Dear Editor,
In the wake of former President Bharat Jagdeo’s claims that there has been a recent upsurge in anti-Indian racism, we’ve had President Donald Ramotar himself who is reported to have said that he saw nothing wrong with what was said.
There has been speculation that Jagdeo’s utterances were specifically intended as a political tactic, as blatant as it was. This view may be true, but this in no way negates the sincerity with which it was communicated, particularly his view that part of that upsurge represented a colonial attitude towards Indian education.
“What is the message,” asked Jagdeo, “to people of East Indian origin? If you’re PPP or PNC, if you are Christian, Hindu or Muslim, if you’re a sugar worker or a professional, once you’re of Indian origin, you should keep your children home, don’t send them to school. The same colonial message! Because, if, heaven forbids, they become qualified and they get a job and the PPP is in office, then it has not to be because of our merit but rather our race.”
Multiple honorary doctorates notwithstanding, the former President’s career has been one that has been characterized by such marked intellectual dishonesty and insecurity, manifested again and again.
We have seen it in the banning of journalist Gordon Moseley from Office of the President and State House, the domination of the state media, the controversial pronouncements on government policy reserved for overseas trips or exclusive PPP fora, the disinclination towards electoral campaign debate, and – as Nigel Hughes has highlighted – the refusal to testify in a libel trial that he himself brought to suit.
This anti-intellectualism is something that has run through the recent history of Freedom House, notably since the death of Dr Jagan, after which there has been a gradual divesting of the party’s already scarce intellectual assets. Dr Dale Bisnauth slunk into the shadows, Dr Henry Jeffrey left and both men were from the Civic component of the PPP/C. Even Dr Prem Misir, thankfully, has eased off on his public slinging of statistics and questionable analyses.
The closest the PPP has had to a reputable public intellectual in the past ten years is Ralph Ramkarran, the bulk of whose published socio-political analysis has come in the past year, after his alienation and eventual departure from the PPP, and much of it has been critical of the party in its present avatar. The governing party has no equivalent of a Dr Rishi Thakur, Dr Clive Thomas, Dr Alissa Trotz, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, or Dr Arif Bulkan, whether in its leadership or offering it critical support.
The party will have no reputable scholar or academic coming to its defence – none would risk their reputation or academic standing, which necessarily has to expand beyond this place to be sustained. The last one who tried, Dr Randy Persaud, quickly fell from grace and into ignominy and obscurity.
It is perhaps a good thing that President Ramotar would support Mr Jagdeo’s statements, because now Mr Rohee’s dubious assertion that the pronouncements were those of a private citizen and hence not answerable has been rendered null; there can be no claim that Mr Ramotar is a private citizen.
Now to interrogate Jagdeo/Ramotar’s position. Firstly, any categorical statement as to a “resurgence of anti-Indian racism” has to have been discerned from a baseline from which there is an upward deviation. This means that there should be empirical sources that inform whatever methodology Mr Jagdeo has used to determine this upsurge, and which cannot be simply anecdotal and a misattributed reference to testimony in a libel case that he initiated but has refused to testify in; and it should be simple for both men to provide such evidence.
Failure to do so would be particularly hypocritical considering the Jagdeo administration’s rabid reaction to the UN-commissioned McDougall Report (2008), which – instead of using to initiate an honest and open discussion on race relations – Mr Jagdeo instead chose to discredit, both openly, and clandestinely through the ministrations of the new media unit run out of the Office of the President.
If President Ramotar sees his predecessor’s pronouncements as valid, then he would do well to open up a national dialogue on race by revisiting the McDougall Report, but also by releasing the UNDP-commissioned Lachmansingh Report (2010) which Mr Jagdeo and then ERC Chairman and now PPP Minister, Juan Edghill, kept out out of the public domain. He also should release the names of those who have received government scholarships over the duration of Mr Jagdeo’s tenure, information the Jagdeo administration kept close to its chest.
This is not an issue that the public should gloss over, but one which the independent press has a duty to interrogate further. Since it is the position of two successive PPP presidents that there is a surge of anti-Indian racism in Guyana, then every individual in the entire PPP cabinet should be confronted and made to state whether this is their position as well, and to provide the evidence of such. Havel once addressed the Czechoslovakian people stating, “The worse thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.” This illness has completely overcome Freedom House and if unchecked it will envelope this entire society.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
