Thanks Tony. It is wonderful when discussions on these VERY sensitive matters can be discussed with such civility.
I agree totally with Bennett’s view that Lincoln’s goal in the Civil War was keeping America the United States of America and Emancipation was just a side action to achieving that goal. It was the guilt and dirty stain of Southern Slavery that required the need to manufacture this image of Lincoln so that the United States could move forward united and try and leave the past behind. It is a historical event that defies the old saying “The Truth shall set you free”.
Political expediency is deeply rooted in any nation’s drive to develop an image of itself. Today a new breed of Southern Politicians in the USA find it politically useful to get elected and stay elected with calls for removal of all Confederate Rebel symbols we find all over southern states of America. But it is yet politically valuable to call for the removal of all statues and monetary images of the great George Washington who is well known that have had numerous numbers of enslaved Africans as he and his wife’s personal property.
Last week with the stroke of a pen, and surrounded by all white men, one old woman, and Little Maco, Trump signed away two years of constructive engagement created by Obama between the USA and Cuba involving millions of lives in Central America and the Caribbean who struggle daily to make ends meet simple because he HAD to fulfil a campaign promise. Imagine that! And the world stood by silently. The human rights of these world citizens who meant nothing to them. What has happened to all the solidarity and Third World progressivism we claimed to have accomplished in the struggles of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s? Rich developed European nations can send their military in ANY of what we use to call Third World Countries and remove by any means necessary their leaders and political and religious system. Without opposition. Even as the contradictions are blinding supporting the reasons for their actions. Dictatorship in Egypt is acceptable while in Syria it needs to be destroyed to let freedom reign. Where is the United Nations of the world judgment of Justice and morality? I find this situation to be extremely frightening for non-Caucasian nations. So contradictions have become a global phenomenon. And even more depressing it’s all happening at a time when we are all linked together via the WWW to be witnesses to these social atrocities and injustices.
On Gerard Besson. I had stumbled over his Caribbean History website before but never really gave him much study until this week. It turned out that he descended from a Jean Francois Besson from Grenada who was hung by the British on October 12th, 1797. All his surviving relatives were banished to Trinidad. He is considered one of T&T most prolific writer on Afro-French-Creole history and cultural heritage. His book “The Cult of the Will” has made him a controversial author and has generated a new more in-depth interest in Eastern Caribbean People’s and their Afro-French-Creole heritage. I intend to get a copy and read it so I cannot pass judgment as yet. I have read the www discussions on it but I will reserve my opinion until I read the book myself.
