Dear Basingstoke Residents,
Having read the above article
with some concern about the alleged hurt felt by the Basingstoke Chinese
community caused by Councillor Onnalee Cubitt’s tweets describing the
coronavirus, Covid-19 as the “Wuhan Flu” due to its origin – I found myself
thinking this is a political hatchet job against Conservatives. Whilst I found the Gazette article unfairly
biased and lacking in historical context, being of African origin, I am acutely
aware and sensitive to the issues of racism and the damage that it can cause as
I have myself been subjected to racism on numerous occasions over the last 30
years, whilst living on and off in Great Britain.
In the interest of transparency,
I have never personally met Cllr Cubitt, but am aware of the good work she had
previously done for the Basingstoke Borough. As background, I have worked in
China and Hong Kong over many years.
Thus, in my humble opinion I feel the Chinese Association have sadly
been let down by the Gazette’s poorly researched article, which appeared to
reflect some ignorance about historical events and poor handling of such an
emotive subject matter by sensationalising the issue.
The article in question, is
riddled with subliminal programming innuendo, tantamount to saying all whites
are racist since it was strategically positioned next to the Maria Miller
article talking about the Review into Racism in Basingstoke. The political hatchet job focuses negatively
on a hardworking, diligent Councillor who has demonstrated that she is a person
of principle who has stoically stood up to bullies and stand up for what is
right by the people of Basingstoke. From where I am sitting presently in
Zimbabwe, after having done some research, Cllr Cubitt’s track record has been
outstanding as a person who fights for the rights of the people as a
whole.
Unfortunately, from an outside
readers’ point of view, the Gazette has shown that they are more like a
left-wing third-rate Rag that would rather spend their time labouring on
‘virtue-signalling’ to score political points enabling others to gain pecuniary
advantage over others in order to sell newspapers and clicks. This is no
surprise since the Gazette -- GateHouse Media merged with Gannett, creating the
largest newspaper publisher in the United States, which adopted the Gannett
name in November 2019. This outfit is
exceedingly anti TRUMP, so little wonder we are seeing such an abusive
political attack on a Conservative Councillor who happened to have agreed with a
Trump sentiment.
Had the Gazette employed
investigative practises usually undertaken by a professional investigative
Media organisation, they would have followed best practice and unearthed the
following information and presented the facts to Cllr Cubitt for comment prior
to publication.
I fear some key context has been
wilfully or erroneously ignored to the detriment of the complainant by the
Gazette in their publishing the article without all the facts and first giving
Cllr Cubitt an opportunity to comment. For example, how many of you readers
really… I mean really… knew that in 2015, the World Health Organisation (WHO)
issued a best practise guidance note that addressed the new naming of pathogens
convention?
Thus, if all facts were placed on
the table with full transparency, one could then say that if someone was aware
of this new best practice guidance, yet went on to blatantly tweet the disease
name containing the location of where it was first found, that could
potentially be construed as being bigoted.
That said, one cannot get away from the fact that this dreadful pandemic
originated in Wuhan, China. Importantly, other than those organisations/people
involved in the WHO’s pathogen naming best practice exercise, the masses and
most probably the Gazette had been working on the previously acceptable
convention or protocol that was in place for well over 100 years to incorporate
location into the name of each pathogen.
Had the Gazette done a better
investigative job, they may well have found that Cllr Cubitt may have taken a
different stance to that, which they portrayed she did in the article.
Unfortunately, we all know a non-story does not sell newspapers. So, unless there was categorical proof that
Cllr Cubitt was indeed aware of this change to the WHO naming convention, I
would suggest that the accusations of calling her racist could very well be
libellous.
It stands to reason that the
Chinese Association in this matter, probably did not know about this convention
change either, so in all honesty, would these same Actors be as wound-up to the
point of calling people racists when using the terms 'German Measles' or
'Spanish Flu'? Hopefully not because it
simply would not be the case. In essence
both these illnesses were first found and dealt with in those locations, which
is where the name was derived from as per the aforementioned protocol.
My research shows that Covid-19
was probably not the first time the World Health Organisation (WHO) has
refrained from identifying a pathogen by geographical location of origin.
That said, here are the names of other serious pathogens which have been named
in the past by location of origin using the pre-2015 new convention:
·
Zika
virus (a forest)
·
Guinea
worm (a country)
·
Japanese
encephalitis (a country)
·
West Nile
virus (a river)
·
German measles
(a country)
·
Spanish
flu (a country)
·
Ebola (a
river)
·
Marburg
virus (a German city)
·
Lassa
fever (a Nigerian town)
The idea that calling it the
Wuhan or CCP virus is racist or irregular couldn’t be further from the truth,
and the above historical precedent proves it, because the idea that the "Wuhan virus"
label is racist appears to have sprung up in China’s state media and its
propaganda apparatus. Beijing authorities are attempting to silence their
critics, who have rightly condemned the Chinese government for its incompetence
in facilitating the spread of an emerging global pandemic. The Gazette should have got off their
backside and done the same research normal people have done, they would have
seen that their hatchet job article has added to the problem causing more
division.
In reality, any anger should be
directed at the WHO for the deaths you have suffered in Basingstoke and the UK
due to the world-wide spread of Covid-19.
On the flip side of the coin, I did not see the Gazette or any of the
organisations mentioned in the article giving any thought or condolences for
the loss and hurt experienced by all of those families who have lost loved
one’s because the initial handling of this pandemic by the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). Remember, the CCP and
China’s handling of this pandemic is now under investigation.
More importantly, it should be
worrisome for everyone that poor ‘investigative’ journalism has become
pervasive throughout our Mainstream Media (MSM), which is now endowing local
newspapers like the Basingstoke Gazette as well. This should alarm all UK
citizens irrespective of one’s race, religion, gender or creed. Expecting to enjoy freedom of speech in a
civil society, where minority Pressure-Groups have been given so much power by
weak Politicians, so much so that they feel they can now employ Nazi like
tactics to shutdown free-speech and those who disagree with their narrative by
using the word racism. This would be a dangerous path to follow.
As Britons, you are all
privileged to live in a town as affluent as Basingstoke, which is teeming with
lots of wonderful intelligent creative people of all races, including some who
may or may not know all of our history and can thus be forgiven for jumping to
the wrong conclusions. You the people of
Basingstoke should ignore these complaints of alleged racism in this article,
because the poor handling of the Gazette article that severely undermines the
true meaning and severity of racism, which we all agree is a blight on the
world as a whole.
So, come on the wonderful people
of Basingstoke, you already have an inclusive, thriving civil society that can
only prosper if you all pull your weight and pull together, contributing to the
new tomorrow -- post Covid-19. Do not
allow this insidious left-wing sickness to blight your town by kicking out one
of the few can-do people on your Borough Council, you need hard working, straight
talking, take no bullshit from bullies, people of good values and integrity to
make the Borough Council run effectively, efficiently to service your needs.
The people of Basingstoke should
demand quality journalism and stop buying the Gazette until they wake up and
start being objective and neutral in future articles.
Now would be a good time to teach the Gazette that if they "Go WOKE they will Go BROKE".
Good luck with the post Covid-19
rebuilding of the UK’s economy and Basingstoke’s economy. I know Botswana has a
massive challenge of its own, which is where I will spend the next year helping
people.
No precontact African society had devised a written language or had discovered the wheel. None had a calendar, or built multi-story buildings. No African had learned how to domesticate animals. The smelting of iron was widespread, as was fire-hardened pottery, but the continent did not produce anything that could be called a mechanical device. It was trade with Europeans that introduced modernity to Iron Age Africa.
Far from hobbling and holding the continent back, colonization laid the foundations for whatever evidence of economic progress can now be found in Africa. It was Europeans who built roads and rail lines, introduced piped water, schools and telecommunications, and built national administrations. Nothing suggests that Africans would have achieved any of this on their own. There is no question but that life for Africans improved steadily under colonization. Africans had no concept of the biological origins of disease, and attributed personal misfortunes to the work of evil spirits. Slavery was widely practiced, and deeply rooted in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans. There is no reason to think that, left to themselves, Africans would have risen from the primitive conditions in which Europeans found them.
The European slave trade, though unquestionably harmful to Africa, was hardly the depopulating scourge it is often made out to be. When the 15th century Portuguese began sailing down the coast, they met long-established slave traders keen to sell off surpluses. Europeans almost never went on slaving expeditions into the interior. They bought slaves from dealers, which mean that other Africans first enslaved slaves taken from Africa.
For any knowledgeable African who has looked into the question as to 'What lessons can Africa learn from colonization? There seems to be little doubt that Africans have brought misery upon themselves. Whether it be in Africa, Haiti, or Washington (DC), Africans show little evidence of an ability to organize and run a modern economy. Just as economic refugees from Africa working in developed countries like Europe or United States in which they may form a majority community have failed to exercise authority, so have Africans desolated a continent bursting with riches. Of course, it is not permissible to conclude that this is because of natural, genetic handicaps from which blacks suffer, so anti-white arguments inevitably rush in to fill the explanatory void.
Blacks the world over, whether they live only among themselves or among people of other races, are said to lead lives of failure and misery only because whites have oppressed them in the past and continue to oppress them in the present. It makes no difference that this explanation falls apart under scrutiny. It is the only one that is permitted because the alternative does not conform to current political dogma. There can be no pleasure in saying so, but the facts point to one conclusion. Whether in Africa or America, Haiti or Great Britain, blacks are poor because they are, for the most part, incapable of lifting themselves from poverty. Africa is poor, just as Harlem is poor, because it is populated by Africans.
JONES H. MUNANG'ANDU (author)
One can draw one's own conclusion from these articles and their observations of what has transpired during the first seven months on 2020, suffice to say that it is important that this pernicious violent behaviour is stamped out of society by our Governments. They use these terror tactics and is not fit for any civilised society. The BLM participants have shown that they do not want to live in a civilised society, which means just like ISIS, they should be treated as terrorists because of the way they want to disrupt civilised society.
Write to your respective Members of Parliament, Congress and the Senate demanding that the Government categorise this outfit as a terrorist organisation and treat them as such.