Dear Editor,

I was bemused and astonished to find myself directly referenced in a Letter To The Editor (LTTE) published in your February 27, 2015 edition titled “Bemused and Astonished by PLP Hypocrisy”.

In it the writer, who has elected to use the pen-name “Not a Stone Thrower”, correctly referenced an October 23, 2008 post on my blog “Catch a Fire” where I noted the similarities between a speech by then Premier Dr Brown and one given by that great revolutionary communist Leon Trotsky to the Russian Communist Party’s Eighth and Ninth Congresses (also known as the Soviet Trade Union Debate of 1920-1921).

The writer is quite correct that I wrote:

“Wow. This part really blows me away. The scariest thing is that it is almost a word-for-word plagiarism of a speech given by Trotsky during the Trade Union debates of the Russian Communist Party’s Eighth and Ninth Congresses (the RCP’s equivalents of the Annual Delegates Conferences).”

It does seem clear, though, that the writer of this LTTE was only interested in selectively quoting from my post and the subsequent discussion — and clearly chose to ignore Ms LaVerne Furbert’s obviously sarcastic reply.

Later on in this same post I also state:

“My comment about the speech by Trotsky was not meant at all to be taken literally in that a speech in Russian by Trotsky to either the Eighth or Ninth Congress of the RCP was translated into English for the express purposes of Dr Brown’s speech. It was intended to express that the sentiment of the debates, epitomised by the person of Trotsky, concerning the Trade Union debates and internal Party democracy that were the main points of discussions of these congresses, was expressed in the speech by Dr Brown. I had (sadly) thought that this was obvious.”

My comment was not that the words were a direct plagiarism of Trotsky, but that the sentiment — that of suppressing internal democracy within the Party was an almost identical sentiment.

And I was warning that a focus on democratic centralism would be to the detriment of the PLP (of which I was then a member), leading the PLP to keep straying off-course, ultimately ending in their defeat and a failure to realise the historic legacy of the party as standing for social and economic justice.

I’ll let readers judge whether that warning was apt or not — and I encourage readers to read the entire post and subsequent discussion; as well as the history of the Soviet Trade Union Debates itself.

It seems clear to me that the author engaged in a rather extensive google search of “Ewart Brown plagiarism” or “PLP+plagiarism” in an attempt to deflect from the criticism of MP Leah Scott’s rather blatant example of plagiarism. In this they have selectively quoted from my post and the comments for a specific purpose and largely ignored the context and the reality of the post and its discussion.

I commend the author for an admirable attempt to deflect from the criticisms of MP Leah Scott’s culpability and try to develop a “but they did it too” argument, although I do think the effort would be better spent holding our politicians — regardless of their allegiance — to be accountable for their lapses of judgement. Surely we should aspire for a politics of integrity rather than the mental gymnastics of deflection and defending the indefensible on the basis of political partisanship?

On the issue of MP Leah Scott itself, I was one of those who called, initially on social media, for her to apologise for her blatant plagiarism, and argued she could make this fiasco into a valuable learning moment to illustrate to our students the seriousness of plagiarism as an academic offence — Ms Scott, after all being the Junior Minister for Education.However, rather than apologise for blatant plagiarism, she chose to redefine plagiarism in a weak attempt to justify her actions, and apologised only for a failure to properly reference the original article.

It was this disingenuous response by the Junior Minister of Education (and a trained lawyer) which led people to call for her to resign as a Junior Minister of Education. As I wrote myself in a press release to Bernews a day before MP Lovitta Foggo — on behalf of the PLP — called for Ms Scott’s resignation:

“Of particular concern is the message that this sends to students — that you can plagiarise as long as you’re not caught, and if you are caught you can use the Leah Scott defence and redefine the very nature of plagiarism.

“In order to counter the profoundly bad example the Junior Minister of Education has now set I believe she should now resign...”

I remain hopeful that we will one day have a politics of accountability and integrity in Bermuda.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Starling,

Pembroke