Dear Editor,
I refer to your editorial of Friday, February 22, 2008 which was aptly entitled “Atonement”. We all agree that there is need for closure and atonement in Guyana about our bitter past, but indeed the culture of politics does not allow for it. What we need is to have the opportunity created for doing so but everyone shies away believing perhaps that they will be viewed as soft.
We await an apology for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and closer to home we have much to apologise for including our treatment of the indigenous people, and of each other over the past five decades.
There are glimmers of hope however which shine through ever so often such as when the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Hon. Ralph Ramkarran, recently acknowledged that he had made a wrong ruling on the application of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly thereby shutting out myself and the Hon. Member Mr Aubrey Norton from pursuing the issue of the Critchlow Labour College subvention. To our pleasant surprise the Speaker not only acknowledged his error, but went on to apologise to us both.
If only that conduct could carry over to his colleagues and other members of the Assembly such as the Minister of Home Affairs who as a man under immense pressure recently overreacted when responding to the Speaker, but as a man, should also be able to acknowledge his error and apologise. It takes more courage to say “I am sorry” than it does to stay quiet.
Yours faithfully,
Raphael Trotman
