Isn’t it time that all be treated justly?

Aug 22, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
I welcome the responses of both Ravi Dev and Harry Hergash to my letter on the hidden historical facts of African Entrepreneurship and the 200-plus years of free labour as well as 400,000-plus lives lost in building Guyana, without any benefits.
Since that letter I have been asked by many individuals, most of whom were unaware of these purposefully hidden truths, to elaborate on the many ways Indians, Portuguese, Chinese and Amerindians were helped to the detriment of African Guyanese, from whom almost everything was extracted from for others to gain.
I will not do this, for it would take seven pages, but I do hope our historians will support the social cohesion programme by informing Guyana of these truths, and that the Ministry of Education will make our history mandatory in all of our schools.
I have some empathy for Mr. Harry Hergash, who seems to be in denial of the true historical facts of African entrepreneurship in Guyana because, as in the past, and even today, many falsities are taught under bottom-houses by those who want to support racism and African stereotyping and marginalization. The many falsehoods taught in Guyana about the African Guyanese experience is what keeps us in the prison of racism that now exists. Mr. Hergash, of course, has not challenged any of the facts I wrote, but quite subtly tried to change the topic by writing “Mr. Phillips misrepresented what I wrote by reproducing selective quotes out of context”.
Mr. Hergash also completely misunderstood President Granger’s words to African Guyanese. This too is normal because most individuals, old and young in Guyana, still don’t understand the African experience in Guyana.
My sense of Mr. Hergash’s interpretation of President Granger’s statement that Africans should become more entrepreneurial like their ancestors who built the Village Movement, has been  re-interpreted by Mr. Hergash to mean….Africans should become more like Indians. We have heard this before, Mr. Hergash, but the reality is Africans don’t want to be Indians and can’t. And wouldn’t.
If President Granger was truly saying to Africans as Mr. Hergash believes…they shouldn’t want State intervention to correct historical wrongs and African marginalization…then I ask Mr. Hergash: was the President also saying that Guysuco should not receive the $12 billion it has received? Or that private sector Indian rice farmers shouldn’t receive the $23 billion the Government will pay them out of taxpayer funds? Can you answer these questions, Mr. Hergash?
It seems that at the heart of Mr. Hergash’s thesis is that the Government of Guyana should not correct historical wrongs but should now, after years of African oppression, treat each group in Guyana equally and have them compete against each other in an entrepreneurial fashion.
What Mr. Hergash tries to hide is that the 95% ownership of the economy by Indians was not because of entrepreneurial prowess, but because of 170 years of advantages given to them, the Portuguese and Chinese.
To say President Granger should now treat each group equally and that Africans should be more entrepreneurial is grossly insulting to the President’s intelligence, especially since he is a historian. Mr. Hergash knows Africans will not be able to compete on an even playing field when their competitors own banks, legal and illegal networks, capital and non-capital assets and influence bought my money and other means.
History has shown us that much wealth has been created for Indians because of racism.  Dr. Kean Gibson’s definition of racism now rings truer every day: “Racism is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal and informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties”.
Much wealth has been created in the last 23 years by the greatest transfer of state wealth in Guyana by the PPP to Indo-Guyanese. Add this to the reality that 60% of our economy is underground and controlled by a few Indian groupings.  This is our economic reality as  Dr. Clive Thomas stated years ago that “there is the existence of a cabal or coterie of persons comprised mainly, but not exclusively, of selective crime bosses, state officials, and security personnel, elements of the criminal justice system and political bosses, advisors and other insiders.”  “This group,” he contended, “commands considerable economic wealth and wields enormous power. The ruling elite, located above the reaches of domestic law, presents itself as leading the process of political change, promoting of respect for law and order and creating a place for public safety and human security.”
Roger Khan actually took out a full page article affirming Dr. Thomas’s observations.
Mr. Hergash is also very deceptive in suggesting that Africans should take more entrepreneurial risk, but refuses to comment on my fundamental issue: namely, Indians, Chinese and the Portuguese in Guyana should support the Government of Guyana providing reparatory justice in the form of land, a banking licence and equal access to all government contracts, among other things…to address historical wrongs and the economic genocide and racism that existed over the last 23 years.
Sugar has received and will continue to receive billions of dollars. Rice is now receiving billions of dollars. These are not industries that will create wealth for Africans. Rather the billions of dollars from the Treasury, paid in large part by African Guyanese, is just a continuation of the extraction of wealth from Africans to benefit others.
If Mr. Hergash wants a just society and a society in which all Guyanese  are all treated as socially equal and economically equitably, and wants a society in which historical wrongs are corrected, then he would write his next letter in support of reparatory justice.
Or should African Guyanese claim 18% of Guyana as prescriptive rights for the 200-plus years they lived on the land as enslaved people and for the 15,000 square miles, 100 million tons of earth they cleared while dying like flies.
Isn’t it time that all be treated justly?
Eric Phillips

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