David de Caires –The Anointed One

Nov 03, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

David De Caires, one of the founders, directors and Editor in Chief of the Stabroek News died on Saturday. I extend my condolences to his wife, children and to the entire Stabroek News family.
He survived to three score and ten, lived a good life, enjoyed the luxuries denied to most men, was part of a gilded age in Guyana, and discovered over the past twenty years of his life a new passion: journalism. These are things which many of us can only dream of but never achieve. Thus, in mourning David De Caires we must find consolation in the fact that he was indeed fortunate to have had such a fulfilling life.
He influenced a great many persons in his time. The publisher of this newspaper noted that David was like a mentor to him. And even in death, he seemed to have been able to exercise an almost miraculous influence on Uncle Freddie. In a gracious tribute paid to his old boss, Uncle Freddie avoided sounding off against the now deceased. Uncle Freddie seems to have finally discovered that there is a time and place for everything.
Last Saturday was supposed to be a big celebration in Kaieteur News. But David died just as we were warming up for Uncle Adam’s birthday. While the drinks did flow, it was more like a double event, part in celebrating Uncle Adam’s birthday and part a wake in tribute to someone who history was kind enough to allow an important role in our country.
I will not be a hypocrite and overestimate David’s role in press freedom in Guyana. He was, I believe, the anointed one chosen to create an opening for a private newspaper at a time when the State media was dominant and rigidly controlled. This is as much as I will say at this time on his much celebrated role in the cause of press freedom. I will leave a much detailed evaluation of that role for later.
For me, David’s finest moment was his fight for the survival of his newspaper. He waged a heroic battle to reverse a decision by the government to withhold ads from the Stabroek News. He was successful. The Jagdeo administration bent under the intense regional and domestic pressure that David was able to mobilize. It took him one year to overcome that decision and the toll must have affected his heart which eventually succumbed to the strain of one year of stress.
David had suffered many years ago from a heart condition which had necessitated him having bypass surgery. But David was a disciplined individual, and for over ten years he took his condition seriously and began a regular exercise routine which saw him almost every weekday afternoon in the National Park.
The exercise did work for him, but in the end the stress took its toll. The past year was a difficult one for David, and despite him eventually prevailing in his fight to save his newspaper, his heart paid the ultimate price.
I will remember him for something else though, something which surprisingly has not been mentioned so far in the tributes that have been paid to David. I will always remember him for the Camp Street Avenue restoration project.
I believe that he helped the city preserve an important part of our city’s colonial aesthetics when he pursued the project to restore that walkway which lies between the two carriageways of Camp Street.
He himself lived in a beautiful colonial-style building on that street. But I think that his plan was inspired by more than just the need to recapture the traditional aesthetics of the city. You see David was a true son on the Caribbean.
Despite his upbringing, he was to the bone a Caribbean man. He understood the Caribbean more than most. One of the things that he appreciated about the Caribbean was our cool tropical nights which needed to be enjoyed. He had lived to see how Guyanese were forced to shut themselves into their homes at nights, how buildings were being erected without gardens and patios on which you could sit and enjoy a typical tropical night.
He must have longed for the days when anyone could simply take a stroll along the many avenues of Georgetown and savour the charming evenings.
People seem to forget that David was the driving force behind the introduction of talks on the Camp Street pathway. These were well attended when they began but soon faded away for reasons which must have been a disappointment for David.
I think that this idea of David can become a wonderful addition to our tourism product, and I hope that as a tribute to him, instead of holding video nights on the Georgetown Seawall as part of Tourism Awareness Month, that David’s idea will be reborn.
REST IN PEACE DAVID!

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David de Caires –The Anointed One

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