Dear Editor,
Returning home for a brief stay, I read a letter by Hon Samuel Hinds, Former Prime Minister and President, Ambassador to the USA and the OAS. Editor, it is so easy for the former Prime Minister, now Ambassador, to follow the script of his bosses. First, his reference to South Korea making a comparison to Guyana is at best ludicrous. Mr. Hinds ignores the fact that South Korea’s population is 51 million and Guyana with less than a million possessing these vast natural resources and there is no reason, with prudent management and a government willing to reach across and beyond the colonial divisiveness, cannot enjoy, not the day after tomorrow, but where all citizens can enjoy their comfort from our God-given natural resources.
But I’ve told my friends at home and abroad to understand the thinking of Samuel Hinds, who is enjoying benefits that a hundred teachers do not enjoy and remember this is the same gentleman, who as Prime Minister, told a group of Afro Guyanese who were at a 1st of August Emancipation event merely demanding a better share of the cake for the descendants of Manumitted Africans. He told them to ‘forget the past’. What nonsense, why should Afro Guyanese forget the past? Why should Indo-Guyanese forget the past? Why should our Amerindian forget the past? Why should our Chinese and Portuguese Guyanese forget the past? We must celebrate the past so that we can make a reality of being One People, One Nation and One Destiny
I hope that Mr. Hinds accepts that he is an Afro Guyanese and will prevail on the Minister of Education to show some regard for the spirituality of Mr. Hinds’ ancestors and apologise for her disrespectful and out of place reference to ‘obeah.’ The colonial masters harassed and sent to prison African slaves and their descendants who used candles, incense, floating wicks, no different to what the established churches did in their ceremonies.
Sincerely,
Nigel Bacchus
