The colour purple

Nov 19, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Guyana Government, with so much on its plate, has found time to issue an edict to taxi drivers that their carriages must have a uniform colour next year. The drivers weren’t consulted on the right to reject that proclamation but a contorted form of democracy eventually prevailed when the transporters were told that they have the choice of the colour.

Why didn’t the Government take its authoritarian order to its logical climax and select the art work too for the drivers?

That is what may happen eventually. One of the leading members of the government may come up with a colour scheme. How about purple? I have four reasons why I would go for purple.

One is that the novel “The Colour Purple” by a great women rights activist, Alice Walker, is one of the best books to have come out of the world of African-Americans. This is a superb work that I would like to recommend to you.

Strangely, I do not think the extraordinarily brilliant director, Steven Spielberg, did a better job than Walker when he made it into a movie. Secondly, when my daughter was six years old, she told me that her favourite colour was purple. I was delighted since that shade has long been my choice.

I have no aesthetic explanation as why I find purple attractive but since I was about six, like my daughter, I chose it. When my daughter asked me for an I-pod, there was no question about what hue I would choose. I went on the net and selected a purple I-pod. So this is my third reason.

The fourth explanation is that chocolate is one of the best things in life and Cadbury knew the subliminal attractiveness the human race has for purple and chose the shade of purple for all its wrappers.

Dictatorships have more logical reasons for opting for purple; it is the tint of dictatorship that has a tradition going back more than two thousands years ago; purple was the official colour of the Roman Empire.

President Forbes Burnham loved that hue. I once asked Vic Puran, who served as an advisor to Burnham, if Burnham chose purple because it was the colour of the Roman Empire. He saw no connection and said that Burnham just had it as his favourite tone.

One of Mr. Burnham’s last foreign trips was to Cancun, Mexico in 1983 to represent the CARICOM countries in the North-South Dialogue. Quite a number of powerful leaders made the trip including President Ronald Reagan.

The main issue was the need to reshape world trade and the world economy to remove the historic disadvantages that faced the Third World. Burnham’s sartorial appearance stole the show. He appeared in a purple shirt-jac with matching trousers.

But that was not all. Burnham wore a pair of long, cowboy boots that reached to his knees. Guess what was the colour? It had to be purple of course.

Many of Burnham associates, long after he was dead told me that Burnham’s attractive attire in that year was a small indication that he was losing his grip on reality.

So what colour will the Guyanese dictators chose for our hire-cars. I think it will be purple. It is not going to be New York yellow. Some of our little dictators these days are not enamoured with anything American. Matters are getting worse since Kwame McCoy was visited with visa take-back. And we all know more visas will be revoked as the months wear on.

Yellow can definitely be discounted because the elected dictators will hate the thought that they copied an aesthetic style from the Americans. Do not discount red as a choice. That was the hue communists chose in the 19th century. If red is associated with anything, it is communism. Many of the leading members of the ruling party in Guyana have an uncanny admiration for communism though they are as far removed from communism as the Pope is.

I think it is best to say that their connection to communism is a sentiment that is wrapped up in the admiration they have for Cheddi and Janet Jagan. The present crop of Guyanese communists would not be tolerated one day, much less one week in Vietnam or Cuba.

In fact, Guyana since the PPP got into power, has achieved the historic record of having more capitalist rulers that wear communist masks than any other nation in history. So what colour will it be?

More fundamental to the colour issue is the reason for its imposition – to enhance our appearance for tourism purposes. In a stink city like Georgetown?

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