God is dead! Marx is dead! Mandela is dead! And I am not feeling well!

Feb 02, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I would urge every human being to look at the clips of the passionate yet turbulent protests that have been going on for almost two months in Thailand and Ukraine. What you see will send an ironic jolt to your soul. On the one hand, you feel deeply worried for the type of people you see in both countries protesting for their rights. On the other hand, you feel soulfully blessed to know that these very people are part of the world we live in.
Who are these people? I am not referring to the thousands of young men and women and able-bodied men who are determined to fight on the streets of Bangkok and Kiev. I am talking about the women whose age put them beyond fifty years and they are there every inch along the way with the youths fighting equally alongside them.
It is one of the most remarkable images to behold – women in their late fifties shouting down their government in street protest. You have to see these pictures to understand and to accept this manifestation of fantastic courage, this display of phenomenal valour and this show of superhuman passion and purpose.
These are not your perennial idealistic youths that have made revolutions since time immemorial. These are not strong men with raised fists. These were mothers who have been out in the rain, sun and snow for more than two months in Thailand and the Ukraine.
From oceans away we come to tragic Guyana. No one can be that stupid and insane to quarrel with the people of Number 48 village in Berbice when they rebelled to a point where violence was at hand. They had had enough of police inactivity in their village where violent robberies end in death and destruction. No village anywhere in the world should have to endure weekly robberies and the police move slower than when a dying bird tries to fly.
But as much as we must admire the Number 48 villagers, the story of the legitimate venting of their anger tells a tragic tale of a destroyed Guyana, torn by nasty racial divisions, nasty exercise of power with an ethnic twist and the rotten governance that have driven this country to the racial abyss.
There is no trained sociologist or political theorist in Guyana that can be so morally twisted as to not see the presence of the race factor when a factual description is given of Linden 2012 and is juxtaposed with Number 48 village, 2014. I was involved from day one at the rejection of the proposed electricity tariff hike in Region Ten by the central government in Georgetown.
The very first event in June was held at a church more than a month before major demonstrations broke out in July. The streets were overflowing and Commander Hicken came with a school of battle-dressed police with tear gas canisters. He was in a no-nonsense mood and called on the people on the roadside to move or be removed because he claimed that they were hindering traffic.
Mark Benschop and I engaged Hicken demanding that he desist. He called me aside and the crowd urged me not to talk to him.
This was a mere gathering of people listening to what was being said inside a church broadcast to them through loud speakers. Yet the police intended to get rough with them. At Number 48 village last week, the crowd was as thick as that day outside the church in Linden, but there were no police in battle garb. There were no tear gas canisters.
The protestors at Number 48 almost torched a police car. Read again, my words; not a minibus, not a GuySuCo truck, not a private vehicle but a police car. No one has been arrested and charged either with disorderly conduct or attempted arson. No one has been arrested, period! No one has been charged, period! And I am glad for that.
For the record, this columnist supports the protestors last week at Number 48 in Berbice.
In July 2012, Linden protestors did not try to burn anything but three of them were shot dead and fifteen wounded, including one youth who lost sight in one eye and another shot in the mouth.
So because the police did not touch the Berbicians does not mean that we must support them. But we must and at the same time continue to denounce the mistreatment of the Linden protestors. Are we not prepared to do so? Guyana is such a tragedy. Angst, fatalism and pessimism have killed this country. You feel there is no hope.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News