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David de Caires and cappuccino conversations with Mark Benschop

Nov 15, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I approached the check-out counter at the supermarket and standing there was one of Guyana’s leading legal luminaries. He said; “You must put those articles of yours in book form.”
I mentioned that it has been my intention to do so a long time ago. I don’t know why I haven’t done so. I have told my daughter that once I die and there is no book, she has to complete the task.
Writing is the recording of history. I got my break in life when I entered UG as a history major. I left UG as a history graduate yearning to know the truths of history. That feeling will go with me onto the funeral pyre. I believe we must write about our journey in life and in so doing, we open shuttered closets within which lie buried the secrets of history. People must know what the past was like so that they can avoid the recurring mistakes in the future.
It is tragic that a majority of Guyanese do not write about history. Lost to our generation and forthcoming ones are the truths of history when crucial actors on the Guyanese stage die and leave no written word. All we know of the politics of the sixties is from a biased book by Cheddi Jagan.
He should not be crucified for what he wrote. He wrote from his perspective. But if we are to understand the sixties, others must write.
I read something wonderful the other day. During the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a Jewish female athlete was removed by the Nazi Government from a track and field event in which she was the only real hope for gold by Germany.
It was only seventy-three years later (in 2009), that she told the world that she was replaced by a man in women’s make-up. She named the person. That was a secret kept away from the German people for 73 years. At last a truth about Germany’s past emerged because a courageous citizen wrote about it.
One day in last month, I had a long cappuccino conversation with Mark Benschop at the Oasis Café. I described for him what I did with my analyses and commentaries over the past twenty-one years of writing. I told him I have criticized everyone.
I was exaggerating of course but I developed the point for Benschop – I thought that my role was to cling steadfastly to the principle of independent thinking and that is what I will continue to do. I described the pitfalls I encountered and bruises I have received over those two decades.
I didn’t remember that November 1, was the death anniversary of David de Caires until I saw a special supplement on the event in that edition of the paper. It is useful to quote a line from his son’s eulogy; “…he told me (de Caires) that an editor has no friends …my father was always a minority of one.”
I didn’t use these exact words to Benschop but this is my life in my country – a minority of one. I have no regrets and if I were to have a fan club and it would jeopardize my independent perspective, then I would be happy to be permanently cocooned as a minority of one.
As I read the panegyrics on David (which he rightly deserves) in SN for November 1, I thought of Father Andrew Morrison. For me, he is the true icon of Guyanese journalism. The Catholic Church does not celebrate death anniversaries so there will be no newspaper supplement on his contribution to social freedom, democracy, an open society and the purity of professional journalism.
I worked as a columnist for both men. They belonged to different worlds. One, a Jesuit priest driven by social justice; the other, a privileged elite member of the Guyanese society, who had no inhibition in displaying class preferences. This is not meant to be harsh on David who deserves our admiration.
Unfortunately, the “other” side of the Stabroek News is yet to be penned. I didn’t see the fierceness of the independent spirit of the founders of the Stabroek News when I wrote as a columnist. I saw a neatly bureaucratic organization, conservative in nature and permeated by class and colour.
I became a minority of one long before I moved over to the Kaieteur News after Father Morrison retired from the Catholic Standard. I became a minority of one because the Stabroek News founders, in a twist of irony, turned me into that. I guess this essay here will further keep me in that status. So be it!

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