FREDDIE Kissoon has once again made a gargantuan fool of himself in his daily column. In his article, ‘Do Caricom leaders prove that the White race is superior’, (KN/2015-02-01), Kissoon extols the virtues of the White (Caucasian) race, and in the process, condemning the other races, especially Africans and Indians.

What is very obvious is that Kissoon is suffering from an inferiority complex. Believing that one race is superior is racism to the highest extent.

There are populations which have adapted to particular environments, activities, or even abilities. But whatever advantages certain ethnic groups acquire must be seen as insignificant in the grand scheme of things and do not necessarily represent a “superior” vs. “inferior” scenario or situation.

Adaptations and particular skills can be attributed to resources available and needs of the people. It is difficult to generalize and say that one race is superior. Kissoon mentioned that the Caricom council claimed that the President was acting within the constitution when he did so.

But isn’t this so! The President prorogued the Parliament because it was an option that was available to him through the constitution. How did the pronouncement by the Caricom Council makes them inferior to the Caucasions? A blogger on an American website puts this issue of racial superiority into proper perspective with these excellent words, “The greater problem perhaps though is ‘Superior’ is not an empirical term; it is fundamentally a value judgment based on values that we select based on norms of the society in a specific time and place. Ascribing values of superiority and inferiority stops us from appreciating the beauty and variety of the human experience and each person’s capacity for invention or greatness.”
Kissoon conveniently forgets that the Causasion race that he puts in a pedestal produced Hitler, Mussolini, the Apartheid leaders in South Africa, the American leaders who meddle in the affairs of every country of the world including little Grenada where Freddie hid in a rat hole (like Saddam during Desert Storm) during the invasion to remove Maurice Bishop, the very British who plundered the riches of many nations to enrich their empire, and many more examples too numerous to mention. Of course there are many good Caucasions but that does not mean that we must grovel to them as we did during the colonial era. Everyone is important and unique! Kissoon must examine himself and decide if he wants to be considered a mental slave (to other races) for the rest of his life. It is no wonder that he hates himself for being an Indian! It is a blessing in disguise that such an individual who thinks so little of his own people is no longer lecturing at the University of Guyana where our most brilliant minds are. How can he raise the self-esteem of his charges! God help us if Kissoon is placed in an influential position in Guyana in the near future!

RAKESH SINGH