What does a public activist tell his child?

Dec 06, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

As my daughter came of age, I sat her down and told her that my public profile would bring her into contact with unending sentiments about her father – some good, some bad, some very loving, others terribly harsh. When it came to the negatives, my warning came straight out of life’s text book – you just cannot be occupied and never be preoccupied with the nasty things people say about you. I explained to her, this was the fastest and surest way to depression. I have constantly told my daughter she must understand that of the six billion people in the word, there are six billion expressions of human nature.

A sportsman may be envied because his critics wanted to be where he was. A hater may show disdain because one day in the long past, you may have written a thing or two against his uncle. You may not be liked because others do not like your style. You may be may snubbed because you criticized the hypocrisy of others. My perennial advice to my only child is that you cannot please everyone in this world. Admit when you make a mistake. Apologize for a moment of lapse. But be true to yourself. Do what is in your heart and forget about vultures. There will always be vultures trying to pick on you.

I have been in the public eyes since I entered UG in 1974. It has never stopped save for the years I have been in school abroad. Since 1974, I have spoken, written and done a lot, quite a lot. It goes on. I have been loved by countless citizens. I have been vilified by an equal amount. But I have carried on with the knowledge in my head that for every hater there will be a loved one. For every critic, there will be someone giving praises. This is life. You win some, you lose some.

There have to be moments of irritation. To say there aren’t is to tell a barefaced lie. You meet all types. I have had to answer a mountain of questions on my relation with Mark Benschop, Glenn Lall and others. Incidentally, the incident with Eddie Boyer stemmed from his perception of Lall, and in the exchange, Boyer told me I should try to “correct” Benschop. In the heat of the quarrel, I forgot to shoot back to tell him I don’t see anything in Benschop that needs correcting. Like me, like the other six billion human beings in the world, Glenn Lall and Mark Benschop have their faults.

What I cannot accept and will never accept are people who cannot and will never fit the shoes of Benschop and Lall, having the audacity to criticize them. Yes, it is their right but I should not be made to listen to them. I don’t want to listen to them and objectively those very persons should not chastise people who are doing the positive things that they will never do. It is for this reason I hate humans who hide under false names and vilify the characters of public figures. How can you tell a man he is the world most incompetent politician unfit to run even a salt good shop but lack the courage to say so openly. You even lack the basic decency to ask someone else to write it for you. Instead you become a comical coward by acquiring the pen name “Georgetown Superman.”

Why should I castigate Lall when he has taken a newspaper and made it into the only hope for a country reeling from the effects of one of the world’s most enduring kleptocracies? Why should I be careful of Benschop when he is the only one out there with his picket rallying for the cause of a crying mother whose child has been wrongfully expelled from a private school? Where are the perceivers of Benschop who call him a mad man? Isn’t it better to be a madman that changes one’s country for the better than the serious citizen who sits on his balcony with his whiskey and foreign tea and looking down at “mad man” Benschop with his placard in his hand.

Well, Benschop may be mad and but can get better but that serious fool on the balcony is beyond redemption. Remember the story of the lady at a party that went up to Winston Churchill and said to him; “You’re drunk.” Churchill replied; “And you are ugly but I can get sober in the morning.” My daughter is 21. I think she knows people by now; who and what they are.

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