There have been a flood of panegyrics for President, Dr Irfaan Ali for his strong intellectual defence of the necessity for reparations with two British interviewers on a national television programme titled, “Good Morning Britain.”

His delivery was characterised by an incisive rebuttal to the banalities of Western eugenics that have been heaped upon the non-white world, non-Western peoples the past few hundred years. I prefer the term, “Western eugenics” to “Western cultural superiority” because I think it better describes the psyche of the Western mind. This “better blood” belief is a like a stain on a fabric that cannot be removed.

Deep in the psyche of Judaic-Christian civilization is the belief that there is a cleaner, genetic make-up of Western people that makes them anthropologically superior to any other race group. We can use two examples to demonstrate how strong this instinct is. The Polish Prime Minister years ago rejected Turkiye being part of the EU and the reason he said was because there is one European nation and Turkiye is not of that stock.

Secondly, when the Russian invaded Ukraine and people were running into other European countries, CBS’ foreign correspondent, Charlie D’Agata, and France’s BFM television journalist, Phillipe Corbet exclaimed that they were civilized and “look like us.” The other side of the coin is both journalists didn’t see the Middle East and African refugees as being equal to the Ukrainians.

You can get carried away by Dr. Ali’s superb, almost sublime intellectualism, as he neatly and impeccably offer the defense of the cries of the non-white peoples of the world for reparations for the worst human right violation since civilization was born – European slave trade.

The President’s delivery was calm, effective and decently shaped. But there are deep, invisible meanings in President’s Ali interview and his speech at the UN. We need to look at those subliminal meanings. I will do so below.

While I agree with the sentiment that the male interviewer was rude in the way he laughed and stomped his hand on the table, I believe that was a natural response to being defeated. President Ali exposed the interviewer’s shallow journalism when his stupidly asked the Guyanese President if he wanted as part of reparation, a royal castle. Dr. Ali’s response was infused with a touch of brilliance. Dr Ali said, ‘no, we don’t want a castle, you can keep your castle, we want historical justice.’

Here is what I believe happened. When the producers of Good Morning Britain secured the interview with Dr. Ali, immediately Western eugenics kicked in. The interviewer, Richard Madeley no doubt believed that he would get the better of some mediocre Third World leader that cannot articulate and speak English coherently. His laughing and hand stomping was a mask to hide the putting down he got from the Guyanese President.

Here now are the deeper meanings to President Ali’s deliveries in the interview and at the UN. One – Dr. Ali brought out the inherent feelings of generations of people in the developing world that the West treated them and continue to treat them unjustly. Dr. Ai was simply brilliant in comparing what was not given to Haiti in 60 years was given to Ukraine in just two years. He stressed the point that what has been given to the Ukraine in two years, other developing countries have not received in decades.

Two – in both the interview and at the UN, he articulated the sympathy the peoples of the post-colonial world have for the displaced Palestinian nation. In his UN delivery, he echoed the rejection by the post-colonial world of how the US mistreats Cuba. He did not fail to touch on the historic injustice of the American embargo against Cuba.
Three – in both the interview and the UN speech, there lies the broad outline of President Ali’s perspective on international relations now and into the future. It is a perspective that has the protection of the gains of the post-colonial world.

Four – in both the interview and the UN speech, lies the direction Guyana, under Ali, will walk in a world of competing hegemonic powers. He will not side with the interests of superpowers but will resuscitate the pathway both Jagan and Burnham took over 70 years ago. Dr. Ali made it clear in both the interview and at the UN that Guyana will remain firmly in the sphere of the developing world.

Five – he accepts that slavery was the worst form of assault on human dignity. Finally, and more importantly, the interview demonstrates what the shape the psychology of a human should be like. Here was a leader, not from Africa but from the Caribbean, articulating a grievance of the entire Third World. By extension, it renders obsolete the theory in Guyana that leaders cannot cross the racial divide.