Dear Editor,
There is great confusion in your columns about the role of statistics in the pursuit of truth. You can quite legitimately adduce qualitative facts to support a particular contention but ultimately questions about how many, what proportion, at what rate, what is the trend, etc, inevitably arise and then numbers become inescapable. Statistics are facts in quantitative form. For example, the question of African marginalisation in government’s housing programmes can only be answered by looking at, inter alia, the proportions of each ethnic group that apply for, and receive, low income housing lots from the Central Housing & Planning Authority.
This question cannot be answered by arbitrary anecdotes or by abstract armchair speculation, which would only end up with a description of the speculator’s state of mind rather than any objective reality.
Moreover, it is true that the statistics can be dangerous if not properly qualified by what is called metadata in the trade. For example, suppose, hypothetically speaking, that 80% of New Building Society loans go to Africans and 20% to other ethnic groups. To conclude from those statistics per se that other races are marginalized would be invalid because it could be that nearly all of the applicants in the first place were Africans. The answer in this case is to produce more resonant statistics, with their appropriate verbal caveats.
The allegations by Kean Gibson concerning the criminalisation of the African community are extremely disturbing. Such obscene stereotyping of a whole people is unacceptable.
But, although obviously outrageous, the instances given are in the nature of anecdotes and therefore, as argued above, cannot be a substitute for more comprehensive facts and figures in the debate about marginalisation.
As an illustration, data collected by the Bureau of Statistics (BoS) in 2006 show that 36% of Africans receive a monthly income of under $60,000 compared with 43% amongst Indians. One can play games with convoluted arguments but that stark fact does not support the thesis that Africans are marginalised.
There might also be the temptation to seek to discredit the statistics. However, BoS applies the most rigorous quality control procedures to its data collection. Moreover, the competence and integrity of its head, an African, are well-established and are unquestionable.
Similar information can be sought through available websites or through the normal political channels, that is by the official opposition demanding it. In a democracy, the government has an obligation to provide it. If not, the opposition would be entitled to protest in the strongest manner possible consistent with the rule of law.
This sustained chorus of voices about African marginalisation might be motivated by a hidden and none-too-subtle political agenda, that is to create a climate in which pressure is exerted on the government to allocate, in one way or another, 50% of cabinet posts to the opposition. (Incidentally, in the Guyana context, such a coalition would lead to a stalemate in decision-making and paralyse government.) In that case, all appeals for reason and for the use of statistics would fall on deaf ears.
For whatever reasons, a few Africans have expressed scepticism about the usefulness of statistics and a few others have tried to impugn them when they are actually used. But the question of African marginalisation is not exclusively a matter for Africans because there is a clear and divisive implication that Indians are somehow directly to blame and that they are the beneficiaries.
Therefore, Indians should continue to demand and to use statistics to ventilate the issues concerned. It is obvious that a source of abiding anger and frustration amongst Indians is the sustained preponderance of Africans in the army, police and civil service, in the last of which nearly all the recruitment officers are Africans.
It is ironic that in their fight for power-sharing, Africans generally make excuses for holding on to their effective monopoly in these services. Indians should monitor the diversification of these services by demanding annual statistics on recruitment by ethnicity.
If the trend does not show significant improvement, they should confront their leaders to be more pro-active, not passive as they are, in finding remedies. (The situation would be equally unacceptable if the reverse was the case and Indians were the dominant group.)
Yours faithfully,
D. Ramprakash
