guyana to avoid any frightening return to a dismal past with a future Granger presidency. He must not be subsumed to the proverbial turning of the cheek. What principles justifies this SN arrogant abrogation of a political mandate to adjudicate, ensure and enforce the public peace and security of all Guyanese? This belligerent turnaround is in direct contrast to the newspaper’s later statement of expectation that “[the President’s] understandable loyalty to his own political party would not cause him to lose sight of his overarching responsibility to set the best possible example for the nation as a whole.” That’s good advice finally. So it is apparent what approach President Jagdeo follows just as it has become obvious what are SN’s dubious objectives.
Stabroek News’s declaration that “the 2011 general elections campaign has gotten off to a worryingly cantankerous start and if the truth be told the President can take much of the credit for that” seeks to appropriate blame to perpetual victims rather than historical aggressors. The PPP government’s inability to correct the racial imbalance in Guyana’s armed forces as an assurance to protect its supporters will be its greatest failure when evaluation time comes. In the meantime Indians must be vigilant against old media prejudices run amok.
Such tasks are not easy with wily opposites. The SN momentary escape of reference to history is reassuring. It absolves itself of blame by an engulfing admission that “this pattern has been an integral part of pre-elections confrontations, particularly between the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), over the years.” Stabroek News can remind itself of the last fact and refrain from making it worse again. In the final analysis it, like Kaieteur News was born to defend people’s freedoms not encourage conflict. Indians cannot be perpetual targets in their own country every time elections come around.
Yours faithfully,
Vassan Ramracha
Editor’s note
Mr Ramracha appears to have entered a mirror world where front is back and back is front. The allegation that SN is fanning violence against the Indians with the publication of its editorial of March 15, can only be described as bizarre, considering that the gravamen of the leader was a concern about the very real possibility of a vitriolic campaign. Given that political invective invariably raises the temperature in a fragile society such as this one, then as the editorial suggested, the kind of vituperation to which the President gave vent is likely to invite a response in kind from the major opposition party – viz “The PNCR has already fired its own retaliatory salvo and it is not unlikely that it might sustain the same vitriolic posture as part of its own elections campaign.” Contrary to what Mr Ramracha perversely appears to believe, a rise in the political temperature is not good for anyone’s security. With regard to his other allegations the following can be said:
1. There is no dispute that not everyone who votes PPP/C is Indian, but that does not affect the demographic arithemetic. The recent publication in this newspaper of reports on the survey done by Vanderbildt University confirms ethnic voting patterns here, both for Indians and Africans. If the Indian voting bloc became fragmented, therefore, then quite simply the PPP/C majority might be in jeopardy.
2. As for SN having nothing to say about Mr Granger’s unsuitability, as Mr Ramracha sees it, for the presidency, that was hardly relevant to the editorial topic. Whatever SN thinks or does not think about a particular candidate, we unapologetically subscribe to a civil tone being maintained during the course of the election campaign.
3. Mr Ramracha’s accusation attributed to the editorial that, “Dr Bharrat Jagdeo initiated aggression,” is one of the few allegations in his letter which we are prepared to concede. While we did not use those strong words, we do believe that in a purely verbal sense, the head of state did initiate the rhetorical “aggression.” We will remind Mr Ramracha that the editorial was about the current election campaign, not about the whole history of Guyana, which we have maintained elsewhere is a discussion that should be pursued within a historical context, not in a polemical fashion on the hustings.
4. By our criticism of the President we are seeking to “appropriate blame to perpetual victims rather than historical aggressors,” is an attack so misplaced that it almost defies response. We will merely remind Mr Ramracha that it is the President who spoke in a vitriolic fashion, not whoever he might define as the “historical aggressors,” and that in this election campaign, Mr Jagdeo is unquestionably the first politician to adopt such an unwelcome posture. We cannot think that Mr Ramracha is seeking to argue that because (to use his phraseology) Mr Jagdeo derives from the “perpetual victims” he can be as offensive as he pleases whenever he pleases to whomsoever he pleases.
5. Owing to the fact that we mentioned the PNCR in the discussion we are, apparently, “wily” according to the letter-writer. Actually our view is that the need for our elections to be “conducted in the most convivial environment possible” – and this was clear from the editorial – applies to the PNCR (and other opposition parties) as much as it does to the PPP/C. If that is “wily” in Mr Ramracha’s estimation, then we can only speculate on what he would consider balanced.
