Guyana, a land full of baby Mubaraks

Feb 18, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If President Jagdeo or Prime Minister Sam Hinds should pick up the phone and call immigration and ask them to put an embargo on a departing passenger, it is understandable if the official agrees. His/her job is at stake; the order is going from number one and number two in the seat of power. The same thing would happen at the Licence Revenue Office or the Forestry Commission or the NIS.
In a land of terrifying fright, which public officer is going to say to the President; “Sorry, Sir, I do not take orders from you.”
Why should an immigration officer concede a request from the Minister of Housing and/or the Minister of the Public Service to stop an outgoing passenger? These two Cabinet Ministers portfolios do not include even the remotest contact with the administration of the Guyana Police Force. It is unusual that the police personnel in question at the airport should have encouraged that nonsense if it did happen in the Rovin Stanley affair.
Mr. Stanley also stated to this newspaper that in a cricket dispute where he disagreed with the Minister, his boss at his workplace, the GRA (Mr. Sattaur) was contacted. Again this is nasty interference. What has a dispute over cricket administration got to do with the professional work of a public sector employee?
For those who studied the politics of Walter Rodney, the Rovin Stanley episode carries with it a priceless lesson. Walter Rodney told African Guyanese that they believe Mr. Burnham was ruling in their interest but they had to look around and see the state of the African Guyanese political economy.
He told African Guyanese not to hang Arnold Rampersaud, because to do that was to reduce themselves to slaves who only respond to edicts from their master. Rovin Stanley is an East Indian. The lesson for young Indians in this country is that you will be victimized if you invoke the wrath of the Indian oligarchs (not in the same meaning as how Henry Jeffrey uses the term; by oligarchs I mean fascist rulers).
Mr. Stanley got into a tangle with a Minister over cricket and ended up a victim of fascist delight. So be careful at nursery school if your child took away the candy from a relative of one of the baby Mubaraks. Your parents could find themselves in an Olympic pool of hot water at Pradoville 2. Baby Mubaraks are running all over Guyana and only my friend, Mark Benschop, is displaying the spirit of the demonstrators at Tahrir Square in Egypt.
Here is another story of two baby Mubaraks. An official, Mr. Anthony Jeremiah of the International Tennis Federation came to Guyana and made a human nature response to a situation that is fundamentally a reflex action of all human beings. After looking at our tennis courts, he merely intoned that they needed upgrading.
What is wrong with that? We are one of the poorest countries in the world, which according to the Jamaican PM, goes around the world begging. Sports Minister Anthony and Director of Sports, Neil Kumar, were highly indignant. The former cancelled an appointment with Mr. Jeremiah, while the other voiced his outrage.
Imagine if these two PPP officials could react like this to a foreign sports personality whose organization puts money in tennis in Guyana, what they wouldn’t do to Guyanese over whom they have some form of authority.
The obnoxious dimension of the attitude of Kumar and Anthony is that the man’s reaction to the tennis courts is the kind you get from human beings in situations like these.
When there was CWC 2007, ICC officials commented on the state of the pitches in all of the Caribbean playing nations. They had no politics in mind when they made their observations.
Anthony and Kumar cannot look any citizen in his/her face and tell him/her that they are satisfied with crime fighting in this country. So should the Police Commissioner take offence to that and snub these two PPP Parliamentarians?
Now that the election campaign is on, Kumar and Anthony are going to face questions about the crime situation and they are going to concede to would-be voters that crime fighting techniques have to improve.
What has that got to do with being mischievous to the Minister of Home Affairs and the Police Commissioner? These two PPP men displayed their customary arrogance because it is the type of culture dictatorship breeds. The Guyanese baby Mubaraks can continue unimpeded in their fascist hubris because the Guyanese people are yet to wake up.

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Guyana, a land full of baby Mubaraks

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