He could have done so in the Prophetic certitude that his ‘Stake-holder flock’ in a free vote would always endorse his pastoral care rather than follow the three unwise ones into the wilderness and Perdition.

After all, not even Christian turkeys vote for Christmas.

Surely this would have been the democratic and Christian way to proceed, with the added advantage that this would have prevented outsiders like myself reading about these shenanigans all over the world-wide web.

But would it?

Racism and ethnic-relations being such a sensitive and explosive issue in Guyana, could it be that Bishop Edghill was trying so hard on behalf of the real bigger powers that be, to guarantee Press exclusion by not risking a vote, that he ‘forgot to remember’ that this was all quite futile and impossible because Kaieteur News had permanent status within the ERC itself – in the form of Freddie Kissoon representing the TUC.

By the way, does anyone besides Bishop Edghill and his acolytes in the ERC really think that the first port of call for anyone seriously interested in finding out the real state of racism in the country would be the ERC?

Moreover, once again Ms Holder beat the Bishop in the Prophetic stakes. According to her, because she knew in advance, she would never bet against Kissoon writing all this up in his Kaieteur News column.

Therefore, all things considered, it seems that the ERC of all things is not really democratic and that Bishop Edghill is its Mini-Dictator lording it over the stake-holders, and its policies practices and procedures.

Given Ms Holder’s prophecy about the betting forecast abomination, would it be unfair to surmise that Bishop Edghill, is in tune not only with his God who runs the Universe with his Angels and Archangels but also in tune with the Elected Dictatorship which runs Guyana with its innumerable Caesars, Pen-dragons, rag-bag fellow-travellers and even with its own Pantheon of Gods:

· from the illustrious and sub-lime Marx and Spencers

· to the Slimy Roger ‘Shaheed Khan – lower in Pantheon rank but an extremely powerful Lord of Narcotics – to whom some 200-400 human sacrifices of (mostly but not all) young Black men were offered up and thankfully received- in this second and most tragic period in Guyana.

Arrayed against such powerful forces of Darkness which this Indian–based elected Dictatorship has spread over Guyana, if Our Lord Jesus were to return there tomorrow in the Rapturous Cloudburst only to find the likes of Bishop Edghill and his Non-Confrontationalist Tendency in his corner, I am sorry to say, like doubtful Thomas, and mean no disrespect, but it would be touch and go if He could avoid another Crucifiction and save Himself…Never mind saving black people and all the other Christians, who do nothing but watch prayerfully waiting for deliverance and liberation.

Unfair? Ok let’s study the contradictory actions and inactions of Ms Holder within the ERC – just an ordinary tooth-less Anti-racist watch-dog.

Her intervention on this Press issue was not planned but seems opportunistic because it was as she was leaving the meeting that Kissoon ran out behind her asking her to return to correct some PPP Govt. dis-information just given to the stake-holders which he felt she was able to correct as an AFC Parliamentarian.

· Having returned and done this, she must have had an epiphany, because she then took the opportunity to offer the Bishop her advice on voting two hours late.

Kissoon’s described her late intervention as ‘strange’ in his first account which she chose not to dispute in her reply. By the way, how did the press get in against the press-ban policy’ in the first place?

Not only must she have been so relieved that Kissoon had not pursued her outside to start another ‘fracas’ and complain about her lack of support for the press earlier, but knowing him and anticipating his pen to paper, could it be that she was trying to redeem herself in his eyes after the fact – and looking forward to either no mention in his dispatches or a not unfavourable one? All in vain as it turned out.

To fail to support freedom of the Press, transparency and democracy within the ERC at the relevant time and then to try to dress up this collusion with fancy sounding sentiments like abhorring ‘a fracas’, playing to the gallery’ and ‘wanting to create space for civil society’ is not very convincing.’

And from all accounts, the dozens of civil society representatives present who notably failed to intervene one way or the other to defend ‘their own interests’ didn’t seem to need more ‘space’(to say and do nothing) but leadership instead – from the few elected politicians present like Ms Holder.

Instead they got it from the so-called ‘rukus makers’- who challenged confronted and denounce an unjustified attack on the freedom of the press as they see it. But isn’t this the leadership the people are entitled to expect from those like Ms Holder who put themselves forward as elected representatives and therefore as prospective leaders of the people?

Activists like the late Walter Rodney, Eusi Kwayana, Kissoon , Hinds and Lewis are not always appreciated or thanked for standing up for truths and rights at great physical risk by some who claim to be also ‘anti-dictatorship’ but who are desperate to find a fence to sit on or to hide behind.

As Martin Luther King said on Vietnam: Silence is Betrayal.

It would seem that before asking the non-confrontational Ms Holder to get up and stand up against oppression for you, you had better try pushing on a piece of string.

And as for Bishop Edghill and ‘his’ Ethnic Relations Commission all those look to him to strike a blow against racism the Word is:

Blessed is (s) he who expects Nothing – for (s) he will not be Disappointed.

Errol M. Harry