THE newspapers in Guyana can refuse to carry letters on Guyana written by persons living in other countries. But we in Guyana can ask them why they don’t write commentaries on their own countries so we in Guyana can get an analytical angle on what is happening in their part of the world.

The genocide in Gaza has exposed those Guyanese who like to criticize Guyana’s democracy but remain silent on questionable democracies in their own countries. The genocide in Gaza should galvanize each citizen of the world to expose their own country’s support for such anti-civilization instincts.

There has been no act of genocide in the 20th and 21st century outside of Nazi Germany. There are controversies as to if the Armenian people were victims of genocide during the First World War. To date, 34 countries have accepted that there was genocide against the Armenian people.

That would make it two cases of genocide since the First World War with disputes as to whether genocide took place in the USSR under Stalin, Cambodia under Pol Pot and Rwanda under Hutu leadership. Genocide is defined as the deliberate extinction of one race by another. It is doubtful that in the USSR and Cambodia the criterion is met because no particular ethnic group was targeted.

Rwanda comes close to meeting the definition of genocide but there is a kissing link. Genocide is carried out by governments as a policy using military force. In Rwanda, a substantial number of deaths came from communal violence where the Hutu ethnic community killed people from the Tutsi tribe and Hutus also.

In the case of Armenia, Nazi Germany and Gaza in 2023/2024, the victims were murdered through the use of force by the state. In Gaza, it is the air force that is systematically killing Palestinians of which the majority of the 23, 000 victims are women and children. This has been a long introduction to the commentary that will now follow on a letter written by Dr. Andre Brandli, a German citizen of Guyanese ancestry (so he says). Readers will see the relevance as I go on.

Dr. Brandli takes objection in his letter in the newspapers yesterday to a commentary written by Professor Randy Persaud in praise of Guyana’s Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo. This column here is not about Brandli’s take on Jagdeo but on Brandli’s juxtaposition on democracy in Guyana and what he referred to as liberal democracy in the countries he lives in. Guyana does not come out favourable in his view. His country, Germany, will now come out favourable in my view.

There is a colossal difference in the academic training between Dr. Brandli and I. He is a molecular biologist. I studied history, international relations and philosophy at three universities including one of the best in the world – University of Toronto. I know nothing of and about biology but I have immense knowledge of political theory and comparative politics so I can debate anyone on what liberal democracy should be.

Let’s quote Brandli on what Professor Persaud wrote: “To be frank and blunt, I have rarely read such a sycophantic pamphlet praising a country’s de facto leader, certainly not in any country that considers itself a liberal democracy.”

I once described Brandli as having more of style of Bruce Lee when he wrote that over 600, 000 ballots were cast in the 2020 general elections in Guyana. No one, not even the political parties in Guyana made such a stupid and ignorant claim. Total ballots cast were 464, 565.

So, is Germany the country that Brandli lives in a liberal democracy? And have there been sycophantic praise of leaders by academics, editors, and politicians in those liberal democracies? To debate Brandli on this issue, is to assault one’s dignity so I would not pursue this line any further except to say Brandli needs to reads more on world politics as he reads on biology.

So, do leaders in liberal democracies support the perpetuation of genocide? They cannot do so because that would be antithetical to what liberal democracy stands for but they have included the leader of Brandli’s own country – Germany. The German Chancellor was the second leader of a liberal democracy to go to Israel while it was bombing Gaza and like the first leader, showered sycophantic praise on Netanyahu, a Prime Minister facing criminal charges.

The German Government has rejected the South African testimony in front of the International Commission of Jurist that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. So, Germany committed genocide in 1945 and in 2024 is denying genocide in Gaza and siding with the perpetrators of genocide in Gaza. I once advised Brandli to stick to biology and stop writing nonsense about my country.