Safeway Supermarket, Stabroek Market Square and fascism in Guyana

Jan 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In late 2004, I made the argument on this page that the PPP Government was incorporating fascist arrangements in the exercise of power. In that same year, my academic colleague, Dr. Rishi Thakur, Political Studies Lecturer at UG, had done a consultancy in the Public Service.
In a discussion on what he observed working in the Public Sector, he mentioned the neat fascist organization within the civil service. Thakur pointed out to me that the administrative system resembled the structures of early 20th century fascist Europe. In an article in 2005 just after the Great Flood, I wrote about the fascistization process in train. We have arrived at the concretization of fascist rule in Guyana. Any freshman in political studies at any college would have interpreted the display of state terror on three successive nights in front of the Stabroek Market Square as fascism.
The Government of Guyana, after a grenade explosion (the whole story of which we don’t know as yet so one cannot rule out all types of conspiracies even involving state actors) in just one stall in the Stabroek Market square, moved in bulldozers and just demolished the properties of hundreds of poor people among which are dozens of single mothers, two of which I know personally. I never saw anything like that before in the Anglo-phone Caribbean. The presidency under the PNC party would never, I repeat never have gone in that fascist direction. I never liked the PNC. I lived under the rule of the PNC. I fought the PNC and suffered dire consequences, but I say without fear of contradiction that there wasn’t a leader in the PNC hierarchy from 1964 to when it lost power in 1992 that would have been so tyrannical.
Vendors, like wild animals, trying to protect their habitat, were scrambling to save their prized possessions. Others watched with vacant eyes. There were no sentiments from the little fascists who were giving the orders. There were no sensitivities to the cries that emanated from the victims and their sympathizers. This was fascism on display. I write a daily column. In these mountains of commentaries, readers will not see or remember all my viewpoints. But I have relentlessly stressed the point that the tentacles of the fascist dictators will not stop. This is the nature of tyranny. Tyranny has no logic, no rationality. Autocracy is a brutal, cruel process where men and women with power lose all reason. They only understand the language of violence, and violence takes over their persona.
Here is the most graphic example of how illogical and insane is fascist rule in Guyana. The bestiality of the demolition exercise took place just months before a General Election. It is commonsense to know that in an election year, state violence must be sealed up in an air-tight container and incumbent rulers must be more angelic than God’s angels. This didn’t happen. Fascist power and state terror met in a frightening confluence for three consecutive nights and days outside Stabroek Market Square. It had to happen. It will occur again. The reason is simple to contemplate – power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In which part of the world, an explosion takes place in a market square and the authorities bulldozed the entire enclave. Not even the Israelis have done that in Gaza. How can any government in the 21st century behave so cruel? How can any population accept that fate assigned them? In Tucson, Arizona two days ago, a federal legislator (from the House of Representatives) set up a table on a bright Saturday afternoon to meet with her constituents. The campaign took place outside a sprawling downtown supermarket, named Safeway. A gunman came up shot six people dead and fired into the head of the congresswoman.
Has the Obama administration or the FBI or the National Guards torn down the supermarket? No, they haven’t and for one reason – the management of that business could not have been responsible. Violence can occur anyway. When demonstrators ran into the Office of the President, shots were fired and people were killed. The Office of the President was not moved to another location. The fascist dictators say the ambience breeds all types of characters. But such structures exist in most countries in the world including the US and Europe that the Guyana Government begs for money all the time. France, New York, Detroit, Rome, the UK, Jamaica, Trinidad all have the type of enclaves that existed around the Stabroek Market Square. What we have that those places don’t is fascist government.

Latest News

Safeway Supermarket, Stabroek Market Square and fascism in Guyana

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | January, 27th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Anna Regina Secondary reign supreme

Fifties from Forde, Drakes, McCaskie give...

CANOC Executive Committee gathers in Guyana for...

Dujon questions CWI over “surprise’...

Wills, Bahabur, Johnson shine at GTTA Novice...

Guyanese boxers shine at T&T National Boxing...

Features/Columnists

The third parties will not survive this year’s elections

OAS Secretary General Election and renewed OAS Consensus

Jagdeo caught fouling, found prevaricating

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

Safeway Supermarket, Stabroek Market Square and fascism in Guyana

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | January, 27th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]