If the people of Guyana want it this way, then so be it

Oct 01, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I begin with a question. Why is it that UG students are perhaps the least protesting students anywhere in the world including countries where there are vicious dictators? What takes at UG would meet with vociferous disapproval in dictatorships like Uzbekistan, Cuba, Burma, etc. University students are university students in whichever country you find them except Guyana.
What is your answer? Every UG student says to her/himself, that they will bear up and after they get their degree they are gone from Guyana. There is no reason to protest because they know they are leaving. In the just concluded students’ election less than twenty percent of the student population voted. They didn’t care because they know they are going away. The World Bank puts the migration of Guyanese graduates with a tertiary education at 82 percent.
If the Guyanese people want Guyana to remain as backward and angst-ridden as it is, then what can anyone do? There comes a time when people say they had enough thus the world was surprised by the Arab Spring. I wrote this column based on what a very prominent Guyanese said to me last Friday. He told me that I should not have published two pieces of commentary because they would end up being counter-productive.
He pointed to my public comment of a retired teacher who lives a solitary life with his family on the Canje Creek. I met the teacher while on a trip on the Canje and he told me that he believes that he is the only public sector worker who gave thirty-seven years of teaching to the hinterland communities. He was interested in a suggestion made last year that he would be honoured. I merely published what I thought was a good story for Guyanese to know about.
I was told by this eminent Guyanese that I have now done a disservice to the retired teacher because the issue would never be taken up because Freddie Kissoon wrote about it. He went on to say that I should not have written about the students whose guarantors can no longer sponsor them at UG because the sponsors have reached the age of fifty-five.
He advised that I should have suggested that the student take their plight to Freedom House or the President because once Freddie Kissoon writes about it, the issue is dead.
Though I agreed with him, my point was that I have an undying obligation to publish the sad stories people ask me to. That is the obligation of both a commentator and a human rights activist.
I know the famous Guyanese is right – once the AFC or the PNC or the TUC or Chris Ram or Freddie Kissoon or David Hinds take up a cause, the PPP will distance itself no matter how nationalist is the cause. I know this. I believe most Guyanese know it.
But what can you do? The answer is nothing. If the people in the leadership of the Government refuse to give the teacher his honour because Freddie Kissoon wrote about it then, then that is a matter for the people of Guyana to deal with. If the people that administer the nation’s bureaucracy want to harm three poor students because Freddie Kissoon wrote about their dilemma, then that is a matter for the Guyanese people to confront.
I entered political activism with my eyes wide open. I know what the consequences would be like. I did not cry when my wife after fourteen years of service in the public sector was victimized. She didn’t cry either. She didn’t blame me either. I repeat; I have an obligation to help publicize the wrong-doings that visit the poor and the powerless of my country. I cannot be blamed if a spiteful regime chooses to descend to the level of the depraved and inhuman.
It is for the Guyanese people to defend themselves. If they choose not to, then so be it. It is this columnist’s most sincere belief that comes both from my analytical mind and from inside my soul that the PPP will not do things to develop Guyana out of basic human spite and depravity.
In another column, I will develop the theory that the Indian mind-set in the PPP does not believe in the concept of the State as we see it as it evolved in Europe from the time of the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire. The PPP has no interest in the State. Georgetown will continue to decay and they just will not care. But do the Guyanese people care too?

Latest News

If the people of Guyana want it this way, then so be it

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 7th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Berbice ease past Demerara in low-scoring match

Upper Demerara suffer 8 wicket loss as Lakeram...

Joshi is the new National 2025 Women’s Chess...

Kares Engineering renews title sponsorship of One...

Harpy Eagles looking to put old rivals to bed,...

Windsor Estates reigns supreme at AmCham Golf...

Features/Columnists

The geography of pettiness

The U.S. “Joining” the Commonwealth: an unreasonable expectation

Police violence – life is cheap in Linden

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

If the people of Guyana want it this way, then so be it

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 7th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]