Dear Editor,
I am responding to the letter of Ryhaan Shah in SN of May 6 and those by Baytoram Ramharack and Rakesh Rampertab in SN of May 7. Ms. Shah wrote; “I would never negate my Indian self.
It is my DNA. It is my history, my legacy, my traditions, my culture. It is my spiritual home. If I ever denied any of it, that would be the real dishonour. And if anyone asked that of me they would be trampling on my guaranteed human, spiritual and constitutional rights.” (end of quote)
This statement has subliminal and Freudian overtones of racial chauvinism. In many European countries, particularly Germany, Austria, Turkey and Serbia, the editors would not carry such a correspondence.
I would advise non-Indian people to be very careful if Ms Shah is ever to have jurisdiction over them in employment or in any other way.
I would say thank God, Ms. Shah does not have a position where she possesses state power and such power is translated into policy.
What I find reprehensible about the statement is that it is not an acknowledgement that one accepts being Indian but the elaboration that race is an integral part of the persona and character of Ms. Shah.
Personally speaking, I hope Ms. Shah never attains authority over non-Indian people
Ramharack’s letter is pathetic. This is a man whose application for employment at UG ten years ago came in front of me as a member of the UG Social Sciences Faculty.
His application was accepted but he turned down the offer because the pay was too low for both him and his wife at UG. I can distinctly remember he told me had a family to maintain.
Yet this man in his letter says that the PPP represents the best choice for Indians.
But he lives in the US where an Afro-American is president but he would not come home to serve the cause of his chosen political party that has been in government for near to twenty three years. But one thing can be said of Ramharack, a founding member of ROAR with Ravi Dev and Aksharananda, the PPP is not the best choice for him because he will not work in a Guyana controlled by the PPP even though the PPP is the best choice for Indians and he is proud to be an Indian.
Ramharack repeats the sickening, morbid, depraved, worn-up, nauseating mantra of supremacist Indians. These Ryhaanian Indians are so easy to predict. The PNC must apologize for past mistakes, Desmond Hoyte never existed, the PPP never committed atrocities similar to the PPP since 1999.
Finally, Rakesh Rampertab, another of the “proud Ryhaanian Indians” who is scared about the impending loss of Indian hegemony in Guyana and thus has reappeared in the letter pages after years of dormancy, has written a letter to me in the SN.
He reminds me that Yesu Persaud had high praise for Aksharananda. I don’t understand the meaning of his missive.
I never for a moment doubted whatever integrity or genius or erudition or religiosity Aksharananda had.
For me he has shown over the past week that he is happy with perpetuating sociological, historical and political distortions to influence Indians to vote for the PPP.
For me this man has changed and has submitted to what Koestler and Wilson wrote about with regards to the power of tribal instincts.
I cannot see him the way I did before. But is it not commonsensical that people change when faced with special circumstances.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon