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The Faith Harding incident

Mar 02, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

 

 

From the time I entered political activism, I was never happy with the people around me. I started out my politics as a sixteen-year-old youth that copped a job in the Michael Forde Bookshop of the PPP (yes I stole books from my employer; can’t remember all but Plato’s The Republic was one of them) but soon drifted away from the PPP. I never found Dr. Jagan to be a principled leader committed to a multi-racial PPP.
I then knocked on the WPA door. It was a fantastic bandwagon. The people I met there changed my life forever. But the WPA was not without its culprits. Wherever you went in Guyana and pitched tent, be it in a political party, the media, the trade union movement etc, you found your quota of hypocrites and backstabbers who extolled the virtues of morality but had none.
The bigger picture was always in front of you – the poor, the powerless and the violated needed to be fought for. So you just carried on. You just forget about the flawed ones in your midst and you continue the fight for a better Guyana.
Faith Harding’s quarrel with the PNC reminds me of my entire political life. You expect your loved ones in politics to be better moral souls than those who exercise naked power but you feel totally let down. I know the feeling of Faith Harding but I have kept faith with what I believe in. I hope Faith keeps faith with the people of Guyana who need her help.
If Dr. Harding is right that the PNC’s primaries were not conducted democratically, then surely it must have been depressing for her to see her colleagues who were fighting to change a dictatorship in her country behave dictatorially. Is Dr. Harding right?
The last time I spoke with her was at a function at ACDA and she was definitely not pleased with the way the primaries went. What I do know is that I have had complaints from top PNC leaders that they were not pleased with the shape of the congressional election.
Dr. Harding cannot be blamed for her criticism but her past mistakes have come back to haunt her. The past mistakes of Aubrey Norton have come back to haunt him. It is for APNU, PNC, AFC, PPP activists to learn from the mistakes of the past. I told Aubrey Norton that I expected him to defend Team Alexander in the context of what Mr. Corbin had done. But Alexander became a victim and then Norton followed after him. Where was Faith Harding when Team Alexander and Norton were pushed out?
Don’t let‘s deal in the past. It is gone. Those in the AFC, APNU, the PPP, Youth Coalition for Transformation, the trade union movement, the human rights community etc must understand that you cannot criticize a dictatorship in government, seek to remove it but those leading from the front are suspected of being dictatorial themselves.
I have constantly said to my friends in the AFC, stand up and argue for your rights no matter how big is the leader in the AFC that you are confronting.
The AFC had a two-day strategy meeting last weekend, and I told some of my friends who attended that they must get up and denounce the AFC’s participation in the tripartite talks. The tripartite forum is nonsense and it will not result in the implementation of the things the AFC and APNU promised the electorate.
The APNU and AFC are in tripartite talks and up to now APNU and AFC, four months after an election promise to the people of Linden, cannot deliver more channels to them other than NCN. I hope if the AFC and ANPU personnel go to Linden, the people boo them. The tripartite talks are well under way and four months after a historic election, only NCN the people of Linden can see.
The Faith Harding incident should be a starting point for those who want to bring democracy to Guyana. You can only bring democracy if you are a believer in democracy. Dr. Harding seems to be sending mixed signals. She accuses the PNC of not playing fair but she seems to be making a pitch to the PPP Government.
The most brilliant philosopher in the world will not be able to rescue Dr. Harding if she participates in state power. I cannot accept Dr. Harding’s injunction against the PNC while at the same time she works for an undemocratic government. I hope Faith Harding has faith in the anti-dictatorship struggle of 2012.

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