The small ruling elite in Bermuda has historical roots. It has social and cultural roots. It finds religious expression and it is played between the few who control and the majority who work. We find that economic violence against the majority by the minority has to do with the dispossession of people. This is done in two ways.

1. By giving grassroots workers low wages and dispossession on the job.

2. Putting them into a new kind of wage slavery. This in the form of economic violence put in place by the ruling elite against the majority of our people.

When we look at the whole system of monopolies which has always been in place we see no changes even with a change from a UBP controlled system. The diabolic way workers are treated continues, especially in our hotels, restaurants and cleaning businesses. We are still dealing with diabolic proprietors and this in and of itself spells economic violence.

Under our PLP government businesses have been allowed to get away with failing to pay pension contributions amounting to over $2,000,000. Yet MS LINDA WALES and others are taken to court daily after being tracked down like animals. I remind my black brothers and sisters that the elite comes in many colours.

RAYMOND RUSSELL Pembroke The high cost of flying October 6, 2000 Dear Sir, As a follow up to your correspondent who queried "seat sales'', (my inverted commas) I would like to recount my experience in April. A last-minute situation (with only 24 hours notice) required me to travel from the UK to Sarasota Florida, fly (after one day) to Bermuda, and then back to the UK.

The least expensive route had me fly to the US and back to the UK as a round trip, with a round-trip to Bermuda in the middle.

United airlines offered on their web site (and to my travel agent) an inclusive fare of $850 from the UK to Sarasota to New York to Bermuda to NY to the UK, using American Airlines only for the Bermuda sector.

At the same time I was looking into other flight combinations and the cheapest fare we could get from American airlines for NY/BDA/NY ONLY was $750. Asked the reason for such a high fare we were told that it was because travel was within two or three days of booking. The United ticket and the American quote were all for travel on the same flights in and out of Bermuda! This arrangement therefore priced my trip from the UK to Sarasota at $150 return.

ANOTHER RIPPED OFF ISLANDER Hamilton Parish Narrowing the gap October 9, 2000 Dear Sir, Born Non-Bermudian (R.G. Oct. 9) illustrates the tremendous gap which exists between the experiences, understanding and perception of those who reside in Bermuda. Several weeks ago Stuart Hayward recorded the experience of his father Lancelot Hayward in the Bermuda Sun, an experience with which the majority of black Bermudians could identify because of their own experience.

Yet on October 1, Non-Bermudian could (no doubt with a straight face) write (R.G. Oct. 9) "It is no longer true, (if it ever was) that foreign workers are preferred over Bermudians either by immigration policy or by Bermudian employers.'' Polarisation existed long before those meetings and Great Britain, over the decades, has never shown any particular concern about the "totally unfair processes'' which have existed in this "far away country'' What makes Debater (R.G. Oct. 9) think that she should care or act now? The power structure in this country has always "seen only two colours'' and those who fell elsewhere in the spectrum was socially defined as either "black'' or "white'' and we were economically and socially excluded, or included, according to these definitions. Arriving at these social definitions is no more difficult now (under CURE, despite the concerns of Jessie Moniz in your sister paper) than it has been throughout my lifetime when inequality and affirmative action for "whites'' was the goal. Unless those who have had the advantage of being socially defined as "white'' acknowledge these facts, polarisation will continue.

EVA N. HODGSON