Sorry to disappoint you on this one

Feb 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I have extremely liberal views, so extensive that I can easily be classified as an unrealistic person. But I take my values seriously. I believe in these conceptualizations sincerely and I cling to them tenaciously.
They are not unchanging (in life never say never) but at the moment, that is how I have philosophized on life, on nature, on the world. There is one exception. That exception is the reason for this essay.
I chose to leave it for the last. If you disagree with me, I accept your opinion but in the most honest way, I don’t think you can change my mind, because my reason for this particular position I have taken from the philosophy texts. And I prefer to be guided by that source.
Growing up in a house of poverty with six other siblings not knowing where the next meal would come from was bound to have a lasting impression on one’s life. My father worked all day in the tropical sun as a groundsman preparing cricket pitches for St. Stanislaus College and GCC. My mother sold wood and coal, and like my dad, couldn’t keep an eye on seven children. One night my mom asked my big sister to look over me and her own child which was named after me. Frederick senior was eight. Frederick junior was four. My sister left us unattended and went across the road in Hardina Street, Wortmanville, to a party
I was eight, but I remember only too well that incident. It stayed with me all these decades. I was hungry; my nephew was too.
We walked across the road, me holding my nephew’s hand and straight into the party we went. I will always remember the song that was playing that my sister was dancing to.
It was the Platter’s “Heaven on Earth.” For me and my nephew it was hell on earth because we were hungry. Everybody stopped dancing and yelled out, “Gwenie look yuh children.” Gwenie took us back across the road to home, shut the door and went back to party. She partied all her life while my dad drank all his life. My brother “Lightweight” Kissoon disappeared from view while my other big sister, Marjorie, shipped herself out of Guyana It was an ocean of such circumstances that moulded my character, especially long absence from primary school to lime on the seawall at my dad’s workplace – St. Stanislaus Cricket Ground. Amidst the poverty, I grew up wild and carefree, with escapist notions running all over my mind. And such a background is reflected in my world view. I hate to see poverty. It reminds me of the traumas locked away in my psyche. Out of this, I am committed to a political system that puts lots of resources into the world of the working people. I cling inflexibly to the belief that the genders are equal and that women are disadvantaged in this world. I drove into my daughter’s head the doctrine that no male is superior to her
I believe the laws against wife-beating should be draconian. Divorce should be legally automatic. I respect people’s religious beliefs and always will, but I accept evolution. I have no problem with the legalization of homosexuality and a law making prostitution legal. Possession of certain amounts of marijuana should be decriminalized. I do not support the death penalty. I believe all countries must allow organizations to compete with each other for the right to form the government in free elections. I accept the contention of the three great contract theorists of the 18th century – Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke that if the government breaks the social contract between the ruler and the ruled, the subjects should remove the ruler.
I think the Western domination of the Third World was cruel, but post-colonial leaders in most developing countries are crueler, and have been just as destructive as the colonial masters. I believe Israel must vacate Palestinian lands and let the people have a sovereign home of their own. I believe American foreign policy has been destructive in the past, but the American political system has superior values in the realm of justice and liberty that should be emulated by other countries. For me, communism was inherently flawed and capitalism in Europe and America is not working. I regard Iran, Cuba, China and most Arab states as despotic systems.
Finally, I sincerely believe in my mind that since 1999, Guyana has produced the most immoral, uncaring, racist, and corrupt ruling class in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean.
Space does not allow me to continue. Now the last one; I cannot accept and will not accept that a Guyanese that has left these shores permanently and taken up foreign nationality, and is not coming back, should be allowed to vote in Guyana’s national elections. I am inflexibly against that. It is immoral to the point of disgust.

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