…on Reparations
With Emancipation Day just a day away, a letter writer – from the name, Michael A Dingwall, probably a person of African Decent – says that the demand for reparations is a “dead corpse” that must be dumped! He offered several arguments for his claim…which your Eyewitness will address, since he absolutely doesn’t agree with the fella.
He claims even descendants of African slaves in the Caribbean don’t think much of reparations and as such don’t support the claims against the European colonials. But this is no argument, is it? And why is this so? Well for the simple reason that our entire corpus of “education” – fifty years after “independence” – is still built on principles established by the Europeans. And those principles insist that slavery was imposed on Africans to “civilise” them! Africans didn’t even have a soul in the European way of thinking…so to even be associated with Europeans was a favour.
The writer claims locals, who don’t even think of reparations, just want to immigrate by whatever means necessary to those same countries we’re demanding reparations from. Doesn’t he see the irony of his assertion? We’re still elated we’re ‘elevated” by association with our former oppressors! Our task is to change our “education” so we and our descendants can understand what was done to us to keep us “underdeveloped” in all senses of the word.
And let’s not forget that the obverse of our underdeveloped state was the development and enrichment those of same European nations. And that’s what reparations are all about: to make the playing field even today a bit more level. Without understanding the history of underdevelopment, the writer obviously doesn’t appreciate he’s encouraging the belief fostered by Europeans that their advanced development is somehow the result of their innate “better” qualities!!
Another argument raised was that slavery was ‘acceptable’ at the time, and even practiced by the same Africans who became enslaved!! Again, this betrays his miseducation! European slavery was something new in the history of mankind – the slave was now CHATTEL – the property of the slaveowner who could do whatever he wanted with the slave. The slave was like what the word sounded – CATTLE!!
The problem in Guyana, however, is the local Reparations team are all over the place. Rather than focusing on making claims against Britain, they’re devoting all their energies on getting reparations from the GUYANESE state!! Now demanding 18% of Guyana’s land space!!
What they’re doing is letting Britain off the hook for their responsibilities – because by going against Guyana and Britain, they’ll be accused of double dipping by the latter!!
You can’t cash the same check twice!!
…on our medical system?
The medical system’s getting a lot of bad press – much of it very unfair. Firstly, all the nonsense about the supply of pharmaceuticals to our nationalised system has nothing to do with medicine, per se. That has to do with the avarice and greed of this government who’s doing all the dirty deeds they’d accused the PPP Government of, when THEY were in office.
The present pharma shortages, of course, makes the job of the medical professionals all the more difficult.
Then, there’s all the news about neonatal deaths. But let’s be honest, dear readers, how many of us spare a thought to babies who died before 28 days – the definition of “neo-natal deaths”? Truth of the matter is – because of the primitive state of the health system we inherited – we’ve been practicing triage – making a decision about who would be sacrificed because of lack of facilities – forever.
Right now, if we want to save more of those babies within 28 days of birth, we have to make investment in all sorts of expensive equipment
So, what do we cut back?
…on parking?
The Gang of 4 at City Hall and Smart City Solutions have really screwed up the use of parking meters as a means to control the overwhelming influx of traffic into Georgetown – and raise funds.
The Courts gotta void that contract!
