Dear Editor,
Reference is made to Professor Nina L. Khrushcheva (Stabroek News, September 13, 2022, Pomp and Populism, Project Syndicate). This is a beautiful piece of discourse relating to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. She provided an excellent description of some of the scenarios associated with the duties of the Queen, her inner circle of family, and the government of Britain. Praise was given where due and caustic whipping to others, the former Prime Minister refers.
The Professor appears to be very careful – whether intentionally so, or being politically correct, or concealing certain real and pertinent facts. What is obviously omitted is the failure to mention the history of the Empire that the Queen inherited, and her subsequent role in connection with the colonies in the heyday of colonialism and contemporaneously. The colonies were exploited for their material wealth; underwent a degrading system of slavery and servility; and suffered the ignominy of fake patronage. Was there ever an apology and reparation?
Why did Professor Khrushcheva not mention colonialism and the struggles for freedom from the “Mother Country”, the fight for adult suffrage and the right to vote, invasion, political prisoners, the derailment of the bona fide elected government, and the jailing of the leaders of the freedom fighters by Her Majesty’s troops in Guyana? Is Professor Khrushcheva not aware? Was she trying to sanitize her writing? Protocol demands certain behaviours in politics. Based on the historical past Guyanese ought to be ambivalent as regards the Queen. To mourn or not to mourn should therefore be a personal matter, not for President Ali to declare a day of national mourning.
On balance, I feel that while Professor Nina L. Khrushcheva did a good service in bringing to the fore some aspects of royal polyphonic overtures, she was amiss… especially coming from an academic.
Sincerely,
Gary Girdhari
