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Mangana, mannequin, masquerade and Manickchand

Mar 27, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

 

 

 

I spent Sunday in Linden on a meet-the-people tour with some of the AFC leaders. After the groundings were over, we went to a fast-food restaurant that sits on the bank on the Demerara River. Also on the bank were these fresco parasols where you can dine and watch as the moon and the constellation of stars bathe the river.
There is a poetic ambience as the natural light from nature way up in the galaxy meets the rays from the man-made street bulbs.
I turned to Cathy Hughes and remarked how lovely it was and she agreed that Guyana is indeed a nice land. The poetic flow becomes Venetian as you sit under the skies and look at the mini-ferries constantly crossing from Mackenzie to Wismar. It reminds you of romance in Venice.
Moses Nagamootoo was part of the AFC’s entourage. He offered his historical perspectives on politics which is always absorbing. I didn’t know that during the hectic competition for the votes from Region Six during the election last year, a leading PPP candidate cuffed one of Moses’s female relatives in her face.
I am not going to name the man because a libel suit may visit me. Why should Moses lie? I know this newspaper reported on an incident during the campaign in which the wife of a candidate for the PPP slapped an AFC candidate, attorney Charrandass Persaud. But I had no knowledge of the incident Moses related. He described her face as being swollen the next day. As an attorney, Moses should have pressed charges. In the forty years that I have known him, Moses always had strange sides to him.
In the restaurant, my back was turned to the television set. I heard one of the diners at the table saying, “Look, Dominic Gaskin.” I turned around and there was the AFC Treasurer with Karen De Souza of Red Thread, as the guests of Minister Priya Manickchand on NCN discussing corporal punishment.
A little debate initiated by me started around the table. My point was AFC and Red Thread should not have gone on NCN to confabulate with Manickchand on an issue like corporal punishment when there were more pressing social exigencies like dictatorial government, terrible governance, corruption and depravities and other similar vices.
The response to me was valid and plausible, but I thought my point was equally sharp. And it is left up to the individual and how one sees life and philosophy. The reply was that organizations like Red Thread and the AFC have an all-encompassing programme that takes in political rights as well as sociological issues like corporal punishment and related agendas.
Why shouldn’t the AFC (and Red Thread) utilize a forum presented to them to advance their views on these subjects?
I could see and understand that perspective because I entered that restaurant after hours of interacting with Lindeners in which questions were ventilated on a numerous subject-areas, some of which went into social and sociological directions. I could understand that the AFC (and Red Thread) would be embarrassed if they are on outreach programmes and a mother or a priest got up and asked for a viewpoint on corporal punishment.
I get the distinct impression that the argument is that even if it is NCN and the host is a Minister, the opportunity should be taken to address the Guyanese people.
Speaking for me, if I was asked to vote on whether Red Thread and the AFC should go and analyse the ramifications of corporal punishment on NCN with a Minister of Government, I would have voted in the negative.
I would have polemicized on the issue in the following way. NCN is a symbol of the abuse of power and therefore any participation on that station by human rights groups and opposition parties must be accompanied by the inflexible demand that the media house should be democratized.
Secondly, I would have insisted that the NCN’s invitation be part of a package whereas Minister of Education, Manickchand, would engage the opposition on NCN on the governance structure of UG where proportionality is totally absent. That Minister Irfaan Ali follows a similar format and has exchanges with the opposition parties on corruption in government and how to tackle it.
Let NCN bring people like Nigel Hughes, Christopher Ram, Lincoln Lewis, Mark Benschop and Malcolm Harripaul and others to debate good and bad governance. You think Manickchand will volunteer to discuss UG with Drs. Pasty Francis, Mellisa Ifill and Thomas Singh on NCN?
You think Rohee going on NCN and debate the opposition? Goat didn’t bite de man but I bet he ain’t going!

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