Columnist misses the point on my Ahay objections

March 8, 2005

I WOULD appreciate the opportunity to reply to the comments made about me by your columnist Alvin Williams in response to my recent Royal Gazette column critiquing the Ashay Rites of Passage programme.

Mr. Williams appears to have misunderstood the thrust of my objections to the programme. He asks whether my suggestion that certain things should be eliminated from the Ashay workbook means that I think that black Bermudians should not recognise their African ancestry.

He asks if I am calling for a continuation of the 'big lie' about Bermuda's history and that of the world in general. The answer to both questions is an emphatic 'no'.

Most of the changes I am calling for in the programme are to its language, not its content, most of which I have no problem with. As I clearly stated in my column, it is material that non-blacks will gain a great deal of benefit from learning, although as much of this is already taught as part of the social studies curriculum I do wonder about the value of teaching the same thing twice.

The only aspect of the content that troubles me is the way reparations are presented as it does not provide the children with any understanding of the arguments against reparations. For example, unlike the Jews or Japanese-Americans neither the perpetrators or victims of slavery are alive today.

Whether you agree with it or not, the argument that it is unfair to hold the descendants of slave-owners responsible for the actions of their ancestors is one which deserves to be debated, not swept under the carpet.

The other things I believe need to be changed in the workbook are the use of "we" (replace it with "black people"), references that assume the reader is an African-American (again, replace with "black people", or remove the words "us" or "our" from that context) and emotive untruths, such as "we are racing against a world that does not need (African people)".

Presenting history fully and honestly is fine. Creating a sense of exclusion among the non-black children reading the workbook by using "we" inappropriately is not. How would Mr. Williams feel if a child of his had to use a school textbook that said things such as "when our white ancestors arrived from England"?

Mr. Williams has misunderstood the part of my column where I quoted Mrs. Van Putten stating that black people don't know who they are and don't know their own history or that of their African ancestors. I certainly did not question whether those matters were important. What I was questioning was Mrs. Van Putten's use of the word "we", for the reasons described above.

Mr. Williams suggests that I fear that the Ashay programme would help black Bermudians to engender a sense of community and self-determination. I assumed that they have this already. What's needed in Bermuda is not stronger intra-racial links but stronger inter-racial ones.

Mr. Williams concludes that anyone trying to cover up the divisions of the past is only likely to help perpetuate division into the future. I agree. Alas, those who dwell on the past are likely to do the same.

PHILLIP WELLS (A Limey In Bermuda)

The next Lester Bird?

March 7, 2005

I WAS just having a few thoughts about how long the Independence debate will drag on. Until the Bermuda public gets sick of it?

It seems that the only ones in Bermuda who seem gung-ho for Independence are politicians and what they expect to get (for themselves) from it. No politician does anything without considering what's in it for them.

Is it really being Bermuda's first Prime Minister that makes Alex Scott salivate or is it the prospect of becoming Bermuda's own Lester Bird that motivates his seemingly obsessive push for Independence?

And who in their right mind would want to take Bermuda forward (or backwards) to Independence with the useless, worthless Constitution now in place?

How can this Constitution protect me when it can't even protect electoral districts from gerrymandering by politicians? Bermuda's Constitution is not a safe document to take Bermuda to Independence with.

What happens if, post-Independence, some politician decides that it is God's will that he/she become Prime-Minister-for-life? To whom will we turn?

Which, of course, brings us to our politicians, these people who manage to gather 300 or 400 votes from relatives, friends or staunch party supporters and then strut about as though they were elected by divine guidance.

There is one other point in the Independence debate which needs to be addressed, considering the British immigration acts of 1947 and 1949 would such a grant of Independence be legal.

According to that doctor from the UN who visited us last year, there is some question of legality involved in the granting of Independence to a country whose population may skew by illegal grants of citizenship in 1947 and 1949.

Is there a lawyer out there who would take the case on a contingency basis? Maybe suing the British Government for three trillion pounds would take this option off the table for another 100 years or so?

SPANISH POINT VOTER