Honest and sincere feelings

Sep 26, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I would not deny an anti-government classification if and when it is applied to me. But I think it falls short of the essential nature of my heart. I am first and foremost a human rights crusader. I am not an anti-government activist concentrating my activities exclusively on confronting the unjust policies of the Government of Guyana.
I have come into explosive contact with countless numbers of organisations, groups, and individuals in this country over a long period of time in which I spoke my mind much to their extreme annoyance and even dislike. The only political party I have had an enduring relationship with was the WPA. All, I repeat all of the surviving members of the WPA, if they are honest, would tell you I was never shown any measure of fondness by that leadership because I was too outspoken.
My association with the Stabroek News started in 1988 and came to a quarrelsome end in 1994 because I refused to be treated as a dark-skinned nobody by elites who thought that only colour and class mattered and not education. My columns before the AFC was born were in strong support of that party. I voted for the AFC in 2006 and despite a very personal friendship with Khemraj Ramjattan, if there is no major coalition in 2006, I will have to decide between that party and Mark Benschop’s Independent Party.
I have no regrets of how my political praxis and political life turned. Maybe the form of my presentations, at times, has been inelegant but not the substance of my criticism. For me this is a cruel country with insensitive, selfish people.
You name it – media, business community, political society, NGOs, the judiciary, the professional classes, all types of religious denominations, the opposition organisations, private schools, the intellectual class, the Guyanese socialite scene – they are all hypocritical when it comes to the fundamental values that hold civilization together. Some of life’s most awful people can be found in this small, obscure country.
Here is an example. I went to two universities in Canada that are populous and large. I seldom met in the student body, the administrative divisions and the lecturing community in those two universities, the kind of perverted, nasty-minded, closed-minded, vicious people that I have met at a small university like UG where I intermingled with my own people, the Guyanese nation.
I attended McMaster University and the University of Toronto and I say in all sincerity and honesty that those were the happiest days of my academic career. I interfaced with lovely human beings whose types I never, I repeat never, saw at UG. I don’t care who at UG takes offence to this section of my column.
I was overjoyed to have been a part of McMaster University and the University of Toronto. I will never say the same for UG. That is my true feeling.
Sometimes I wonder if you add a million to this population what life would be like. Most people here are false, foolishly trying to amplify their little importance, desperately trying to become important, frantically seeking to be somebody with power and happy to deceive, fool and exploit other human beings.
Here is an amusing incident that happened at the Georgetown Public Hospital last Friday and I see this instinct all over this country. I went to the general office of Dr. Doobay. This young lady came out. She had a stethoscope around her neck so she was either a doctor or a student. As she passed in front of me, I enquired if Dr. Doobay was at work. She nonchalantly pointed to the general office and told me to inquire there. It turns out she was going back to Dr. Doobay’s clinic where she and others were working with him the past two hours.
This little girl never thought it was human courtesy to say “yes” because she knew the man was at work. As she becomes more important how is she going to treat other people below her station?
After forty years of fierce, independent thinking, I have become immune to people’s alienation of me. I have hurt and exploited and deceived not a soul in this world. Two weeks ago, I was outraged at the deportment of the resident cardiologist at the Caribbean Heart Institute inside the Georgetown Public Hospital. I had to let him know that some Guyanese are not going to take his condescending attitude.
Shall I end here? What about the expected response – “Freddie, haven’t you met nice people in Guyana?”
The answer is a resounding yes. I wish I could name some of the living ones but today’s political reality does not allow for it. Donald Ramotar once wrote in the letter columns of this newspaper that some businessmen helped to build my home. Well if he is right, it means that there are still some good people in Guyana that appreciate an independent voice. Who helped build yours Donald?

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