The truth is seldom pure and never simple
Dear Editor,
Life is a duality. Earth is a duality. The universe is a duality.
Yours faithfully,
Stabroek News
January 14, 2002
For male you have females. For left you have right. For land you have sea. For day you have night. For quasars you have supernovas.
VS Naipaul is a duality. Bill Clinton is a duality. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham were a duality. From Naipaul's writings you can see his brilliance, yet from his speeches, and from other people's written observation of the man, you can safely say he is a jerk.
What is not a duality is young and old. People do not change. They may have suppressed tendencies that they unleash at an opportune time. However, the concept of change in humans was invented for fiction. But, we are living in a real world. And we need to either face reality or live in this fictionalized world of change.
Mike Singh is living in a fictionalized world. He wants us to think that America is all good and anything anti American is all bad. But even Americans criticize their government.
One other thing, Mike, you better reread your books on security clearance because your butt will be fired in a New York second for infringing security rules. Telling the world that you are working for a secretive "US federal institution" is a security breach. I know because I had a security clearance.
Frederick Kissoon, here is Naipaul duality: Naipaul's negativity and unpleasantness can point to the fact that he wants changes. He is not living in a fictionalized world. He does not see everything as good, and he does not want to repeat what other Indian or Caribbean writers had already said or written. He critiques for improvement and that is why I like the man. Also, you should check out this web site and others for what the western press is/are saying about Naipaul
(http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1998/09/cov_16feature.html)
Abu Bakr, is deep in a fictionalized world. I am appalled that he did not find anything bad in his list of Nobel laureates of African descent and so much bad about Naipaul, our Nobel laureate of Indian descent. Let's look into this: Chinua Achebe wrote five books. His most famous, Things Fall Apart, is a labor to read. He goes off on so many tangents I had to put the book down umpteen times and gather myself to continue reading. Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eyes, her main character Pecola is obsessed with blue eyes, and most of the other black characters (in the book) want to be white and try to suppress their blackness. Is she telling us about some innate desire of hers?
Kofi Annan : Without the US approval Kofi Annan would never be United Nations Secretary General.
Abu, Indians do not need to feel any "cultural" inferiority. That Pentium you are using in your computer was conceived by Vinod Dham, the "father of the Pentium," he was born in a mud hut in India. Narinder Kapany is considered as the "father of fiber optics," the high bandwidth cable that is being used to zap your data from wherever you are to the newspaper's website.
I should point out that men like Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Hannibal, Washington Carver all men of African descent are on my top list of heroes. But then again, Abu, if I try to sound impartial I do not think I could arguably change your views on Indian "cultural" inferiority. You might want to mask it, but, I do not think people change. I think people try to deceive us, like Alex, the vicious, young, hoodlum in Anthony Burgess' classic: "A Clockwork Orange" said, at the end of the American edition of the book, 'I was cured alright'.
Mark Taylor