October 5 took my youth but my soul lives on

Oct 05, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was in the John F. Kennedy library when I heard the news of the death of the President of Guyana Forbes Burnham. I was unburdened and I would be lying to say otherwise. It was not that Burnham’s policies had weakened the fabric of Guyana, but Burnham was personally involved in making my life miserable.
Despite an immense nationalist heart and a learned mind, Burnham was essentially driven by authoritarian instincts. I really don’t have time for those who, because the PPP is tyrannical, elevate Burnham to an angel. I am a trained historian. I deal with the recording of facts, not my emotional and sentimental attachments to those who brought me gifts.
If those who brought me gifts turned out to be miserable people who destroyed other people’s lives, then I should return the gifts. Burnham was undemocratic. Don’t try to polish what cannot generate sheen. The PPP government from October 5, 1992 to now was just as bad as Burnham’s. President Jagdeo from 1999 to 2011 turned out to be worse than Burnham.
Jagdeo’s excesses, tyrannies, debaucheries, depravities and immoralities do not make Burnham look good. They make Burnham a better leader than Jagdeo. They do not make Burnham a good man. But let us concede to those who love Burnham that he was a good man. Was he a bad man too? Can’t a leader embody some good and some bad? And shouldn’t a human if he/she is decent acknowledge that their hero, icon, role-model had some bad in them? Why lie to yourself to say your hero was an angel when he was not?
So why was I relieved when Burnham died? Because he hurt my mother and wife, two of the greatest gifts in my life, and two persons I loved more than my own existence. When I returned home in 1984 after serving in Grenada, Mr. Burnham banned me from employment as he did in 1978 when I won the President’s Medal at UG. My mom was heartbroken to see that the only child in the family who went beyond primary school could not work to support her. She died shortly after (I will not forgive Burnham for mistreating my mother and my wife).
Why ban my wife from working too? My wife never uttered a single word against Burnham. She was incapable of doing so, because politics was never ever present in her mind. It was unforgivable of Burnham to bring family into political disputes. Burnham should have dealt with me and left my wife out of the picture. Jagdeo did the same to my wife, which is vivid testimony to the failure of October 5, 1992.
That was the date when all of us who had that blood in us that goes by the name of Guyanese, thought we were on to a brave new world. It was not to be. The “great” Cheddi Jagan was now in power and the myth exploded. He wasn’t great at all. He wasn’t really different from his soul mate in the fifties, Forbes Burnham.
The mythical Cheddi Jagan died in 1997 and another Forbes Burnham, another Cheddi Jagan took over – Cheddi’s wife, Janet. She was vile and heartless, but age destroyed her planning and cunning. She retired in 1999 and an uncertain face came upon the scene. The thought was that Burnham, Jagan and his wife were gone, and so too was that machine of racial preference and political division.
That new face was Bharrat Jagdeo, It still remains a mystery about where he came from, who he was, and what made him tick (I could be cynical and say a certain preference). If anyone destroyed the hope of October 5, it was Bharrat Jagdeo. But the destruction of October 5 holds in its bosom another deadly myth. All fingers point to Bharrat Jagdeo as the culprit. The reality is that it was the PPP. Jagdeo was just the mere head of the hydra.
The shattered world of October 5 will always remind us that Guyanese history, after colonial rule ended, was built on lies and deception. Who was the PNC and who was the PPP? My generation was told it was a clear case of black and white; no grey areas. The PNC was the bad guy. The PPP was the good guy.
After October 5, 1992, the good guy was now in power, our dreams had come true. But history and life are streams that dictate their own flow; we mortals are mere spectators.
After 1992, roles got reversed. The PNC became the good guy, the PPP the big bad wolf. And what a ferocious wolf it was and is. Mr. Burnham was flawed. But the PPP after October 5 demonstrated that it was not just bad but evil. That’s where we are at the moment.

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