Dear Editor,
There is something odd about this elections period with its polarising energies and the drumming of fear and contempt in the language of the politicians. There are supposed to be mechanisms in place to ‘monitor’ and prevent this, but the thing is, these mechanisms are after the fact, after the damage is done.
Many persons have realised that you cannot be fighting racism by calling the ‘other side’ racist. There must be ways to talk about ‘the other side’ and about the past which is not seen as racist, or we will always all be racist every time we try to talk about race.
There must be words in the arsenals of the politicans other than jackass, donkey, fool, dim-witted, ass, racial, and there must be other quotes which are not about war and fighting and who is good and evil. After every cuss down, there is time and energy spent on saying that is not what we said, while the ‘issues’ do not get mentioned really because there seems to be no issue beyond what one politician reportedly told his supporters, “If you think we bad, then the Devil coming.”
Are the supporters of the different political parties expected to view each other as valued Guyanese citizens with equal rights, when the people they are voting for seem to think that the others are donkeys, jackasses, asses, fools, dim-witted, etc, etc?
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
