Dear Editor,
Disappointing really, the last letter by Eric Phillips. Having accused me of spreading disinformation and lies in his first response to my initial piece, and hard pressed to cite even a single case or item of falsity in it, he descends yesterday to accusing me of being anti-reparations (‘Bakr’s language is designed to obfuscate the facts; SN, March 25).
But as a commentator ‘Market Man’ notes in reaction, nowhere in the two letters I sent to the newspapers do I take a position against reparations. Mr Phillips, after the cuss-down of his imprecations, shrinks to admitting that Africans were involved in the slave trade. But continues to insist that they were never guilty of what is known as “chattel slavery,” and thus, by the legal system he bears in his consciousness, ought to be perhaps simply reprimanded and discharged.
The rest of his letter is a baring of wounds.
A list of the cruelties and indignities the white man committed. Often, when it comes to the activists, it is what they are good at, and only this, a caricature of the Other and a negationist laundering of the race to which they belong. Pleased at having given him the occasion to say something more on the subject, we note for your consideration that Mr Phillips and the rest, not only have done no public information work on the project, but seem not to have a good grasp of what it is they are supposed to be promoting. Licking out with false accusations and lies (I am “against reparations,” when I never gave an opinion) is perhaps a sign of things to come if at any time in the future these brothers have the fortune to control our media.
Which is the meat of the matter, so to speak. The role of the ethnic, racial activist in our community and history, has been more that of the agitator with the tenuous hold on truth and possessed of his own prejudices.
That I have been, over the years, writing to clean the place of a lot of the untruths and distortions brought to the media (more than Mr Phillips has, for example) ought to say something not only about my approach to racial and racist discourse, but also about the quality of many of those gesticulating before the crowd of co-ethnics they seek to lead.
For example, in the Jan 2, 2014 edition of the Guyana Times, Vishnu Bisram writes of having a recollection that I am promoting ethnic voting by suggesting that since a lot of blacks voted AFC, that party should make black concerns the centre of its agenda. A lie of course, and perhaps a case of false memory. Mr Bisram has already apologised to me for “imagining” a false quote. Unrepentant, we suppose, he yields to the temptation to repeat the error. Unless he can pull out the citation to which he refers, he needs to apologise again.
The point being that the quality of the ethnic activist, in some cases on all sides, does not promise us a happy future if we follow their protestations.
Reparations and the history of slavery are serious matters. Sullying the discussions with false accusations and outright lies is undignified. Since Mr Phillips is calling for apologies and excuses, we are saying that he ought to demand the same of the nations that were involved in the trade at its point of origin. We are also saying that, unless he can quote me stating that I am against reparations, he ought to be a man and offer apologies. He should set the example; the world is watching and waiting to eread.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
