The green, green grass of home

Oct 03, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Many of us were not shocked but surprised that Mr. Hamilton Green returned into the leadership of the PNC. It has been a long time that Mr. Green has spent outside the PNC. Two undercurrents in those years would have undermined his capacity to resurface and assume a dominant role in a party he played no small part in making an enduring Guyanese institution.
The first one is that his intimates that he shared a wonderful camaraderie with the front cover of the PNC from the fifties onwards are gone; either dead, migrated or living but are not interested in active or passive PNC politics in their lives anymore.
Secondly, the younger ones who inherited the crown after Mr. Hoyte dethroned Mr. Green were ambitious and were not inclined to facilitate Mr. Green back into the hierarchy after Mr. Hoyte’s death for fear that he may compete with their ultimate ambition to lead the party.
That came to pass. Mr. Green has now returned to his home that he built when he was a very young man. But the bed will not be warm. He will not be able to lead the PNC again. That is out of the question. The past has past and time has left Mr. Green behind as it did Janet Jagan. Such are both the cruelties and realities of life.
Why then did Mr. Green return to the PNC? That question should be answered with an introductory remark. One would have thought that Mr. Green would have been smarter and wiser and seek re-entry in less controversial circumstances. No matter how Mr. Green feels and thinks, there is some suspicion about him both among the Guyanese people and the opponents of Mr. Corbin that he got into the Central Executive Committee under a voting system that was not as transparent as it should have been.
This would reduce his credibility in the eyes of those who sooner or later will replace Mr. Corbin’s coterie.
Back to the reasons. First, it is possible that with age and illness, Mr. Green had expressed a wish to spend his remaining years in the party he founded and the party that has shaped the face of 20th century Guyana.
Such a request could never have denied Mr. Green even if Mr. Corbin was not in the leadership. Secondly, he could have been facilitated back into the war room because of his very long experience in mobilising support in PNC constituencies. There can be no question about it, in terms of mass organising, Mr. Green has a wealth of experience. With an election coming round the bend, the PNC, whether with Team Alexander, the Murray/Charles Team or whichever team, will have use for Mr. Green, and his family in the campaign.
Thirdly, both groups – Corbin’s train and his opposing machine – probably feel that Green as an elder statesman in the PNC can help to mollify the raging antagonists. One suspects that both factions will want Green to be present to lend his institutional memory to an agreement that will be inked because Green had lived in a similar environment after Burnham died and a covenant had to be arranged and shaped between him and Desmond Hoyte.
Fourthly, all sides in the PNC conflict feel they will need the father figure of Green in traditional PNC districts in the forthcoming elections, especially South Georgetown.
This is where editors and commentators may not be accurate in their evaluation of the political capital of Hamilton Green. A Stabroek News editorial took the view that his time had passed and therefore he should not have been reintegrated into the PNC’s hierarchy.
Some letter-writers concurred. I know a few senior journalists who embrace that thinking. But they may be wrong. African elders in many rural constituencies will listen to Green. He is a known figure in South Georgetown.
There is a stereotype out there that says youths will not listen to older figures but I think Green has always gelled with the youths of those communities that lie south of Princess Street.
One must not forget that Green has lived all his 70 odd years in South Georgetown. I take the view (I have written about this several times) that if you could have had a voraciously animated election campaign in South Georgetown by the opposition, the PPP would have lost the last two elections.
Get those thousands and thousands of youths to register and vote en mass then the PPP will fall in the next election. I contend that a massive turnout in South Georgetown will defeat the PPP. I know the zone. It is my birth place.

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The green, green grass of home

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