Since when foreigners have to teach Guyanese about commonsense

May 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

My first class as a university freshman was with Roman Catholic nun, Professor Mary Noel Menezes. This was a time when UG was a university in every sense of the word. The course was named “The Philosophy of History.” It remains the most interesting course I ever undertook at UG.
I had loved reading philosophy before I ever dreamt of entering a university door and then to have your first class at university be in the area of philosophy was extremely euphoric.
My first assignment for professor Menezes was on Nazi Germany. From that research, I became preoccupied with the thought of how an entire nation could have allowed its government to kill so many millions of citizens. The conclusion I drew from that essay was to live with me since then. It will live with me until I die.
Long before Nazi Germany overran Europe there was and long after the demise of German fascism, there will be the error that nations will tragically make – they will not learn from past mistakes.
Last week, I watched a television interview with Vincent Alexander and Dr. Grantley Walrond on Channel Nine and I listened on benschopradio.com to an interview Christopher Ram had with Tacuma Ogunseye. Both Alexander and Ogunseye said something that took me back to my first essay for Professor Menezes – if we Guyanese cannot learn from the mistakes we made as a nation, we will be in trouble again.
When we were in the throes of post-election violence after the 2001 elections, I met the wife of one of Guyana’s most eminent and respected entrepreneurs at Nigel’s Supermarket. At that time, “mo fyaah/slo fyaah” was raging and all Guyanese had no idea about the future of this land.
She told me tha her husband contacted Mr. Hoyte to urge reconsideration of his strategy because business was hurting badly. I will never forget what she said to me. She told me that for all the years her husband knew Hoyte closely, the former President was unmoved and implied that business people have to consider all Guyana and not just their concerns.
Mr. Hoyte is long gone; “mo fyaah, slo fyaah” has been extinguished but how much have we, particularly the business people, learnt from that lesson? The answer is nothing. We had Nazi Germany and there is no guarantee that we won’t have it again, maybe in another European country.
In France, there is a brand new Cabinet jurisdiction – the Ministry of National Identity and Immigration. Sounds much like fascism in Germany. President Sarkozy’s wife, a person you least expect to endorse this move, was over-zealous of its creation. Do people ever learn from history’s tragedies?
Norway, prior to President Jagdeo’s discovery of LCDS, did not have in the thinnest of ways, an ongoing relationship with Guyana. Now officials of that country have to tell us what we Guyanese should be telling the world – try to use a framework of inclusiveness because that is what safeguards the future of a nation.
Let us quote what the Norwegians said about the exclusion of the opposition from the committee that manages LCDS. All Guyanese, particularly main stakeholders in this sad territory, ought to give extensive consideration to what the Norwegians observed.
I ask the business community to read carefully.
“Given the unfortunate political history of Guyana through which the two main political parties are strongly polarized along ethnic lines and the fact that many of the rural and urban poor are African-Guyanese , the exclusion of the PNC seems invidious and has potential for creating future problems.”
Isn’t it pathetic that the Norwegians should lecture Guyanese on the dangers of excluding organizations from national policy-making processes because it could be harmful to the stability of this country?
Do leaders in civil society, the churches and the business world need to hear those prophetic words from a group of people who hardly know us in this part of the world? How fractured and fragile has been Norwegian society? Not at all.
Therefore, we should be the people to talk about the dangers of societal exclusions and social denials not the Norwegians. But look at the word they used, “invidious.” What is Mr. Jagdeo and all those who love him and the PPP have to say about the choice of words to describe the exclusion of the opposition?
For those who do not know its meaning, go look it up. I know one person must be interested in what the Norwegians concluded – Tacuma Ogunseye.

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Since when foreigners have to teach Guyanese about commonsense

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