Help to sing these songs of freedom: The Philip Moore burial

May 23, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At the 2010 death anniversary of Walter Rodney held on Hadfield Street, I took the microphone when the chairman of the evening invited participation from the audience. I condemned the WPA’s yearly invitation of Prime Minister Sam Hinds to be one of the featured speakers. It just did not make sense.
But more than that, it appeared to me not only to be a historical insult, but crass and bestial opportunism. I still hold that perception and would publish it again when the death anniversary comes around in three weeks time if Hinds is invited again.
I believe Hinds will be asked to speak again. Those in this country who are familiar with my politics and commentaries would know I have long broken with the remnants of the WPA. The quintessential WPA that I was part of died in 1993. Whoever or whatever is left of the WPA is a masquerade.
After I did my thing, the chairman, Desmond Trotman, had some kind words to say about me, but concluded that he could not support my viewpoint. Denouncing my position was Vanda Radzik, a very invisible WPA member during the election campaign last year when the WPA merged with PNC to become APNU.
She justified the yearly invitation to Hinds on one ground only, and which was obnoxiously untrue. She told the guests that Walter Rodney would have associated with all types and did have ongoing associations with those who were his enemies and wanted to kill him at the time he was assassinated.
I knew the WPA and Rodney far better than Radzik. That was not true. One year after this story by Radzik, Rupert Roopnaraine admitted in an interview with Stabroek News that the WPA was accumulating arms to fight the Burnham Government. So if Walter was in dialogue with his enemies then at the same dialectical time, he was planning a confrontation with them. That is confusing.
Sam Hinds is in the news again. A website associated with Congress Place claimed that the family of Philip Moore approached Hinds for his decision to have their request accepted for burying the great icon at the Place of the Seven Ponds. The website, OneVoiceCanWin.com, asserted that Hinds asked his junior Cabinet colleague (by far his junior), Frank Anthony to make the decision. All Guyana knows that Moore’s family was turned down.
It is an appalling rejection that no Guyanese wanted to protest, except Mark Benschop. At 15:00 hours on Monday, Benschop telephoned me to request that we stage a demonstration in front of the Office of the President. He and I would contact our usual buddies or comrades or friends or soldiers or whatever term you wish to use.
Michael Carrington and Gerhard Ramsaroop were unavailable, so were the others. I guess the timing was bad. As it turned out, from the time Benschop called me to the time of doing this piece, the Government’s edict has gone un-protested.
When are Guyanese going to respond to Bob Marley’s imploration – help me sing these songs of freedom?
The denial by the government of Philip Moore’s family request to have him interred at the Place of the Seven Ponds must be condemned by every citizen of this country. I go so far as to say that this writer expects gay activists, women’s rights protesters, important stakeholders like the Private Sector Commission, to let their voices be heard. Philip Moore deserved that from Guyana.
So who qualifies to be laid to rest at the Place of the Seven Ponds? There are three Presidents there, one Governor-General and a national poet, Martin Carter. I would think that from the time Carter was placed there, the restriction was opened up to great Guyanese other than those who served as Presidents.
I have no objection to Carter. He deserves it. But so too does Philip Moore.
Honestly, never for a moment did I believe the Government would have acted so callously and insensitively. This thing has tremendous ethnic implications. Yet when you talk about race, persons like Juan Edghill, Ravi Dev and a host of misguided people accuse you of getting into race advocacy. In a sharply ethnically divide country, it seems that academics, politicians, commentators and others cannot discuss the race problematic in their own country.
So who can be buried at the Place of the Seven Ponds? Three names come to mind and this nation must be firm and inflexible on this – Yesu Persaud, Clive Thomas and Eusi Kwayana. Parliament must now order the removal of the remains of Walter Rodney to that very spot.

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Help to sing these songs of freedom: The Philip Moore burial

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