Intellectuals must be seen as people and not ethnic personalities

Nov 18, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
Although I managed to read the entirety of Mr. Ramharack’s surprisingly insular letter that was recently in the dailies, several refutations came to mind. However, in the interest of brevity, I wish to address the most pressingly vexatious issue he mentioned. The supposed lack of an intellectual tradition amongst the Indian immigrants in the Caribbean.
Prefixing the term ‘intellectual’ with a particular ethnic identity is wholly and utterly to be rejected. At once, it diminishes and demeans someone with a formidable intellect who may have a shared genetic heritage with a particular group. Does their orientation and ability to innovate and develop complex explanations and solutions outside of their ethnic identity not matter? Why should their engagement in intellectual pursuits be inexorably linked to race or culture? It is a subtle devaluing of that person’s credibility as a thinker to presume that it is only within the ambit of their culture or ethnicity they should have value?
Dr. Cornel West is a brilliant thinker. He is not a brilliant Black intellectual, as being Afro-American has nothing to do with the quality of his academic credibility. Similarly, we do not describe Dr. Steven Hawking or Dr. Simone de Beauvoir or Dr. Bernard-Henri Lévy as prominent white intellectuals. Female intellectuals are regularly tagged with the moniker of ‘women’, as though their gender plays a prominent part in their cognitive abilities. Scholars such as Hannah Arendt, Maya Angelou, Susan Faludi; do we question that their intellectual tradition stems from the combination of ethnicity and gender and race? Should their pursuits be further limited to issues pertaining to culture and identity? Outside of those defining and restrictive parameters, they would still be some of the purest intellectual minds anywhere.
Mr. Ramharack’s letter exposes exactly where the fault lines lay in his analysis of Indian intellectual tradition. Rather than consider that historically, many people of Indian descent have pursued higher education, encouraged to do so by their very Indian families. Granted, they are not all necessarily engaged in self-examination or scrutiny of the role their history and ethnicity play in the development of a complex cognition, but, I reject that they are somehow less intellectual for not incorporating their ethnicity as an important aspect of their intellectual pursuits.
As a child, my own parents would regularly quote the likes of Fanon, Tagore, Shelly, random Sanskrit sayings and Hadith, in equal measure. Unusual perhaps, but the lynchpin of their encouragement to always be engaging one’s intellect, even if all it grants you is greater insight into obscure and seemingly purposeless insight. What would one refer to that as? That, as “Indian” as my parents and ancestors undoubtedly were, they did not encourage a linear inward-looking outlook, that our culture undoubtedly had value was not in dispute. However, the cultures, philosophies, scriptures, and literature distinct from our own history had equal validity. And was worthy of being considered and analyzed and inculcated.
Suppose one were to consider Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s prodigious research and significant academic contributions to planetary science. Do we wonder why he has not provided us with a Black intellectual’s perspective on the cosmos? Do we expect him to? Should being Black have anything at all to do with his body of work or his intellectualism? As I initially set out to say, it borders on the absurd that as a consequence of the recent disagreement about the official dates for a Hindu religious holiday, ‘Indian’ intellectuals” should step forward to provide clarity or whatever. Not all Indians are Hindu, as being Indian could mean membership in any one of dozens of religious groups, none of which would have an inkling as to what the Diwali date should be. With all due respect, I would urge Dr. Ramharack to refrain from promoting the ethnicization of legitimate academia. Rather than call for ‘Indian’ scholars to address the Diwali issue, he should have simply exhorted Hindu scholars and pandits to enlighten and educate those of us who are unacquainted with what the facts are in this dispute.
Mrs. Scheherazade Ishoof- Khan

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