“Kit” Nascimento: A Tennessee Williams character

Apr 07, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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This country is a wasteland that has no parallel on Planet Earth.  In the 21st century, a man who created infamy in the first half of the 20th century and who failed miserably in the next fifty years in achieving any fame or favourable recognition in the pioneering of innovative politics or contributing in even a tiny way to pioneering journalism, is the media consultant for a number of important state sector institutions, private sector organizations and the tourism industry.
A virtual non-entity as a media personality the last twenty years whose career parallels the recurring theme in Tennessee Williams’ plays, Nascimento is nearing his nineties. This is where the insanity becomes Faustian.
How can any country in the 21 century with a population that has sixty percent of citizens under the age of 35 employ a man nearing his nineties to be a PR person and he has not even a positive track record much less a brilliant career? What has happened to those lovely Guyanese women with their communication degrees whose beauty and brains Vogue magazine would employ immediately?
What happened to those bright Guyanese men with their communication degrees and dapper clothes who can bring spotlight to a press conference? Nascimento’s employment in the public relations world in Guyana is testimony to the poor wasteland this country has become since 1999.
That a section of the business community and the public sector employ a PR consultant who is nearing his nineties, tells you what a hell hole this country has become. Its barrenness and parched landscape have chased away its young people.
With the enduring reliance on Nascimento by these firms and institutions, it becomes a mystery when you think that the government and the PPP (are one and the same- the late David De Groot worked for the PPP but was paid by the Government) turned to Olive Gopaul to interview Elisabeth Harper for her introduction to politics and not to Nascimento.
What went wrong there? Why not Nascimento? Who decided on Gopaul and not Nascimento? Could it be that Harper may not have understood his accent? Like Gail Teixeira, Nascimento has an accent that is baffling given the long time he spent in Guyana since a child. Could it be that Nascimento had an influence on VS Naipaul? After two years of residency in the UK, Naipaul adopted an Oxford accent.
I am not an admirer of Brian K. Tiwarie for reasons that I will leave for discussion after the elections on May 11 this year, but Tiwarie did use commonsense in choosing Alex Graham to do his PR work. Graham has a degree in communications, is fifty years younger than Nascimento, is urbane and courteous and is always dressed for the occasion.
In my opinion, Nascimento’s sartorial appearance always appears incongruous with the status of a PR figure.
His choices mirror mine – the hippie look. I hate to admit it but this is where Nascimento and I have something in common. I really don’t like the similarity however inconsequential, given Nascimento’s political track record over the past countless years in Guyana.
I have always stood on the side of liberation, freedom and justice. I believe Nascimento is yet to embrace such a tradition.
I should erase that sartorial connection between me and Nascimento ASAP. I may very well ask my friends in corporate Guyana to give me money to buy some Alan Flusser pinstripe trousers, Kenneth Cole shirts, Gucci loafers, Armani neckties, Guy Laroche cologne. The trouble with receiving that money to distance myself from Nascimento is that Ramon Gaskin and GHK Lall are going to cry foul – I have compromised and contaminated my character. Of course I could beg Gaskin’s boss, Brian Tiwarie.
Mr. Nascimento, it seems, has reverted atavistically to the sixties when he was a so-called media guru. The Kaieteur News has complained that he insulted its reporters. Oops! I should use the word, “allegedly.”  Don’t want Nascimento to sue me. If he did that, given the backlog, the case may come up long after Nascimento is gone. Let’s face it; Nascimento is in advancing years.
If the Kaieteur News is correct, Mr. Nascimento should be shunned by the private media whenever he hosts a press conference unless he apologizes. This behaviour should not be tolerated by the media; certainly not from an aging has-been like Nascimento. One suspects after the election, that Nascimento would become a forgotten relic.
For those too young to know what has become of Nascimento, please read any of the Tennessee Williams tragedies or see the movie version. I have all. I could loan you your choice.

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