Dear Editor,
I have taken to ignoring the many deceptive and deliberate attempts to dumb down the horror of the Atlantic Slave trade involving Africans to something that was common to all groups, and to all hemispheres in this world. But this latest effort by Vishnu Bisram is so blatantly obvious, so insultingly facetious, it is enough to make one nauseous. Mr Bisram’s letter captioned ‘The Indian and African experience is similar,’ is one the most shallow and sophomoric examinations and comparisons of two horrible historical happenings. If, as he claims, he is an educator responsible for moulding the minds of children, then history is one of the subjects from which he should advisably steer clear.
Before going further, let me hasten to assure your readers that nothing in my letter is intended to diminish or deny the horrible conditions of indentureship, the experiences of our Indian ancestors who suffered through that period, or the fact that both our Indian and African ancestors shared many similar experiences. But that is a far cry from making an argument that indentureship and slavery were identical human conditions, which is in effect, what Bisram set out to do. Now if this was an uneducated person advancing this take on history one could chalk it off as expressions of innocent ignorance, rather than something more nefarious. But this is someone who claims to be a scholar. That means he knows he is playing hop scotch with history and the truth. In that context, one has to image this letter as Bisram patting the heads of black people while he attempts to convince them that the enslavement experience of their ancestors was no big thing, and common to the experiences of everyone else.
Editor you published this insulting description of African history without a word of caution or censure. I wonder if you would do the same, if, for example, some Guyanese of African descent argued in a letter that their current experiences under the PPP regime were similar to those of Indian Guyanese under the previous regime. I suspect there would be a whole heap of hollering, and Bisram’s would be one of the loudest voices hollering out in protest. In this country of ours, it would seem, the paradigm has been established to question the claims and concerns of one group, while according prima facie recognition of every other group’s claims and concerns, even when some presentations amount to bold-faced misrepresentation of historical facts and realities.
Vishnu Bisram makes the statement that, “Both groups of labourers were severely ill treated from the time of recruitment all through the periods of enslavement (indentureship) and liberation.” This is the first time, in my examination of opinions on the origin of the commercial enslavement of Africans, that I have ever heard it described as a “recruitment process.” Perhaps we need to send this letter to some African American scholars who have made examination and analysis of the experiences of their ancestors their life’s work, so this view could be accorded academic consideration. It is no wonder that some question Mr Bisram’s credentials as an educator. The description of the manner in which Africans entered human bondage as a voluntary process would fail any third grade historical examination.
Like I said, indentureship, was a horrible human condition. But indentureship was not similar to African enslavement, and this can be verified by some simple comparisons. If the circumstances and conditions of these two human experiences were the same, Bisram’s name would probably be ‘Holder,’ or some other English, French or Dutch variation of the handle of the plantation proprietor who owned his ancestors.
The children of the indentured were not snatched from their mothers’ arms at birth, and families were not split apart and sold as chattels. It was not illegal for the indentured to practise their religions or cultures, and that is why it remains with them up to this day, while for Africans it has dissipated after centuries of forced and brutal mind conditioning measures. About the strongest ties that bind and connect people to their cultural ancestral roots is that unbroken link of practices which are passed down from generation to generation.
About the most sovereign of these practices, is the capacity to name yourself in a manner that identifies you with your origin and familial roots. Mr Bisram needs to examine from which groups in Guyana and the world this sovereign right and freedom was forcibly taken away, before he proceeds to insult the intelligence of the descendant victims.
African scholars the world over, including the Van Sertimas, the Rodneys, the Doctor Bens, the Cheik Ante Diops, have responded to this kind of revisionist examination of their history with unapologetic candour over the past decades.
There is a collective message that emerges from their correction of falsehoods imbedded as historical text as a means of rationalizing slavery and diminishing its cultural impact. And that message is that we must respond to the denial of the uniqueness of the African Holocaust by telling our own story, so that our children and their children do not have to rely on ignorant and self-serving egotistical ramblings. Because the take of educators like the ‘Bisrams’ on an undeniably holocaustic event that persisted for centuries, the effects of which are manifested in social and psychological pathologies in the attitudes and behaviours of many of the descendant victims, is always, curiously, more in line with the take of the perpetrators of that event, rather than with that of the perspective of the descendant experience. I wonder why that is?
If appreciation of African history means dumbing down historical reality to the kind of ego fulfilling narrative set forth by Mr Bisram in his letter, then, I am afraid, we will never get there. He facetiously uses the undeniable horror of indentureship as a shield to water down the reality of the African experience. He waxes deceitfully about the shared circumstances of African and Indian brethren, while deliberately ignoring the fact that while induced, one was voluntary while the other was absolutely involuntary. He waxes nauseatingly about understanding each other’s history, when his very output demonstrates an ignorance that is simply astounding. Mr Bisram, obviously inundated with hubristic fervor, usurps the rights of Africans to define their experiences, while maintaining his right to do the same for his group. That he considers it OK to do thus in bold print in a Guyana newspaper, is testament to the fact that contrary to the expressions of fealty with the African experience, he has little or no appreciation for our ability to think, our capacity or attention span to undertake historical comparisons of human events and experiences, or our knowledge of ours and the history of others. And what is even more sad about all of this, is the fact that he obviously extrapolates his obtuse pattern of gathering together and parsing historical facts, across a spectrum of the Guyanese population.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
