Dear Editor,
I write with reference to a Letter to the Editor by Dr. Devanand Bhagwan under the title `Subtle statement that reeked of innuendos’, and your response to Dr. Bhagwan (Stabroek News, 10/1/23). Bhagwan’s main issue is that the SN editorial of January 6, 2023, unnecessarily racializes the refusal of six or seven squatters (residents) of Mocha to comply with the GoG’s order to relocate in order to facilitate a new four lane highway.
The specific construction (sentence) at hand is “[p]olitics enters into the story because the squatters are African, and the government is Indian, and the opposition has now taken up their case.” Editor, I contend that Dr. Bhagwan is on strong grounds for his objection. In addition to his own reasoning, I want to add that the editorial is not only inaccurate on empirical grounds, but that it also dehistoricises the emergence of the problem.
The simple fact is that for quite some time prior to the recent squatter-GoG standoff, APNU+AFC operatives, including at least one Member of Parliament, had been cultivating political antagonism in the area. Below is a complaint lodged by “Mocha Women on Track” on December 6, 2022.
“We wish to place on record that our group of over 40 plus women, including mothers, is … deeply disappointed by the continued vilification of our young men and women by Flue-Bess and others because they refuse to join the APNU+AFC’s bitterness towards the development of our community.
“As a community, we have suffered enough humiliation in the past and we can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and be dominated by the self-serving political interests of a few misguided individuals” (Kaieteur News, 6/12/22). The letter was signed by Bonita McDonald. I know you are aware that Ms. Flue-Bess is an APNU+AFC MP.
Although the issue immediately above did not directly concern the squatter-relocation matter, it is the case that the APNU+AFC were aggressively attempting to prevent the GoG from engaging with residents of the said community. (Note much the same has happened in Den Amstel).
Editor, I noted above that the SN editorial in question dehistoricised the squatter relocation incidents. By this I mean that politics in the sense described in the editorial had long ago been inserted into the Mocha area, and that the refusal to relocate itself had been politicized. If politics weren’t inserted by the APNU+AFC, the law and principles of “eminent domain” would have prevailed, as it did for most of the residents.
Let me turn to the Editor-in Chief’s response to Dr. Bhagwan. Your own justification for the use of “[t]he description “Indian” relates to the source of majority support for the government” is not adequate. So, what if more Indians are supporters of the PPP/C than any other ethnic group? Indians make up a majority (a little below 40%) of the population, and by that fact alone, but also combined with the history of Guyana, it is likely the PPP will get more votes from that section of the population.
The critical error in response to Dr. Bhagwan is that there is a direct derivation of political identity from the nominal descriptor “Indian”. The response makes it appear that Indians vote for the PPP/C because the PPP/C is Indian, an argument in perfect circularity.
I have said before that Stabroek News is rightfully viewed as the “paper of record” in Guyana. I am concerned that inflammatory editorials such as the one on January 6 will compromise that status. I recommend we listen to the “Mocha Women on Track”
Sincerely,
Dr. Randolph Persaud
