Comments by Sir Roy Trotman, general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union, at the May Day rally describing Diamonds International businessman Jacob Hassid as an “Egyptian Jew” have created a national brouhaha.
I have the greatest difficulty understanding the justification for what is nothing more than a storm in a teacup. Sir Roy simply describes the gentleman’s nationality and religious faith. To extrapolate from that an endangerment of race relations in Barbados beggars belief.
I am not aware of any anti-Egyptian or anti-Jewish sentiments, prejudice or discrimination in Barbados. There may be suspicions of affinity between Judaism and the spirit of capitalism. This is a longstanding, international phenomenon but was not referred to either overtly or covertly by Sir Roy and is certainly not a hot button national issue.
Mr Hassid, who has lived in Barbados for 17 years, is way off the mark to believe that what Sir Roy said could stir up racial hatred and “has further implications about Barbados, racism, the treatment of foreign investors and fairness in general”.
What further implications, Sir?
Racism is alive and well in Barbados today and has been since the earliest days of settlement and the “unholy trinity of evil” – colonialism, slavery and the plantation system. As far as foreign investors are concerned, attracting them and giving them preferential treatment has been the policy of all Governments since 1966.
It is regrettable to learn that the gentleman says his three Barbadian children by birth have been devastated by Sir Roy’s comments. This too will come to pass sooner rather than later as children adapt to and conquer real or perceived adversity far more readily than adults.
It was unfortunate that in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, two ministers launched a brutal attack on Sir Roy, generating a large Nation Front Page headline in red: Sir Roy Flogged. The Minister of Health, in grossly hyperbolic rhetoric, described Sir Roy’s comments as “guerrilla warfare tactics more in keeping with a raging bull in a china shop”.
In his view, “calling people all sorts of nasty names like Egyptian Jew is not in keeping with what I would expect of an enlightened society in today’s age”. By what stretch of an elastic mind could anyone be correct in seeing the description of someone as an “Egyptian Jew” as a “nasty name”? How are they described in Israel, Jordan and Egypt?
Sir Roy is a reasonable, internationally respected trade union icon who has held high office in the International Labour Organization. His patriotism and dedication to this country’s best interests are on par with his devoted passion to the interest of the country’s workers. To describe him as a guerrilla warrior and as a bull in a china shop does violence to the living reality of this noble Knight of St Andrew.
I wonder how the voluble minister would describe the remarks of Scyld Berry, a leading British cricket correspondent and former editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, the game’s most prestigious publication, who called the young West Indian cricketers on their arrival in London “waifs and strays”?
My dictionary describes a waif as “an orphaned, abandoned or homeless child; any pathetically undernourished looking child; something unclaimed and apparently ownerless”. Together waifs and strays are “homeless people, especially children; unclaimed articles, odds and ends”.
It is therefore a transparently nasty, untrue and insulting description of the youthful West Indian touring team. The mind boggles that he could write that putrid crap and the West Indies Cricket Board not bring him to some sort of Christian understanding.
When a leading journalist describes a team of young, black players in such blatantly derogating and false terms, he crosses the crease of decent journalism, landing in the gutter of abominable racism. I trust that the players will develop an arms-length relationship with him and make him know that they prefer not to have anything to do with him.
Any individual or collective stand-off will not get the board off the hook for its indifference and lack of a proper response. Not only a response, but he should be banned from setting foot in the West Indies dressing room until he apologizes.
But expecting the board to act against twisted allegations against its players is probably expecting too much. In an international shamble, two Guyanese players were not able to travel with the team and were stranded in Jamaica because visas were not obtained for them in a timely manner.
Knowing that Guyanese nationals require a visa to enter Britain, one expected that the board would have expeditiously ensured that the players’ travel documents were in order to permit them to leave with other team members.
That notwithstanding, hope springs eternal that our team performs with credit, consigning Berry to eternal infamy and shame!
• Peter Simmons, a social scientist, is a former diplomat. Email ppksimmons@hotmail.com
