Eye-pass I will not tolerate, Rickford

Nov 30, 2008 Features / Columnists, My Column

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Show me a Guyanese who never got a fine cussing out and I will show you a liar. I have been cussed out for many things, some deservedly and some for no other reason than the person cussing me out was full of envy.
Of course during my marriage I was cussed out for many other things. On one occasion I forgot to cook that day and I blame the bed for that because every time I tried to get up my bed would ask me to lie a bit longer and this happens on Saturdays and Sundays.
Another time I was supposed to have nodded at an old flame. “You eyes pass me. In front of me you had the nerve to talk to that whore.” And the cussing continued well until the third day. That was when I realized that every woman who preceded the wife in your lifetime is a whore, your mother exempted out of respect.
I have been cussed out for trying to say that a certain purchase was unnecessary; for refusing to talk a name and of course, for coming home late. “You whore. You do what you had to do, then go and drink like if that could fool me.”
I lived through those sessions and became wiser. The late Desmond Hoyte cussed me out repeatedly for some news articles or other that I had written, presumably because I favoured the opposition too much, although I thought that I was reporting fairly.
Bharrat Jagdeo cussed me out for being a PNC (whatever that means) and for ostensibly writing in support of that party. More recently, Rickford Burke cussed me out for writing a column called Blame the Government. In Burke’s case, this was not the first time that someone cussed me out for something that I did not do. Glenn Lall cussed me for allowing a column in Kaieteur News even though I was not working on the paper when that column was introduced because I had been suspended.
The issue this time around involved the payment of some benefits to Mrs Joyce Hoyte, the wife of the late President Desmond Hoyte. I got wind of the story by way of a report on the Evening News and immediately I set about trying to ascertain the veracity of the report.
I learnt many things, including the fact that a law was passed in 2006, some years after President Hoyte had died, and since laws could not have been made retroactive, Mrs Hoyte was left out in the cold. The now dearly departed President Arthur Chung and the former President Janet Jagan were beneficiaries.
I asked about Prime Minister Sam Hinds who himself was a President and I got some answers which I shared with Burke during our on-line communication. Indeed, the source of my information was a senior government functionary. I also shared this information with Ronald Austin, a senior functionary within the People’s National Congress Reform.
Information, once it is accurate, does not change. Someone within the government who writes the column ‘Blame the Government’ (and I know two of them) took on the people whom the government accused of making the Joyce Hoyte issue a political one.
Over time, sometimes things need a political solution and therefore must be fought for on the political front. I learnt that President Jagdeo had intervened and that Mrs Hoyte would be favourably considered. Again I shared this piece of information with Rickford Burke.
I myself have had to seek a political solution to my own predicament caused by the non-receipt of my benefits because at issue was the period when I served as Editor of New Nation, the political organ of the People’s National Congress.
It was therefore surprising when Burke became the most recent person to cuss me out for writing the column that dealt with Mrs Hoyte’s issue. He claimed that I was a house slave; that I had written the column and that I had ingratiated myself with the government like Judas. I was not the writer and I hasten to state that Burke was not the only person to run away with that belief.
Being a house slave may not be a bad thing because the work is less demanding and I am fast becoming an old man.
I have also been accused of writing the Parrot, Peeping Tom, and other columns, except the Freddie Kissoon column.
It goes without saying that I became angry, really angry because Rickford Burke was a little boy I helped nurture. His parents, Jerry and Patsy Burke (both deceased) were my close friends and I was like a part of their family. There are many things that I do not think appropriate to mention here but even if I were the writer, Rickford should have done better out of respect and perhaps because of family.
I was tempted to retaliate in kind and about a week ago, I actually started to pen my reply to Rickford Burke. Many people intervened, some asking for restraint. It then became a case of being slapped and turning the other cheek. I am turning the other cheek because time has soothed my anger.
And here I ask a humble question. What is so wrong with writing for the government? I live in Guyana and the government of the day must be respected. Is the country so divided that if having worked for a previous government and I now join the ranks of the unemployed that I should not seek to earn albeit from the government coffers?
A Republican, Colin Powell, endorsed Barack Obama, the Democrat who is now President-elect. Is Mr Powell a house slave? Has he sold his soul like Judas?
But all that apart, Rickford Burke has promised me a public apology and I am waiting.
He owes me that; not that it will clear the air but it will soothe my heart.

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