Dear Editor,
Despite not being a contributor to the national discourse with any regularity, I feel the need to publicly express my support for President Dr. Mohammed Irfaan Ali in the wake of his much publicized interview with Good Morning Britain. That the interviewers (one in particular) were condescending and supercilious was obvious, but President Ali acquitted himself and Guyana well, by sticking to core issues and the accompanying facts. In the face of a galling attempt to trivialize an issue so important as the effects of slavery and the need for reparations and justice, President Ali kept his composure and articulated the position of Guyana and the region as a whole, that slavery was the greatest crime against humanity ever perpetrated, and to try to compare slavery to any other historical crime was a fool’s errand.
By the interviewer’s standard that most great civilizations were born from great atrocities, then the war in Ukraine and the accompanying inhumanity and horror should be allowed to continue and simply be viewed as the labour pains through which the next great civilization will be birthed. His response to the question of if Guyana being gifted a palace by the royal family was the type of gesture he was referring to as token of reparative justice, was particularly impressive. Those structures were indeed literally built upon the blood, sweat and tears of oppressed people and with resources from colonized lands. Pursuing the line of questioning asking for monetary figure was unnecessary when the President had already articulated that there was extensive literature on formulas to be used to calculate reparations, despite the fact that the human cost can never truly be repaid. I felt mixed emotions during that interview, pride being the overwhelming one, reflecting on the sacrifices of our ancestors of all races and ethnic persuasions. We may each have our own interpretation of One Guyana and what it means to us, but it’s a simple, understated, yet powerful goal and mission statement to which we should all aspire.
Regards,
Duane Fowler