Colin Steer, Associate Editor - Opinion

Xavier Newton-Bryant ignited a firestorm last week with his submission of a letter to The Gleaner criticising the complicit roles of blacks in slavery, the behaviour of black leaders since its abolition, and for suggesting that blacks, more than whites, needed to apologise for past atrocities.

Few articles in recent times have generated as many responses - mostly angry - as did Newton-Bryant's. Some of the respondents were not only prepared to "cuss-out" the writer, but The Gleaner as well for publishing such an 'insulting' article. Clearly, this represents the views of The Gleaner, they argue. O well!

Like some of his critics, Newton-Bryant demonstrated some degree of simplistic analysis in much of his letter, but there was also a hard kernel of truth in what he wrote that many of the angry respondents, perhaps, have not taken the time to consider or would rather not confront. He gave a list of mainly post-slavery, post-colonial African leaders who have treated their people with undisguised contempt and cruelty and suggested that he was happy to have escaped having to deal with such leaders. His argument was that a greater condemnation should rest on blacks for how they have treated their own than for what any other ethnic group has inflicted on us. That is a hard perspective to deal with, but a valid point nonetheless.

Hot under the collar

It is all well and good to get hot under the collar about white police officers beating black men in America and elsewhere, and to feel the visceral anger that accompanies media images of such treatment. But many of our people who "identify" with the struggles of our brothers and sisters facing racial discrimination in the United States and Europe, are also quite comfortable celebrating "tough street cops" who beat up our own black people right here in Jamaica. We get angry and "cuss out" the television stations for showing images of 'good-for-nothing time-wasters' jumping up in front of the TV cameras demanding that they want justice. The self-contempt of which many accuse Newton-Bryant is alive and well in our collective breasts.

The responses give evidence to the deep anger many people feel about slavery and its legacy of racism and bigotry. But what excuse do we have for how we have treated our own? Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé faced the same crisis of conscience which she has explored in her writings. Like many blacks grown up under French colonialism, her intellectual fervour and passion were stirred by the agitation for decolonisation, racial equality and social justice. She was also a passionate activist in the fight against apartheid. But her hopes were shattered by her experiences of living in Sékou Touré's Guinea and post-Nkhrumah Ghana. She became disillusioned by the corruption and criminality she encountered among its leaders. Her subsequent writings have often contained a searing critique of the "real" Africa that is based on a lived-experience and not idealism harboured by the descendants of slaves. For her perspective she is sometimes chided as a traitor to her people.

Xavier Newton-Bryant has dared to mention the unmentionable. In so doing he has lanced a boil that badly needs some fresh air. His suggestion that blacks were as equally guilty as whites for slavery is over-simplistic. Clearly the issue is not whether blacks or whites have a greater responsibility or duty to apologise for past misdeeds. The larger point is that an honest self-criticism is needed for what we have done and continue to do to our own people. That should not be lost in the drumbeat of condemnation.