Debra Maynard on Radio Talk
Sound- off Radio Program
Host: Debra Maynard
A Diego Martin caller said that people have to stop calling in and criticizing the Government.
They should have faith in God as the bible states that vengeance is mine said the lord. He said that people should have faith and leave the things they were complaining about day after day up to the lord.
To my surprise the host, Debra Maynard, who always advise callers to march and protest, agreed with that caller.
Mr. Santa Cruz called, and he spoke about some statement he heard a minister made that he did not agree with. The host took the time to tell him to write the minister, that democracy is a two-sided game, people should be proactive and write, lobby and get involved.
This is a transcript of the dialogue that followed. AM is substituted for A. H. Hotep, and Host is substituted for Debra Maynard.
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AM: Good morning.
Host: Good morning, where are you calling from?
AM: Maraval. When someone makes the comment that people shouldn't criticize or condemn the government, leave it up to the lord, and then you turn around and tell another caller that democracy means that they have to be proactive to effect change and improvement in their lives, there need to be more discussions to explain what is really being said.
Host: To explain what?
AM: Well to be proactive, to effect change in your community. I do not believe in this blindly leaving something up to a God outside of my participation.
Host: But this is not what we were talking about. When I made the reference, what I was saying was, if it is, ok, I have a philosophy right, no matter what wrong is done to you; you do not have the right to commit wrong, ok. So in other words if you see corruption, and you see corruption, yes you can write, but in your heart of hearts if you believe, then you will know that ok, maybe they will get away with it now, that does not negate your responsibility. I believe but it doesn't negate my responsibility, I will still do what I can and that is what I meant.
AM: I called for clarification, because many callers have been repeating the statement, "Do not criticize or condemn, leave it up to god." My point of view is unlike theirs, I do not believe or accept any divine intervention without my participation. I do not see myself, apart from all that people want to consider Divinity. I see it working through me, with me, and I am a partner with it. Therefore as a partner with creation, I have a responsibility to the upliftment of anything, and to criticize and condemn what is wrong.
Host: Nobody said no.
AM: In addition, everybody has the right to do the same.
Host: Precisely!
AM: People can only be responsible for what they know, and if they do not know then it is important to let them know so they can become more responsible.
Host: Right, so are you disagreeing or agreeing!
AM: Well, it is not a matter of disagreeing or agreeing, that is not the basis of my contribution.
Host: What is the basis?
AM: It is to shed more light on the issue because these statements come from poor understandings. Some people believe that people must be passive about wrong doings and then they say a god will take care of it.
Host: But some people do!
AM: Well, many people do.
Host: Yeah but it has to do with their own intrinsic level of awareness as you say.
AM: True, but I have been hearing a particular caller repeating that statement, he says it in a manner that gives the impression that people must be passive and allow some divine intervention to make corrections for them.
Host: Sir can I tell you one thing?
AM: Sure.
Host: That has been the dogma and doctrine of organized religion for centuries.
AM: True!
Host: And many people have bought into this wholesale.
AM: Of course, and that is what I am part of trying to tear down.
Host: But the thing is you can't, Do you remember Morgan Job, what is he, I think minister of Tobago affairs or what ever.
AM: Yes.
Host: His whole thing was to get Africans to get up and get.
AM: That is not true!
Host: Well put it like this, this is what people thought.
AM: That is not true at all. Most people knew he was about denigrating African people.
Host: Let me finish, he did end up calling people swine and stuff, and he in fact alienated people. Is this not true?
AM: I do not believe that Morgan Job's effort was ever for Black people to get up and get. I think he was trying to demoralize and dehumanize people, because he never really understood that if he felt he knew better, it was the culmination of much learning, and if these people had access to the same they may, MAY, act better.
Host: Well this is my point. My point is, in his belief he was trying to do something good, but the way he brought it across ended up alienating people and have made people feel…
AM: I don't buy the talk about him alienating people. People were already alienated before he opened his mouth.
Host: Mr. Maraval we could analyze every word, I am trying to make a general point here. My thing is if you really want to change the way people think, you are not going to do it by lets say badgering or trying to tell them. This is a long process.
AM: I know, but even though I disagreed with Morgan Job's effort, his attempt, or whatever he was trying to do, which I knew was only about his personal greed, I felt that he had a right to say what he wanted. I disagreed with those who were lobbying for him to be taken off the radio.
Host: Now that is your statement ok!
AM: Of course, it is mine.
Host: Ok, good.
AM: I felt he had a right to say what he wanted. He was not denying other people from having other programs, and many of the issues he badly brought up still need addressing.
Host: But my point is, is not about Morgan Job, what it is about, is that if you Mr. Hotep want to bring change, which I believe you do, and get people away from the misconceptions and the untruths in organized religion, then the thing is, all I am saying is you cannot do it like this.
AM: Like what this, explain the, this let me hear.
Host: On this program, its not going to happen, its not going to be done, it is probably going to take generations to do.
AM: Of course, it cannot be done on this program. This program was never structured for enlightenment. I am asking for people who have their different cultural points of view to be allowed equal opportunity to express them, let people discuss it and do what they want with it once they are not harming anyone. That is a basic human right.
Host: Is this for Trinidad and Tobago or for this program, what?
AM: I am not talking about this program per se. I am talking about the absence of programs with an African content on our state media that is what I am talking about specifically. I cannot really expect much from privately held media houses, they are private, and they are entitled to do what they want with their money. However, many other people and myself contribute to the the state facilities and, we have a right to see reflections of ourselves in the operations of what is being done there. What we have there is discrimination, and when we cross that hurdle, we will talk about National Unity and all else down the road. We cannot have National Unity if a section of people are made to believe they are not part of this country. Do you understand?
Host: Yes!
AM: I do not seek solace, or make friends and alliances in ignorance, I will seek it in an atmosphere of equal opportunity in all facets of our society.
Host: OK.
AM: I gone.
Another caller came in and from the content of his contribution; it appears that he was an East Indian. So here is this contribution. I would call him Ram for short.
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Host: Good morning.
Ram: How are you?
Host: I am good.
Ram: Just now you had a dialogue with Hotep about culture, I think he wants African culture on the state owned media. I don't think I want to learn anything about Africa. He could put it because he free, I mean to say he is a citizen of the country and he say taxpayers money pay for it. Me as an individual I don't want to know anything thing about African culture that is of no use to me, I cannot take it and go to any bank or any enterprise and get a job with it. What I want to learn is about my Indian culture.
Host: Which is?
Ram: About my Hindu culture, but anybody want to learn they free to learn. I have three minutes I have to listen I want to hear all what he have to say. To say that everybody have to sit down and dialogue about everybody else's culture, I don't want to know about everybody else, I have time for mine alone.
Host: Laughs
Ram: Because I think if that gentleman sit down with Morgan Job, I don't think he going to win him with African culture. Morgan Job lived in South Africa for five years learning about all the tribes.
Host: What I find amazing, and I was saying, I have been to Africa, my mother who is predominantly Indian, has been to India and we both have the same decision, or we both came to the same conclusion, which is all the Trinidadians and Tobagonians who want to go back to Africa and want to go back to India, we will buy them a one-way ticket, let them go.
Ram: They are not going at all.
Host: We have our own culture in this country!
Ram: Of course!
Host: You know, and I am thinking to myself, Ok I was at World Beat I saw Baaba Maal and I thought wow, fabulous. Africans in this country need a cultural reinforcement, like that; especially male Africans, but we can get what we want from the cultures without having to become Africans. Ah mean we could recognize, ok, when I say Africana we are African, the thing is we could recognize that we have our own culture here, which is a hybrid of other cultures, so why are we constantly seeking all the other cultures that we supposedly left, some of us by choice some of us not by choice. If you so like it, go back.
Ram: Go back, and study it over there. As you say give them the one-way ticket and you go back to Africa.
Host: Who want to go back to India, and India, and India, you don't like Trinidad go.
Ram: I am no Indian, I born in Port of Spain and grow up in San Juan.
Host: This is what I am saying, we are Trinidadians, chutney is Trinidadian, soca is Trinidadian ok, and chutney has African elements in it, and Soca has Indian elements in it.
Ram: Debra it so nice if we study our own.
Host: Precisely, but we trying to go back to somewhere where doesn't want us anyway, and we don't want to go. But fine I mean you know I understand all the calypsoes about if I was this people would recognise that I am an African. Ok, this is not our reality; this is not what happened to us. We had slavery, I look at the Jews, 6 million got killed between 1940 and 1945, and they can't finish making movies for them, they cannot finish putting up museums for to the holocaust. Ok. Over 4 million or 6 million, I mean, how many millions of Africans died in the slave trade, but how many Africans in the African Diaspora….
Ram: Debra, you should ask the gentleman a question, who sold them to the White Man.
Host: But no even forget all of that, the fact of the matter is I am living in today, now if you want, do like the Jews and seek reparations, join Farrakhan in his quest to get reparations. And Farrakhan is always at the UN trying to get reparations for Black people ok. Because that is what the Jews did. The Jews are still getting reparations from Germany to this day, every year Germany pays Israel billions of marks for the holocaust, ok, this is my point.
Draw your own conclusions. There are still no African programs on our state media while a portion of the state media was set aside for Indian culture.
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Radio Talk: 06 Nov. 1999
Tony Lee asked the listeners if they felt that big business have always hijacked the political parties.
Well I laughed and waited to hear what the poll results were.
Over ninety percent of the callers said yes and the other ten- percent said no.
Hotep finally called and answered:
HOTEP: NO, because you cannot hijack someone if you are taking him or her where they want you to carry them. All the political parties want exactly what big businesses want, and that is money and control over people. They are both trying to go the same place. It is like this analogy, everyone is in an airplane going to New York and the political parties are just groups of people fighting for a few seats in first class, they are all going the same place. A few seats are made available for some people to sit in first class to keep the those in coach in their place and to protect the interest of the seasoned first class elite.
The host laughed heartily so I knew he got the picture.
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