THE EDITOR, Sir:
MR. SNEAD'S letter of July 16, 2002 misses the subject of Mr. Lee's remarks, which addressed the ills of British colonialism. Mr. Snead has turned the subject around by listing the infrastructure and freedoms enjoyed by Jamaicans.
One concludes from Mr. Snead's logic that British colonialism has left much good in Jamaica, and on the converse, Jamaica would have nothing worthwhile except for British colonialism - very poor logic, indeed!
There is not enough space for a discussion on the negatives of colonialism, but terms I have used to describe British colonialism are: greed, rapacity and blood-sucking.
By Mr. Snead's logic, upon expelling the British from the shores of North America in its War of Independence, the United States should have regressed to Stone Age conditions, because with no British colonialism, development of freedoms or any of the other items in Mr. Snead's letter would not have occurred. But without British colonialism, the United States has developed into the world's mightiest economic power with an infrastructure that the once mighty British thirst after.
Finally, Mr, Snead's wonderment why Mr. Lee has not gone to live in China. Of all the rebuttals Mr. Snead could have chosen, that was the poorest one of a long list. It reveals an obtuseness and inability to think clearly, and in fact its use has caused him to lose the discussion.
I am etc.,
MARSDEN A. CHEN
doobage@localnet.com
Latham, New York
Via Go-Jamaica
