Kissoon has unfrocked himself

Sep 20, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR
I was disappointed, though not surprised, at Frederick Kissoon’s response to my request that he justify his argument how a man as intellectually gifted and politically astute as Martin Carter could have been forced by Cheddi Jagan to lend support to Burnham’s degenerate and debilitating dictatorship.

I expected some of his usual forays into Neitzschean or Freudian justification but I would have been satisfied with just the plain verifiable truth.

The best that he could have mustered was that he refused to respond because I was a degenerate coward for not signing my own name to my letter.

He argues that he does not respond to those who write anonymously since they are cowards for not having the courage to stand by their convictions.

This is the same Kissoon who not so long ago reported on a meeting between Guyanese in Washington DC and Rupert Roopnaraine, Hugh Cholmondeley, Eric Phillips, and Stanley Ming which was facilitated by, and held in the home of Errol Arthur, who according to Kissoon was a well known WPA activist. He now claims that I do not exist and, moreover, that I am a PPP activist well known to him.

Let me state categorically that Kissoon made this up. Our paths have never crossed; he does not know me. But, he should be informed that my home has always been a haven for Guyanese of all progressive political persuasions to engage in dialogue.

Cheddi Jagan, Eusi Kwayana, Ravi Dev, Wordsworth MacAndrew, Peter Ramsaroop and a number of virtual who’s who of progressive Guyanese who have passed through Washington, DC have enjoyed my hospitality. I suppose that I am ROAR for having hosted Ravi Dev, DLM for having hosted Tennassee, etc.

Let me state however, that I am not embarrassed to be deemed a supporter of either the PPP or the WPA, those parties having contributed tremendously to the social and political development of Guyana. Kissoon has unfrocked himself as the only proven coward here.

Here is a man who uses his bully pulpit to excoriate others and then uses this transparently ridiculous excuse to hide from justifying his position.

His claim is also quite informative since many of the sources for the hearsay he publishes as facts and uses as the basis for his analyses are anonymous. I have no problem with anonymous sources or writers.

I understand fully that there are very many valid and objective reasons some do not like their identities to be disclosed.

If Kissoon is right, and since he has a long and well documented record of using anonymous sources, many of them questionable, he most certainly had to have been Freudianly autobiographic when he stated that “no human being should assault their (sic) own dignity by descending to the level of these degenerate cowards”.

If the world were to follow Kissoon’s advice it would have ignored the works of Mary Ann Evans and Samuel Clemens, two of the greatest writers in the English language, whom we have come to know as George Eliot and Mark Twain. The critical point is that focus should be on the content of the writing, not the identity of the authors.

I truly look forward to Kissoon’s response. I would work through his meandering musings and puerile name-calling if only he can provide me with a direct and simple answer to the direct and simple question that started this:

How does he support his argument that a man of Martin Carter’s unquestioned intelligence, political astuteness and social responsibility was forced by Cheddi Jagan to support the suppression and brutalization of the Guyanese people when countless of his contemporaries refused to do so?
Errol R. Arthur

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Kissoon has unfrocked himself

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