Phoulori Joe got a problem

Jun 13, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The easiest way to expose a person’s double standard and hypocrisy is to engage them in the intricacies of moral philosophy. You are bound to find someone to be ethically bankrupt when you ask them to explain how is it morally right to support a man who is corrupt, but it is morally wrong for the handyman to enter your yard and show no manners by saying, “Good morning.”
You are on safe polemical ground if you condemn both types of bad conduct. But surely, you must be an offensive human being to barefacedly support your corrupt politician but condemn the guy who shows no etiquette. This is called moral double standards.
I have no conceptual problem with the apology/confession Joe Hamilton made in the witness box in the Walter Rodney Commission. It is when you examine the context of his exposure of the Burnham Government that Joe Hamilton has an enormous moral problem which he is compelled to solve if he is going to save his soul.
Context is everything in life. Knowledge only makes sense when it is contextualized. Life only makes sense when it is contextualized. Examine the context of something and you understand fully its essence. One of the finest examples of the importance of context I ever read was a British cricket writer in the Guardian (British newspaper) contextualizing the achievements of Sachin Tendulkar.
He concluded that Tendulkar was not greater than two dozen other batsmen. He put him at number 29. He gave the context of Tendulkar’s achievements, looking at the number of runs made in the number of Tests played, and in what circumstances the runs were made. I was stunned when I read a cricket analyst from India contextualizing the Test achievements of Chris Gayle.
You would be bewildered to know that Gayle must be one of the greatest Test cricketers ever. The analyst looked at the number of runs he accumulated in the small number of Tests he played, then the type of centuries (double and triple) he made and contrasted these superlatives with the other greats.
These two articles are fantastic manifestations of the power of context (see Ben Carter, “Sachin Tendulkar: The world’s 29th Greatest Batsman?” And S. Rajesh on Chris Gayle, “Much more than a short-format batsman,” ESPN Cricinfo)
Let’s apply context to the apology of Joe Hamilton. I found it interesting to know that when Hamilton was a small boy in Beterverwagting he was nicknamed Phoulori Joe. The call-name is appropriate at this time because phoulori is made from split peas which have to be fully soaked overnight. Joe Hamilton is fully soaked in recent Guyanese drama as his testimony brought out.
But there is something missing. When the soaked split peas are ready to be cooked you have to add the final touch – the seasoning. It is the seasoning that is missing from Phoulori Joe’s menu.
Hamilton told the court that he is confessing to doing bad things when he was associated with the PNC Government. For this, he said, he offers an apology. But Hamilton is now associated with another government that is doing the same thing the PNC government did. This puts Hamilton in a real, nasty, moral bind.
If he wants to wipe the slate clean, then the slate is still dirty. The PNC government that Hamilton is ashamed to have served has been outdone by the present government that Hamilton represents in parliament today.
Hamilton, I am sure, must know who is behind the assassination of Ronald Waddell. Hamilton must know his present government jailed Mark Benschop for three years. Hamilton must know that his PPP Government incarcerated a mother of three young children on trumped-up treason charges.
I will leave out descriptions of my own oppression by Hamilton’s colleagues in the PPP. But what about the period of extra-judicial killings when over 400 youths lost their lives and Roger Khan and the “Champion of Garbage” were on a rampage?
Hamilton’s confession and apology are not morally impressive. They can only be if the person breaks free from all associations, circumstances and environments which he was once tied to. But this is not the case with Phoulori Joe.
I first met Phoulori Joe last year June when Dr. David Hinds and I went to meet someone at a certain hotel. Phoulori Joe was drinking by himself and we talked to him; David mostly, not me, because I was not impressed with his analysis of Guyanese politics. It was awfully poor.
The bartender told us that Phoulori Joe comes there each weekend to drink with his political colleagues. Well! Well! Such colleagues, Joe, hardly put you in a position to criticize the PNC Government.

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