August 19, 2007

Dear Mr. Alvin Williams,

As a regular reader of your Commentary column I would like to respond to your recent article (Mid-Ocean News, August 17), and by doing so, actually cover the majority of past ones as I clearly see the "rope" that binds them together under a consistent theme for you, that being black vs. white, or vice versa.

I note your claim to have lived through Bermuda's segregated past and quick acknowledgement that you didn't actually live through the worst of it but are young enough to remember the tail end!

So if you are so bitter and vengeful, how do you think those who lived through Hitler's aggression, which caused the deaths (in the most horrendous circumstances) of over 50 million, mostly white people, only 65 years ago, would feel?

By all rights they would still be looking for Germans and Japanese and Italians to pay the price! But do we continue to hold 55-year-old white Germans to account? No, they weren't even born during World War Two so how can we make them accountable for the sins of their parents?

If you are so well read in history maybe you can tell us why apparently Bermuda, to you, is experiencing a simmering, restrained, black versus white, civil war that's about to blow. Yet around the planet 99 percent of such sectarian bloodletting is Black Hutu vs. Black Tutsi, White Irish vs. White Irish, White Serbians vs. White Kosovars and Croats, Semitic Arab vs. Semitic Jew, White Colombian "rebels" vs. White Columbian soldiers, White Russians vs. White Chechens, White Argentine military vs. White Argentine civilians, Black Congolese vs. Black Congolese, White Nicaraguans vs. White Nicaraguans, Shi'ite Iraq vs. Shi'ite Iran, Muslim Indians vs. Hindu Indians, North vs. South Korea, etc/.

OK, so you get the point, without having to reach back to the Mongol Hordes. What defines man's inhumanity to man? Not colour of skin, m y friend, maybe a lot of cultural and religious differences, but certainly not the colour of the other person's skin! Only when you have the ability to actually realise this fact is a given in this life, will you find the path to happiness that you clearly need to find before your days are over. Martin Luther King knew it was possible and he gave whites and blacks the hope for that day.

Bermudians have never resorted to civil war, so common in 99 percent of the world through most of its history. "They" claim the world has only known a total of 29 years of "no war" on a cumulative basis.

I don't think you realise just how much daily dialogue goes on between blacks and whites in Bermuda. Are you or anyone so omnipotent that they can be on every street corner, in every restaurant, in every office, on every bus... that they monitor all of the black/white communication that goes on?

Personally, I have a lot communication and, more importantly, frank discussions with members of race to which I don't belong! No I am not necessarily in the majority but nor am I in the minority. I think more of this "meeting of minds" occurs than you might realise. Were it not so, we might actually have had "real" conflict in the years gone by.

My thoughts are that I wish you would actually not pass on your vendetta to your daughter, even as you claim not to, yet decry 'white child soldiers' with absurd links to the nightmarish life of real child soldiers in Africa! Or, "lest we forget", the Hitler youth! That is simply outrageous in every respect and shows you have only read about - and never actually come close - to the reality of such events in worldly affairs. You simply perpetuate the divisiveness that is eating up so many valuable lives. You were never a slave. You never experienced their pain and suffering.

Black slaves suffered the cruel indignities of that era and 150 years later you have the opportunity and freedom to honour their sacrifice. Humans of all colours can be evil as we know throughout history.

Whites in Bermuda seem to me to strive to live and let live, to work with black folk to create a better place to live. I think Bermuda has the most successful, kind, compassionate and forward thinking people, as a whole, both black and white, of any country I have been in (over 50 so far).

I wish you would try to put aside your "race" glasses and join us, however silent you may think we are, and take a good look at the real world we live in. We all have 24 hours in a day. What you do with it is what makes you successful in whatever way you see success.

Do you hear Oprah Winfrey going on (ad nauseum) about being held down and held back? There are way too many examples of great black successful people around us and I don't mean this just in financial terms. They say you cannot be made to feel inferior without your consent. They also say if you think you are still in chains, remember the key is in your pocket.

Next time you want to liken white and black children exercising their democratic freedoms to Hitler's supposed "ferocious" youth versus Russian soldiers, read After the Reich just out, and learn exactly what those Russian troops did to approximately 1.8 to 2.2 million German men, women and children, after Berlin fell. You will think you are currently living in heaven by comparison.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Sincerely,

OLD WHITE SOLDIER