Leftist lunkheads

There was Jennifer Baptiste-Primus, the president of the Public Services Association, boasting in her Emancipation Day Message that she had the "testicular fortitude" to say what she believed. And what does Baptiste-Primus believe? That those persons described by some as "entrepreneurs, as businessmen and/or as capitalists" are really "the blood-suckers, drug dealers and gun runners who have built and continue to build their evil empires, amassing phenomenal wealth at the expense of the lives and blood of the little black boys..."

This kind of rhetoric is hardly new. Historian Ian Kershaw, in his definitive two-volume biography Hitler, writes, "At first, Hitler’s antisemitic tirades were invariably linked to anti-capitalism and attacks on ‘Jewish’ war profiteers and racketeers, who he blamed for exploiting the German people..." Kershaw also notes that "Jews could be described...in increasingly common bacterial language, as a ‘pest and a cholera’."

Baptiste-Primus is no Hitler — she might, with great effort, just make the grade as tinpot dictator. Nor is Trinidad going to see any Final Solution aimed at Syrian-Lebanese Trinidadians. But such rhetoric can still have insidious effects on our society. The support given to Baptiste-Primus’s bigotry by fellow trade unionist David Abdulah encapsulates why ours remains an underdeveloped society.

Abdulah’s Sunday Newsday column of July 31 probably set a record for containing the most wrong ideas in 1,500 words or less. His grasp of history, economics, and politics — that is, reality — is clearly less than firm. "There was absolutely no doubt that slavery was a crime against humanity on a scale surpassed only by the genocide of the indigenous people of the Americas by the very persons who were engaged in slavery," he began, proving that he can’t write a clear sentence either.

Slavery was certainly a crime against humanity, but there were more slaves in Africa than there ever were in the Americas for the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade — indeed, Africa was the last region on Earth where slavery was abolished. As for genocide, there was in fact no systematic attempt by Europeans to exterminate the Amerindians. "Far more Native Americans died from Eurasian germs than on the battlefield from European guns and swords," writes anthropologist Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Smallpox was a key factor which allowed Cort?s’s 600-strong brigade to conquer the militaristic Aztec empire, with its population of several millions, in the early 16th century.

But Abdulah not only misrepresents the past, but also the present. "In many respects, we live in a more unjust and inequitable world than that which existed 40 years ago. We certainly live in a less peaceful world," he wrote. It is true that the gap between richer and poorer nations has nearly tripled over the past four decades, but absolute poverty has also declined between 15 to 25 percent within the last 20 years alone. Also, by the end of the 20th century, 85 of the world’s 192 countries were classified as ‘free’ or ‘partly free’ — a far higher rating than even 10 years earlier. As foreign policy analyst Michael Mandelbaum notes in The Ideas that Conquered the World, "In the first half of the twentieth century the fascist form of illiberalism was defeated militarily. In the second half, illiberalism’s Communist variant faltered economically. Liberalism’s two rivals were not only defeated, they were also discredited."

Abdulah, it appears, didn’t get the memo. But that’s to be expected from a man so ignorant of history that he actually believes the world is less peaceful now than 40 years ago.

At present, we have the American occupation of Iraq and, worse, genocide in Dafur.

Twenty years ago, however, there were wars in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Punjab, Namibia, Somalia, and Guatemala. Smaller wars erupted between 1992 and 1996 in eight post-Soviet Union countries. There were still ongoing conflicts in Northern Ireland, Spain’s Basque province, East Timor, and Kashmir. Wars broke out in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia and Sierra Leone. But, within ten years, nearly all of these had ended or been downgraded. So anyone who asserts that the world is "certainly" less peaceful now must have been doing a pretty good impression of Rip Van Winkle for the past two decades.

It is, however, entirely possible that Abdulah knows the facts, but is just not interested in reality. Thus, speaking of the economic success of ‘Syrians’, he asks, "And, regardless of whether this was obtained by dint of hard work and sacrifice, does this concentration of ownership not create problems, especially in a small, multi-ethnic society like ours?"

Abdulah’s answer is, of course, Yes. It is, not surprisingly, a wrong answer. In his book Affirmative Action around the World, economist Thomas Sowell says that there is no evidence that "disparities in income and wealth promote intergroup strife ...Among the countries studied here, all the evidence points to the opposite direction.

In Malaysia, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka, there was far less intergroup violence in the first half of the twentieth century, when intergroup disparities were greater, and far more violence after those disparities had been politicised and group identity politics promoted...Indians, Pakistanis, and Lebanese likewise lived peacefully for years among Africans whose economic level did not approach their own — until political demagogues made Asians targets of envy, resentment, discrimination and violence. It was much the same story with Indians in Fiji, Jews in Germany, Armenians in Turkey, and other groups in other places."

So, when Abdulah suggests that what is needed are "definite policies that are going to lead to the creation of a truly just, equitable and peaceful society," it is pretty likely that his ideas, were he ever to have the opportunity to put them in force, would have exactly the opposite effect. But perhaps such socialist beliefs are too obviously outmoded for any government to consider them — unless they are already part of Patrick Manning’s Vision 2020.

E-mail: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com

Website: www.caribscape.com/baldeosingh