I WILL say one thing for Philip Wells, who runs the Limey in Bermuda web site and writes occasional columns for His decision to liken myself and others to Second World War Japanese soldier 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onada, who refused to acknowledge the war was over until 1973, was an imaginative analogy.

His newly-minted term Onada Syndrome is something I myself might have employed, in perhaps different circumstances, to describe a social situation in which time has seemingly stood still.

However, there are no jungles in Bermuda like on the Pacific island that Hiroo Onada fought his one-man war in for almost 30 years. And the war which I talk about is not yet over, it has only assumed a different form, other characteristics.

Most people who fight in wars would never voluntarily choose such a path. Mostly they are called upon to step forward and do their duty for their country or people. It is true I did look upon the social and racial struggle in Bermuda in the 1960s and '70s as a war of sorts.

I have fought in this campaign both as a black youth during Bermuda's Black Power revolt and as a supporter of the then Progressive Labour Party Opposition, as a trade unionist on the picket lines in many of Bermuda's labour struggles and with my pen.

And as regards the use of a pen, if Mr. Wells thinks that I use columns to snipe at Bermuda's whites, then he should have been around when I first started to write in the 1970s and '80s. I did use the pen as a weapon and I did more than snipe ? I shot to kill.

I was able to do that because I studied the racial situation in Bermuda and understood why my people ? black people ? found themselves in the situation they found themselves not only in this country but world-wide.

Now Mr. Wells is still upset because of the defence I offered of the Dellwood Middle School Ashay Rites of Passages programme, a programme he and his largely anonymous band of web loggers (or "bloggers") attempted to discredit and destroy.

In one I talked about a certain white mindset that can be identified as being hostile to the teaching of the role of black people in history and that the hostile reaction to the Dellwood Ashay programme was nothing new in the Bermuda context. We have seen such reactions before in the 1970s when the idea of teaching so-called black studies in Bermuda's schools was broached and subsequently squashed.

Before anyone invokes the "R" word, let me state here that I am fully aware that not all white people can be pigeonholed into a single category as racists. But because black people have had to deal with racism for so very long, it is now part of our defence mechanism to know more about your mindset than you know about ours. And it can only be those whites who are indeed racists who cannot understand why this is.

Mr. Wells accuses me of poisoning the well of trust between the races with my comments. Well, that is the trouble with some white people. They are still afraid of the dark and they certainly have no way of dealing with a free black mind. I have always considered the flip side of racial progress for blacks in Bermuda to be what I call the Great White Retreat.

of the strangest phenomena in regards to race relations in Bermuda is what happened in the aftermath of the end of official racial segregation. The struggle centred around the desegregation of the movie theatres, when black Bermudians were prevented from sitting anywhere in some of the island's theatres.

But do you know that for years after the colour bar came down, whites still sat upstairs and blacks downstairs as had always been traditional in the days of segregation? In fact, real desegregation only took place when the old Rosebank Theatre was converted into two theatres ? one upstairs, one downstairs ? and then we had no other choice but to sit together.

Even in our public school system, when desegregation took place most whites fled to private schools. I can speak to many other aspects of the Bermudian reality that reflect the legacy of Bermuda's racial past, a past that we have yet to overcome.

But even so, if it were within my power to do so I would draw a veil between the reality of Bermuda's racial past and the present generation for the sake of the future and of our children ? but not on the terms some would have us embrace.

I have indeed been a soldier in Bermuda's racial struggles. So have many others. But that is not our fault. These problems should have been solved long before my generation was born. I have used military terms ? I have spoke of a "war" and "soldiers" ? but only as powerful metaphors to describe a struggle that, while intense, was largely free of bloodshed and violence. Bermuda got to where it is today without many of the clashes that characterised Civil Rights struggles in other countries.

It is true that the war for racial equality and justice has been won in some regards . Certainly overt racism can no longer be practised as openly as once was the case. But men's hearts and minds are slower to change, particularly when it comes to discarding practices that had been employed by their culture for generations.

There are still white Bermudians who will seek to define what a Bermudian is, excluding blacks of West Indian descent. They still attempt to dictate how black Bermudians should interpret the Bermuda reality now and then ? from their point of view.

Often we hear about how rich Bermuda is and how fortunate we all are to live in such a country. But Bermuda's wealth still needs to be shared more equitably. In the 1950s and '60s it needed to to be wrenched out of the grasp of those who controlled it and had no intention of sharing it by means of political and trade union struggles. And that story is not yet over.

Mr. Wells would seem to speak of peace between blacks and whites and the ending of the racial divide in Bermuda. But when you read his web site and the comments of his allies, there is no talk of peace ? only the incessant targeting of black political leaders.

First it was the leader of the Bermuda Industrial Union, Bro. Derrick Burgess. Next it was Julian Hall. Now it is Cabinet Minister Randy Horton. And, as I stated earlier, Mr. Wells and his cronies attempted to destroy the Ashay Programme at Dellwood Middle School.

He talks to me about waging wars? Well, he and his Limey In Bermuda web site represent a kind of Death Star in the cyberspace version of being carried out against Bermudians and Bermudian political leadership. I see myself as part of the plucky Rebel Alliance fighting back against the reactionary views of this evil online empire. Yet he talks of peace and the ending of wars in his newspaper columns. Sorry, Mr. Wells, but those two points of view strike me as being mutually exclusive.

There will be no peace unless some of us speak up for and defend our people. And while I am on the subject of defending Bermudians' rights, let me address two other columns which Mr. Wells penned of late.

In one he called for the return of the infamous "expat vote", which allowed non-Bermudians to skew the political process in this country for many years. Bermudians will not return to the days when non-Bermudians decided the outcome of our elections, not even for the right to vote in British elections.

another column he posed the question: "Do we really lack a national identity?" While claiming that Bermudians do have a national identity on a certain level, he went on to state that such a national identity need not extend to having one's own flag and goes on to use himself as an example, claiming he does not stand for the playing of the British National Anthem and would not consider flying the Union Jack in his backyard even if he were living in the UK.

One wonders whose side he was on when Britain fought the Falklands war against the Argentinians? He sets a bad example for a future patriotic, Independent Bermuda. I look forward to the day that I can salute a national flag I have a real identity with, perhaps one emblazoned with Bermuda's national bird, the longtail, along with the blues of Bermuda's skies and ocean as a backdrop.

As I stated at the outset, the cultural war in Bermuda is not yet finished. It has only assumed a different form. And in order for this old warrior to come down from the hills and enjoy the peace, then the last battle for Bermuda's future that has to be fought and won is on the issue of Independence.