Dear Editor,
Under the caption “When we disagree we should do it with honour and respect” in the Stabroek News of October 11, 2014 in the Letter to the Editor Section, Reverend Bowman proceeded to refer to the Guyanese society as uncivilized and crass.
Starting his letter with the bromide that “The problem with Guyana is that we have not learned how to disagree without dishonouring”, Reverend Chris Bowman, Chairman of the General Assembly of the Church of God then made the dreadful statement that Guyanese are uncivilized and crass.
It is almost inconceivable that one can be so oxymoronic and tone deaf to one’s own pronouncements. Here is an individual whose main intention was to praise Prime Minister Sam Hinds and to ask Guyanese to respectfully disagree when we have our differences; yet at the same time brings dishonour to the Guyanese society.
The contradiction does not come as a surprise to me; considering Reverend Bowman’s leadership position in the Church of God and his continued promoting and/or supporting of basketball activities that are unauthorized under the statutes of the International Federation of Basketball (FIBA) and by extension the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF), the “civilized and principled” Reverend needs to take the proverbial yoke off his neck.
Not to take away from Bowman’s fulsome and mostly deserving praise of Prime Minister Hinds, my only caveat is that one needs to look at the larger political picture in Guyana before casting our current Prime Minister as a hero or any of our political leaders.
Among the other thoughts I had when reading Chris’s letter is that we are seeing the efforts of yet another Reverend in a quest for political office. Being a leader in the Church of God and apparently seeking a political role in the Government apparatus is par for the course of the Reverend.
In the epic movie Silence of Lambs, Hannibal Lecter used a quote from Marcus Aurelius’s famous book Meditations:
“For any particular thing. Ask what is it in itself? What is its nature?”
So what target was Reverend Bowman aiming at by penning the letter: consideration for political office, inclusion or was he just being obsequious?
Only time will tell!
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Hinds
