Dear Editor,
Your “Eyewitness” last Friday reported very correctly on Vice President Khemraj Ramjattan’s address at the Indian Commemoration Trust’s Pushpanjali 16 event to mark Arrival Day.
However, it left out a critical word that Ramjattan used in his harangue against Indo-Guyanese honouring their heritage. The word is “exclusionary”. I was in the audience and listened to him regurgitate all that elections campaign rhetoric of rearview mirrors and crashing, etc.
The implication was clear that Indians congregating to commemorate their history and heritage through music, dance, and remembering means that they are excluding themselves from the cohering that is necessary to create a Guyanese nation.
Stabroek News always obliges at this time of year with its own brand of anti-Indian prejudice. Its self-defined dougla” columnist Allan Fenty always cusses out the Indian part of himself, calling it “triumphal” and “dominant”. He is a man at war with himself and shares the self-conflict he suffers.
Not to be outdone, cartoonist Paul Harris drew a nasty cartoon of the “Happy Arrivals” with the African still enslaved, and ignored the fact that the arrivals included African, Portuguese, and Chinese inden-tured labourers.
But Indians are always their only targets so SN’s editorial of Saturday, May 7, 2016, “Optimism v Popu-lism” tried to take a swipe at those who “wanted to preserve traditional community” which according to their carefully selected quote from English philosopher Dr Julian Baggini, meant that a country that wanted to have such communities must “stop people getting degrees”. They are likened to Trump supporters.
However Baggini has clearly stated: “Moral values must be questioned, but if discrimination against women, homosexuals or ethnic minorities is wrong here, then it is wrong anywhere else in the world…”, This quote would, of course, never be used by SN since the views conflict with its own continuous discrimination against Guyana’s Indian group.
I am sure that the philosopher welcomes the election of the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan who, as a Muslim, comes to the position complete with his Islamic traditions which are rooted in a medieval past. He is also university educated and has written books. His Western educa-tion and Islamic traditions are not contradictory.
To reference Baggini again, it is SN’s fears that the Indian wouldn’t or couldn’t conform to a Guyanese way of life – as defined by them – that underlines their racist exclusivity of “Guyaneseness” to which they are the self-appointed gatekeepers.
One can begin to sympathize with Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo’s confusion about his identity – whether he is Hindu or Christian, Indian or Guyanese – since he has to stick to the PNC party line of forgetting the past which is necessary to cover up the shameful legacy of corruption and violence of his chosen political partner.
Destroying the Indian is so vitally important to so many that all of history including the world’s great religions becomes collateral damage.
Like your Eyewitness, I am also awaiting Emancipation Day when Ramjattan should also warn Afro-Guyanese about crashing because they are so focused on the rearview mirror.
SN, of course, will be speaking from a different side of its hypocritical mouth and will have nothing but praise for the Africans as they celebrate their history and heritage. For political and cultural reasons, it is only Indo-Guyanese who are targeted for destruction.
Among the neemakarams hired to carry out this mission for their masters are the aforementioned Ramjattan and Nagamootoo, and Messrs Ralph Ramkarran, Jerome Khan, Imran Khan, Minis-ter Amna Ally, and the leader of the pack, F Kissoon.
One has to admire the strategic move to recruit neemakarams. This allows Africanists like Dr David Hinds to refer to F Kissoon’s self-contemptuous views as “Indian” ones without Hinds ever having to strike a note of irony.
Such “Indian” support for Hinds’ and other African views are important to their fight to invalidate the Indian presence, which began 178 years ago.
The neemakarams are the ones who are working tirelessly and loyally to ensure that Guyana never has a “Sadiq Khan” moment when an educated Indo-Guyanese with pride in his or her heritage will be respected and allowed to rise to top positions within Guyanese society.
Yours truly,
Shanie Jagessar
