Said Mr Modibo: “I wonder if he (Voglezon) knows he has shot himself in the foot or his analytical mind caused the admittance. Either way, confession is good for the soul.
“The AFC African leadership may be unsettled with this honesty and frankness! Harry’s
conclusion has been the concerns of many African Guyanese who have given their votes to Raphael Trotman, Sheila Holder, Cathy Hughes and Dennis Patterson.” (‘Either way confession is good for the soul’ KN, November 27)
Even if my letter ‘African leadership in general is constrained by a psychology of wrongness’ (KN, November 11) constitutes a confession, there is no need for Mr Modibo to be surprised or alarmed. For the conscientious AFC-ites are not fearful of truth, even if that truth is public and uncomfortable. We do not see confession as inherently dangerous and suicidal.
We are taking the party into a path of political thinking and behaviour that is non-traditional but appropriate for a new order of things. We realise that the culture of the state and political relationships in this society cannot be reformed or transformed if we think and live the attitudes and habits of lies, deceit, denials, hypocrisy, alienation, etc. These vices create more problems than they solve. So, the AFC would not expect to have a quality of leadership that whines over possible confessions as do other parties. Such a leadership would realize that it would be unfit for, and irrelevant to the reformation we seek.
Unlike popular belief, we do not accept that one has to be mean, nasty and brutish to be politically successful, but knowledgeable and wise as demonstrated by American President Barack Obama and post-apartheid Nelson Mandela. We do not agree that we have to become enemies or abusive when we disagree with each other. We accept that we cannot reform anything unless we ourselves, both individually and collectively, are embodiments of change; we cannot for instance, be afraid to even admit when we are wrong and apologise.
To us mistakes are as natural to living as the sun is to earth. What matters more are not errors made but whether we are responsible and accountable enough to acknowledge them and exercise the political will to redeem ourselves. So the AFC may be best measured not by errors but the will to redeem. Redemption not only generates growth and development of the individual, but growth and development of positives.
To us trust is critical to any form of cooperation and stability, which in turn are prerequisites for development. Trust cannot thrive in an environment of disingenuousness. That is why in shaping the new political culture, the conscientious AFC-ites emphasize openness, virtuous thinking and conduct. We believe that building a cadre of change agents, grounded in this political mode, is fundamental to breaking the cycle of political, economic, social and interracial distrust and backwardness.
There is nothing mythical about this approach to politics. The pre-1492 West Africans had long established systems of political organization, political thought and conduct grounded in virtues, far superior to what existed anywhere else in the world. Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama are two of the finest contemporary exemplars of that tradition. The post-emancipated Africans of 1834 had done the same as they established their villages at Victoria, Buxton, etc, until the white planter class embarked on a process of destabilization and effectively used the indenture system to do so. In just examining the village rules and organization one sees a continuity of West African concepts of governance.
It may be a good reminder to the morally timid that the Privy Council’s slave trade report of 1789, on answering the question, “Are the people (Africans) a moral people, and do they have a sense of right and wrong?” reported Richard Miles, Governor of the Cape Coast Castle, as replying: “In their intercourse and dealings with each other they are very exact and strict; they are punished with the loss of liberty for the smallest theft.” Said another European who had twelve years experience on the African coast: “They enjoy civil rights and privileges that are of more ancient date than our settlement among them. I do not believe that the natives are much improved in their morals by their intercourse with Europeans; on the contrary I think the worst blacks are those who have been most concerned with the whites.” These observations are instructive to the conscientious AFC-ites.
Yours faithfully,
Lin-Jay Harry-Voglezon
