Dear Editor,
Letters have surfaced, including one by a Professor Emeritus, another by Gokarran Sukhdeo and others all dealing with the question of Repara-tion. I assume the height and interest was occasioned by the visit of former Prime Minister Blair of the UK and descendants of former slave owner, the Gladstones. Space and time will not allow for a corrective response to the many falsehoods and misguided beliefs contained in those correspondence. For now, I will deal with just a few. I recommend that these writers do as I have done, spend time in London perusing records and documents available there.
A fundamental requirement of anyone using the accolades so described by the learned Professor, is before they speak or write, careful enquiry and research is a sine-qua-non. As I will advert to the aspects of the letter he wrote, there was no research and there was no concern for the truth and I hope that this gentleman would be kind enough to help us. First, before his next adventure, I advise him to secure a copy of the Moyne and Venn Reports dealing with the sugar industry, which in essence considered the majority Indo-Guyanese’ condition in the early part of Guyana’s twentieth century. Useful as he dabbles like a bull in a China shop on the question of slavery and reparation, he should listen to a lecture delivered in London by Patrick Robinson titled “Eman-cipation without reparations is hollow,” published in Stabroek News of Monday, 28th August 2023 on page 8 – In the Diaspora.
In the lecture by Patrick Robinson, the former justice on the ICJ observ-ed that, and I quote, “The transatlantic chattel enslavement of African people is the starkest example of man’s inhumanity to man in the history of humankind. It was unmatched for its duration of over 400 years. Unmatched for its barbarity and dehumanizing characteristics – demonstrated in the 18th century by the Englishman Thomas Thistle-wood, whose favourite punishment for an enslaved run away from his plantation in Jamaica was to coerce one of the enslaved to defecate in the mouth of the runaway, whose mouth was then gagged for about three hours. Unmatched for its sheer scale, demonstrated first, by the length of the pernicious triangular crossing from Great Britain to Africa, then to the Caribbean and to the Americas in the infamous Middle Passage in which over a million died and back to Britain, a distance of over 12,000 miles or 19,300 kilometers; and second by the number of persons enslaved who fought to give meaning to that freedom.”
After what should have been a reasonable analysis of our post-emancipation history, Professor Persaud proceeds to state that it was Indo-Guyanese who contributed to the wellbeing of Afro Guyanese. He doesn’t say where, when or how. On the contrary, he failed to note that it was the very teachers and nurses of African descent who willingly and lovingly taught Indo Guyanese and brought them into the mainstream of a western white cultural environment and allowed them using their industry, sense of purpose and determination to rise to the top. I have oftentimes expressed my admiration for many Indo-Guyanese in business, commerce, the professions and sports. We’re grateful and proud of those Guyanese. They say half-truth is just as bad as an outright lie and to say that slavery and indentureship are similar is an absurdity, just as is his contention that Indo Guyanese helped Afro- Guyanese. In his effort to promote President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo, he states that they are the architects of bringing people together.
The joke is that he mentions President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo and Prime Minister Mark Phillips in that order. The Constitution makes the Prime Minister the First Vice President, but we know Dr. Persaud’s statement unwittingly let the cat out of the bag. As I write this letter, there is one written by Gokarran Sukhdeo, Stabroek News of August 29 titled “Important elements are missing from reparations dialogues,” which appears to have a semblance of balance but there exist a fundamental flaw that if we are seeking reparation for enslavement, indentureship should be included. From a practical standpoint therefore, apart from the odious nature of comparing slavery with indentureship, any effort to seek reparation and justice for the descendants of the Manumitted African, that effort, that initiative will be delayed forever and ever, if the two systems of slavery and indentureship are seen as parallel and requiring equal treatment. Guyana must stay focused, for what with the contortions in the lucrative oil blocks saga, we all face the prospect of re-enslavement.
The reasonable, honest des-cendants from Madeira, China and India must know that they came here as free men, they came here, were paid, not so for the Africans. Indentured Labour-ers came here and were able to maintain an identity, which was a foundation upon which they built. Not so with enslaved Africans. The Indentured Immigrants who came were able to identify from whence they came. Not so with the captured Africans. Immigrants, if they wished, as some did, could return to find their cousins and grandparents. Not so with the captured Africans. In the case of the Indians, they were able to bring their drums, and religious paraphernalia. Not so with the African, who to make sounds used discarded steel drums and produced the modern musical wonder instrument, the steel pan and the steel band.
When the Immigrants came, even though small, they were paid for every hour of work. Not so with the Africans. When the Immigrants came, the British Parliament had already instituted regulations of amelioration on the plantations. The African, when freed, was given not one cent, but the British government paid the slave owners handsomely for the loss of each slave – man, woman and child. From the records, one slave owner was paid 20 million pounds sterling. The compensation included for creole slaves (those who were born here) who were freed in 1834. The enslavers of African people were paid 20 million pounds sterling for the loss of their property, that is the equivalent of trillions of Guyana’s dollars today. There is no such equation about indentured labourers. African women were raped routinely and maybe that is why today some folks see nothing wrong with ‘rape.’ So why and for what reason are some folks making a nexus between slavery and indentureship is mysterious and President Ali must be unambiguous and put an end to this charade.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
