WHAT’s so offensive about the Chronicle editorial of July 2, 2012?  In a liberated country where freedom of speech is now repugnant in a country which prides itself in being a functioning democracy? Should freedom of the press only apply to the private media? Or should the media be denied the right to express its opinion so as to encourage critical thinking and debate? Despite the Stabroek News now aboard the wagon in its opinion on “the Chronicle editorial” of 7-16-12 there is absolutely no inciting of any hatred.
For anyone but offering an opinion as Mrs. Parvati Persaud-Edwards sees it. All those up in arms should have an equal chance to rebut as is normal in a democracy. This has now become an excellent litmus case for the Caribbean Court of Justice to rule on a citizen’s constitutional right of freedom of free speech to which Guyana is a UN signatory. Let’s see if the AFC’s lawyers will jump to volunteer their legal services to ensure citizens rights as they did for championing
Black diplomats, but which they rejected for their own Ms Gowmattie Singh. No race must
have rights which deny the same rights to others under the same law.

Those who are of the opinion that a taxpayer-funded institution should absolutely not encourage or harbour such views as Ms Edwards’s must explain why the University of the West Indies must continue keeping Dr Kean Gibson on staff after her odious attack on Hindus and their religion. This is deplorable as it is not acceptable.

The UWI is funded by taxes to which Indians also contribute, so why is Dr Gibson still employed? In fact, I had never ever advocated Dr Gibson’s firing for a comparatively worse offence of attacking Hindus as racists. Such an attack on entire Caribbean population’s religious beliefs never found any response even by the Roman Catholic Church which has now seemingly arisen from the dead.

That Mr. Ronald Waddell was a prime example in his arming of child soldiers at Buxton who then attacked the neighbouring Indian villages of Annandale and Enterprise cannot be erased from history. Buxton’s “Taliban” leader Ronald “Fineman” entrenched the significant stereotyping image of black behaviour in his brutal massacre of defenceless Indian men, women and children at Lusignan and Bartica. Was this not racial profiling?   Dr.Eric Williams did it in Trinidad using the Marrabunta brigade made up of mostly imported Grenadian immigrants to intimidate Indians.  Mr. Forbes Burnham was not innocent in using the American fugitive Rabbi Washington’s House of Israel to murder his opponents, intimidate Indian Guyanese and ensure PNC terror ruled supreme. It is this small percentage of hijacked blacks which gives rise to people like Ms Parvati Persaud-Edwards’s reminder.
It has long been historically established that their own black leaders inculcate resentment among some 2% of the uneducated, vulnerable black population using them to intimidate Indians to achieve their political goals.

Recall how many Afro-centric leaders (Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye and Mr. Aubrey Norton) were exhorting their constituents in Regions 4 and 10 to take to the streets, to create mayhem and destruction should the PPP/C win the 2011 elections? Was that an idle threat and what did our
Chronicle critics did then? Even  ACDA’s Mr. Barrington Braithwaite wrote a letter to the press in which he described Indians as a “numerical anomaly” as if Indians were a human aberration and all guilty by just existence and their numbers. Recall when the former Chief Magistrate Ms Juliet Allen-Holder said she knew which laws on the books allegedly empowered her to legally deport all indentured immigrant descendants (Chinese, Portuguese and of course the favourite target Indians) back to where their fore- parents originated. Thank God Mr. Roger Ally rebutted her presumptuousness by reverentially inquiring what made her the beneficiary of such alleged rules to empower her obvious evil intentions. Why were the Chronicle critics silent at that time including the Catholic Church?   How much more blatant could these earlier provocateurs have been in inciting race hatred against Indians?

As a former social studies teacher, for 25 years I ran afoul of my supervisors for giving my views on certain American bits of history. One case is vivid in my mind. Teaching about Thanksgiving Day, I told my students, while we were celebrating Thanksgiving, there are some who are saddened by this day’s history. Why, my students asked? Well I gave my reasons to develop critical thinking among them. Among Native American Indians and others, the holiday was not seen as auspicious despite its celebration by most European ethnic peoples. This was because white people seized their lands from them with deadly, decimating guns. European diseases such as
the common cold, venereal disease, diptheria, whooping cough, TB and alcohol etc which did not exist in North America further killed off more Indians. As a teacher I was developing critical thinking skills among my students i.e. cause and effect in not staying within the box. In an unrepentant, very clear case to my bosses, I advocated that teachers must have the right and
latitude to teach as long as logic is applied, not hate.

What escapes me is why the heinous crimes which were historically chronicled seem to elicit far less condemnation than actually again pinpointing what may have precipitated their occurrences.

Many Blacks would insist not to walk through or to even enter Buxton or Linden fearing the consequences. Can anyone imagine a Mr. Freddie Kasson, Dr Rupert Roopnarine, and Mr Jinnah Rahaman and Mr. Chris Ram, now living in luxurious homes, moving in to live in Buxton to ground daily with their black brothers and sisters? In the meantime, all should have the right to righteous anger in seeking equal justice as much as one wants.
Angry black activists, like Mr. Lincoln Lewis believes he has a UN special monopoly to  same. He is most assuredly wrong.