“Why should any people want to honour a man who, given the chance, would have kept them in perpetual slavery?”
The above is a rather simple question which columnist Richard Hoad chose not to respond to initially. After the question was put to him a second time, he responded by dismissing it as a trick question, at which point I decided not to continue our discussion.
My reasoning was that Hoad appeared to have suspended his powers of reason by describing the above as a trick question. You can’t have a debate with someone who is prepared to jettison reason. I would leave it to others (people with professional training in psychology and knowledge of our history) to explain Hoad’s response.
Choose to respond
He chose to raise the subject again in the January 19 edition of the weekend nation, so I choose to respond again. I don’t know if he had nothing else to write about or if he enjoys losing arguments with me. But I am hoping that he thinks this is a worthy debate which should be aired publicly for a longer period of time.
The above question is not a trick question. An example of a trick question would be if I asked Hoad: “Are you still breeding goats, Low Down?”
Horatio Nelson voted against the abolition of slavery in the House of Lords. That is a historical fact. If his view had held sway the great grandparents of almost every Barbadian would not have been freed from slavery.
I don’t expect Hoad to empathise with the plight of our great grandparents as he seems to subscribe to the view that the poor only care about where their next meal is coming from. Therefore, by extension, keep them poor and they will not be bothered about important matters like the reason they are poor. After all, Nelson and his ilk would have kept them in perpetual poverty.
I am not losing any sleep over the silly statue. I am more disappointed in the failure of our politicians to take a stand on the issue and to consign it to our museum with an appropriate message attached.
– JOHN WELLINGTON
