The monster who dared to write

Aug 24, 2008 Features / Columnists, My Column

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In life, some people would pass by unnoticed. They are the people who would not attract even a turn of the head as they walk by because they are the ones who many would say are insignificant.

And this has happened repeatedly, even in the criminal world, because there are those of us who would easily fade into the background. They are the faceless ones on this planet.

There are also people who become popular because of the enterprise they own or because of the job they do. Earlier they would have been like most people, just a faceless number, but somewhere people begin to take notice of them and in turn point them out to others and pretty soon these people can hardly walk the streets safe in their anonymity.

I have met a few of these people and I have been heartened that some of them never forgot from whence they came.

There is one young man who always believed that he came onto this earth for a purpose. Repeatedly he would make this statement, being a firm believer in some things, one of which is destiny.

I remember sitting with him one day and saying that a man who died at the hands of gunmen met an untimely death. A lone gunman had attacked this young man in Kitty after the young man had gone to the assistance of his mother.

That senseless killing so incensed me that I blurted out that life is so cheap that many people are meeting untimely ends.

This man pounced on me and said that there is no such thing as an untimely death; that from the day an individual is born his destiny is proscribed.

I argued that some people hold fast to this idea that nothing happens before its time, but there must have been instances where people actually averted disaster. This young man simply said that the person’s number had not been called.

Of course arguing against destiny is as fruitless as trying to stop the sea like King Canute, that mythical character who sought to command the tide.

I simply said that I do not expect to win any argument in this area and that was the end of the matter until another day when this young man brought it up.

It is impossible to convince him that setting up Kaieteur News was not in the cards. Glenn Lall (people who really know him would call another name) was making money in the Stabroek Market and later, he made more transporting those foods and items to the United States.

Indeed Guyanese never leave their taste behind when they migrate so there was money for the taking if one could have exported pepper, saime, cassareep and things like that.

Guyanese also like those kitchen articles with which they had grown familiar, things like roti pans (tawa), rolling pins and the like.

Glenn Lall made money supplying these things and left me wondering why I could not have thought of these things and made money.

But it was the newspaper that caught fire. I had been out of a job, having resigned from the Chronicle when the PPP Government came into office. Of course the resignation was instigated; I was seen as the monster who dared to write in support of the PNC Government and was therefore not fit to be employed by anyone else. I left because as I said then, once I have breath in my body and two hands I could not suffer in Guyana.

I have not because I happened to meet Lall as he was trying to put his newspaper together. Whatever I have done to make the paper successful has not gone unnoticed and it is this that has caused me to cast an eye in Glenn Lall’s direction.

Recently I saw him agitated because in his book a lot of things had gone wrong both at the societal level and at the level of business.

Another competitor emerged; the advent of that competitor was no big deal because the Kaieteur News has reached levels that no other paper in this era would reach; it is unchallenged.

But I learnt that the source of his annoyance was the privileged conditions that the authorities granted this competitor. He opened his mouth and attracted the ire of many.

Recently he found that the Guyana Revenue Authority began to demonstrate an interest in him and I was surprised. I concluded that Glenn was too critical for his own good but again, there is a saying “Do nothing; Fear nothing”.

But it is this threat of the use of state power that has left me somewhat bemused. Talk too much and feel the weight of the state, seems to be the message.

This could chase people away from Guyana and I am telling Glenn that he has nowhere to go—well not that he has nowhere to go, but that he should not even contemplate a disappearance from the land of his birth.

I have heard of similar cases and I have seen people buckle. Dr Yesu Persaud was one of them and he persevered.

But I am surprised that the GRA would actually get involved in what could only be seen as persecution. Who knows, after the publication of this article I might find myself being a target.

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