Ogunseye picks and chooses conveniently

Dec 04, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Permit my response to Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye’s letter published in the KN of 12-01-22 titled “Mr Sultan Mohamed was honest this time, African Guyanese are at the bottom of the economic ladder”

“By his own words, Ogunseye’s position on violence is unchanged” was the headline in the KN of 11-28-22 correctly describing Mr. Ogunseye’s shameless proclivity for violence. In his letter of 12-01-22 Mr. Ogunseye does not fail to disappoint.

He picks and chooses instead of addressing the entire picture. For example, Mr. Ogunseye praises Mr. Mohamed for “finesse” when he is partially pleased that “What is now clear is that with the African masses at the bottom of the economic ladder, it will always provide fodder for agitators to seek cause for dissension….” (Mr. Ogunseye writes) My emphases here: “Africans at the bottom of the economic ladder”. Thank you, Mr. Mohamed, for your honest and candid description of the African condition in Guyana!” True to form he is an agitator who ignores the history of slavery of the African condition. Instead, Mr. Ogunseye blames the PPP/C for Guyana’s perennial slavery history.

Furthermore, was Mr. Mohamed using guesstimate economics or piggybacking off what Dr. Jagan may have stated in 1992 that Africans are at the bottom of the “social” ladder in Guyana? Let us examine this quote ‘ Africans are at the bottom of the “social” ladder in Guyana reportedly said by Dr Cheddi Jagan.

President Jagan was telling the Afro/ Guyanese that under PNC – Burnham/ Hoyte rule for 28 years Blacks were still at the bottom of the ladder. Therefore, if Mr .Ogunseye accepts Jagan’s quote, he Ogunseye is also accepting that the PNC rule did nothing substantial for Black people. The whole of Guyana was starving including Black people for those 28 years. Since Black people suffered more under the PNC why doesn’t Mr. Ogunseye advocate violence against them for the wrongs they did to Guyana? Mr. Ogunseye can hardly be beating his chest in glee to threaten the use of violence in Guyana nowadays.

The fact of the matter is Black people suffered more under the PNC. My question to Mr. Ogunseye is did President Jagan say who was on top of the economic ladder? Surely it was not Indians as they suffered doubly more. My opinion is who suffered more, African slave descendants or indentured servant descendants, is based on one’s ethnocentric scale.

What cannot be ignored no matter how Mr. Ogunseye tries is the consequences of his threat to use violence and the inevitability of all out racial war between Africans and Indians. Mr.Ogunseye relishes the thought that Africans are primarily armed by virtue of being overwhelmingly in the armed forces and violence favours them; Indians are, therefore, defenseless. In Guyana, as in the Caribbean, the Indian dilemma is fighting for survival in a Black sea where he is often viewed by agitators as an interloper. Mr.Ogunseye ducks responsibility for racial war as long as he achieves his goals.

In Guyana, the history of the Indian is one who has been constantly attacked and his property burned and looted whenever there is violence. The problem with Mr. Ogunseye is he seeks equality when he himself agitates on the grounds that slavery was not equal to indentureship. Can he explain why the Chinese and Portuguese indentured servants were elevated in the economic ladder, but are not subjected to similar brutality like the Indian? I put it to Mr.Ogunseye that any relationship forged in violence is doomed to failure and threatens racial relations and the unity of Guyana. However, Ogunseye must know the Indian mind is not the same anymore.

Respectfully,

Vassan Ramracha