Freddie Kissoon column…A Guyanese nationalist will be honoured today

Aug 20, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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This afternoon at the Pegasus, the University of Warwick’s representatives will confer upon Mr. Yesu Persaud, an honorary doctorate. I do not normally go these “gatherings.” The last one I went to was the launching of the Guyana Times. I thought I had an obligation to its owner since I was invited.
Most definitely, I will positively respond to the invitation and be an attendee at this ceremony. If no adverse circumstances intervene in my life this afternoon, I will go to see this man being deservedly honoured. In my opinion, Yesu Persaud is one of the great Guyanese this troubled nation has produced.
One has to situate the admirable contribution of Yesu Persaud to Guyana within the context of authoritarian politics. He has continued the tradition that only one other businessman has – Peter D’Aguiar. I keep lamenting the failure of Guyanese scholarship to produce a revisionist interpretation of Peter D’Aguiar. I just hope Mr. Kit Nascimento does it.
For political reasons at this time, I doubt that Banks DIH will finance his official biography. In the political world, business people do not normally participate in partisan politics. Even in democratic countries, this is a taboo. The reason is the fear of alienating the winning party.
Entrepreneurs feel that it may not be wise to openly support one party against another because should they bet on the wrong horse, the future relationship with the government may not be a comfortable one. It is not that in established democracies the trepidation of victimisation deters investors from taking public stance on political issues.
It is doubtful that the society would allow such vindictiveness in places like the US, in the EU and Canada if there would be any at all.
The long convention has been that profits should never be gambled on by business jumping into the political world. There is always the awareness that the two should not mix. In the US, companies restrict themselves to small donations. This is not to say, of course, that family owned businesses in the US do not openly embrace candidates of their choice. But it is not a widespread practice in the corporate world.
It has been the same thinking within the media until the British tabloids broke with the long-standing pattern of keeping out of electoral politics. In the UK and the US, both tabloids and broadsheets do not shy away from choosing sides in elections in their respective countries.
In authoritarian territories where the state has hegemonic control, it is unthinkable for capitalist entities to criticize the policies of the ruling regimes. The fear of reprisal borders on paranoia. In Guyana, there have been two exceptions, Peter D’Aguiar in the first half of the sixties and Yesu Persaud in the second half of the eighties.
Sadly and most tragically, the valour and examples these two financial pioneers have demonstrated have not been emulated in the nineties and onwards.
The fear of being victimized by the government that I see in the eyes of our business people when I talk to them graphically reminds me of the reign of Forbes Burnham. The reprimand Mr. Yesu Peraud got at the launching of the Guyana Times by President Bharrat Jagdeo will certainly increase that fright.
When one takes the prevailing cowardice into consideration then the perspective of the achievements of D’Aguiar and Persaud becomes evanescently manifest
I wouldn’t say that D’Aguiar operated under an authoritarian government because the Cheddi Jagan administration in the sixties wasn’t.
But he could have been afraid to confront Premier Jagan because after all, he was fighting the state machinery.  Yesu Persaud didn’t have the colonial personnel to protect him as D’Aguiar did when in the eighties he formed the Guyanese Action for Reform and Democracy (GUARD). It was only the third time in Guyanese history that a businessman risked his company’s assets to take on the fight for democracy.
After Peter D’Aguiar, there was Mr. Rahaman who owned a spare parts dealership in Russell Street. He joined a party, the People’s Democratic Movement headed by ex-PNC Minister, Llewellyn John, to confront the Forbes Burnham Government. He was pulverized by Mr. Burnham
Mr. Persaud had to face the consequences of his action. He survived to save Guyana a second time. In the aftermath of the violence of the 1997 election, he was the chief protagonist in securing Caricom’s intervention to save Guyana from disintegration.
One hopes this country produces more Yesu Persauds. He has lived longer than Peter D’Aguiar and therefore was able to achieve more in the field of entrepreneurship. For this reason he is easily classified as the most visionary investor this country has produced.

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