Jagan, Hitler, Stone and a stranger in a restaurant

Jan 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was in the line at New Thriving Restaurant when the person directly behind me, tapped me on my shoulder and expressed delight in reading my columns on the internet. I thanked him and inquired of his whereabouts.
He said that he lives in Richmond Hill, New York. I immediately exclaimed; “So you see a lot of those little Berbicians that support the PPP Government but who ran away when Jagan couldn’t help them.”
Then this gentleman began to open up. He said to me that one of the things that bothers him tremendously about the East Indians in Richmond Hill is the reason they have to like Dr. Jagan when he was an opposition figure for 30 years.
He said, “Freddie, Jagan couldn’t get back in power; they left in desperation yet they admire a leader who couldn’t do anything for them.”
This psychic dilemma of Indians in Richmond Hill not only remains a political enigma in Guyana’s turbulent history but it is also a fascinating subject in psychological studies. The name Adolph Hitler comes to mind. After collecting my dinner at New Thriving, I went home and later that evening did my internet readings.
Interestingly I read that Oliver Stone is making a film on Adolph Hitler. Stone said in an interview that he wants to explore the relationship between the German people and Hitler.
He wants to investigate the reasons why the German people supported Hitler because he, Stone, does not think that Hitler was this raging megalomaniac that acted through his own impulses.
There is a parallel here with Jagan and Indians in the Diaspora. What was it about Jagan that catapulted exiled Indians to his embrace when he was a raging communist extremist at home playing games with a dictatorial Forbes Burnham and forever living inside the tempest of permanent opposition bewilderment?
Speaking for myself, I gravitated towards the WPA because I saw Dr. Jagan as a miserable, abysmal, hopeless failure. As a young man, the WPA preserved the wind in my sail and allowed my dreams to live on. In other words, WPA gave hope to my generation.
Take an Indian at age 18 in 1964, when Jagan became Opposition leader. He/she left Guyana for a better future. Ten years after, that person would have been 28 years. Surely, he/she must have said; “I’m 28 years old; a decade has passed and this man, Jagan, is still not in power; what is he doing?”
Ten years after asking that question, the Guyanese exile would have been 38 years. Marriage and a family would have arrived.
Surely, the migrated one must have said to him/herself, “I am getting on in age; I am married with a family with no prospects of going back to Guyana because it has been 20 years since I left and Cheddi Jagan is still the opposition leader.”
At the attainment of 48 years with children that are growing, the immigrant from Guyana must by now have given up on Jagan. After 30 years in opposition, such a leader has to have become a failure.
You would think the Indian in Richmond Hill would have come to that realization. You wonder after 20 years of living outside of Guyana during which time Jagan was still dreaming of communism and still living in delusions.
What were Randy Persaud, Prem Misir, Ravi Dev, Vishnu Bisram, Annan Boodram and those of their ilk thinking and saying about Cheddi Jagan? It would be interesting to get into the minds of these gentlemen to find out what was going on in their heads as they struggled to find employment in freezing temperature and scrape up some money to educate themselves.
Each Indian who ran away in the seventies and eighties must have gone home after shivering in the sub-human temperature, and as they open the door to be greeted by the family, asked the question; “When will Comrade Cheddi do something for the Guyanese people?”
It is truly and simply amazing, as in the case of the German people and Hitler (which Oliver Stone may soon provide us with the answers) why these helpless souls who escaped from Guyana because there was no one to help them would choose to speak of the great Comrade Cheddi.
What lies inside the psyche of a human being that admires a flawed leader whose failures were manifestly graphic and who couldn’t raise a finger to help them return to their sunny homeland from the blizzards of North America? Freud once wrote that the mind is not an easy thing to fathom. Can it ever be fathomed?

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News