Dear Editor,
Some politicians it seems have to be everything to everyone and fathoming the depths and complexities of their minds can be quite a challenge. Take for example, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan. When he speaks to a predominantly Indian audience he invokes the Bhagavad Gita to remind us of Krishna’s teachings to Arjuna to stand up and fight. To the rest of the nation, via Stabroek News (5/3/2015), he pleads for unconditional forgiveness for wrongdoers. Stand and fight when it comes to the “scampishness” of the PPP. Forgive and forget when it concerns the “misdeeds” of the PNC.
But then again, one should not be too surprised. I remember when he spoke during the presidential “debates” at the University of Guyana in 2011, he had occasion to list the names of the victims of violence. He produced an impressive compendium of names among which there was not a single Indian name. I have always wondered, given the violence against Indians in 2002 and 2003, Lusignan in 2008 and later Bartica, how was it possible for him not to remember a single Indian as a victim of violence. At least in this there is something consistent in Mr. Ramjattan’s position. For the wrongs done to Indians, we were first urged to forget and now we are asked to forgive, and unconditionally at that.
Yet, it is Mr. Ramjattan who now accuses me for “generating present day hatreds,” simply because I have rejected his call for historical amnesia on behalf of the PNC. He has conveniently chosen to ignore two paragraphs of my letter to which he alludes and in which I talked on the dangers in the way history is invoked for the present political discourse, specifically mentioning the so-called “28 years.” I also pleaded for reconciliation and restoration which I stated would be impossible without the truth, the very truth which Mr. Ramjattan wants us to suppress in the name of political expediency.
It is a fallacy to suggest that, to get the PNC, or any person or entity for that matter, to acknowledge their historical wrongs, is concomitant with hatred. Since when, the demand for accountability has been equated with hatred for the offender? To say that accountability implies hatred for the perpetrator virtually means the end to all accountability.
In any case, with respect to the PNC itself, history provided Mr. Ramjattan a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of us how it is possible to “devise collective responses that acknowledge historical wrongs without generating present day hatreds,” if he is convinced of the virtue of this position.
Instead he resorted to a sanctification of those collective historical misdeeds by simply leaving it up to the whim of the PNC to decide whether to apologise or not, giving us the impression that those years of PNC excesses were not of consequence in contemplating the alliance. It would be “nice” he says if the PNC apologized. But I do not think that many people in Guyana would consider the PNC apology for its misdeeds in terms of gentlemanly nicety. This is not cricket. An apology would be seen as an urgent necessity in terms of moving our country forward.
It is not so much a question of PNC’s apology anymore but Mr. Ramjattan’s think process that intrigues me. If Mr. Ramjattan knows for certainty that there was no way the PNC would apologise for its “misdeeds,” and I am saying that he had to know this, why is he now telling us it would be nice if the party apologized? Is he not deceiving himself or others? During the presidential debate in the 2011 elections held at the University of Guyana, when asked a question from the floor, Mr. David Granger stated in the clearest and most unambiguous terms that there was nothing for which the PNC needed to apologise. Yet, as he puts it now in 2015, it would be “nice” if the PNC apologised.
There is yet another fundamental flaw in Mr. Ramjattan’s argument. He juxtaposes the need for a PNC apology with allowing, “the PPP back in Government to continue its 10-fold worst scampishness and corruption,” as if the two are mutually exclusive, saying that there are choices to be made in these “hard political realities” in which we live. Why did it have to be an either/or choice? Did not Mr. Ramjattan not see that it is possible to demand an apology and at the same time work for the removal of the PPP from office? Why the former had to be sacrificed for the latter to be achieved?
There have been extremely vociferous and passionate calls, and rightly so, for accountability from the PPP. In this context would Mr. Ramjattan say that such calls for PPP accountability would amount generating hatreds? Would they represent a “vision of vengeance?” Would they be “stoking the fires of resentment and revenge?” Would Mr. Ramjattan then call for, “forgiveness, love and wisdom,” and advocate that the wrongdoers be admitted in “the circle of humanity?” Would he grant “unconditional forgiveness?” Or would he demand accountability and justice?
Leaving aside the casting of aspersions which Mr. Ramjattan could not resist, no one could fail to be touched by his unctuous and excessively inebriated, sappy, and sentimental call for forgiveness and no one could disagree that, as a general principle, forgiveness is a great value. But, however commendable forgiveness is as a value, it cannot be practised in abstraction. Like every other universal value, it has usefulness and meaning only in particular contexts.
For example, in the Mahabharata, there are hundreds of verses devoted to a conversation between Draupadi and Yuddhishthira dealing with the subject of forgiveness and reconciliation and the quest for truth. Yuddhishthira, also known as Dharmaraja, went into a long protracted discourse on the virtues of forgiveness with which Draupadi had no objection. Her only claim was that forgiveness must be concomitant with the quest for truth, and therefore vehemently objected to unconditional forgiveness for the violations done to her. The time, the place, the victim, the perpetrator, and the nature of the offence, all of these constitute the context.
I too, like Mr. Ramjattan, believe in the power of forgiveness, reconciliation and healing. But as far PNC is concerned, as Mr. Ramjattan knows, there is nothing for which to apologise and it follows nothing for which to be forgiven. I too believe in welcoming the “wrongdoer” back in the circle of humanity. But the PNC has admitted to doing no wrong. Does it not therefore smack of supreme arrogance and condescension, to say the least, to proffer unconditional forgiveness to someone who does not seek it and for which there is nothing to forgive? Don’t forgiveness and repentance go hand in hand?
Could anyone imagine Black leaders in the United States, descending on Ferguson and Baltimore asking the victims for unconditional forgiveness for all the perpetrators of brutality? Wouldn’t that be the end of their political career? Is this forgiveness or submission? Is this Mr. Ramjattan’s vision of leadership?
Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda