I took my wife to Clinton Urling’s restaurant

Apr 15, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Monday was another session of the Bharrat Jagdeo libel. Mr. Jagdeo’s lawyers didn’t turn up. Earlier in the morning, I dropped off my wife to Wortmanville and headed to the courts. My 9.15am case started at 10.15am.
This was a sitting of the Full Court. At least I thought the judges would have offered an open apology to me for sitting in that courtroom with my lawyer, Mr. Nigel Hughes, for over an hour. But as an academic who spent his entire life studying his country, I know the extent to which this country has broken down.
Another adjournment was taken by the Full Court over the application by Mr. Jagdeo’s lawyers to file an appeal to prevent Lincoln Lewis from giving testimony. They are asking for permission to file the appeal out of time. And guess how long they took and didn’t file the appeal? Nine months.
When this Full Court hearing and the libel case proper are completed, I will definitely do a manuscript on my experience with and interpretation of Guyana’s judicial system. But wish me good health as you read my columns. I may not live to see the conclusions because of the time this case is taking. Mr. Jagdeo built a whole hotel during the time that case was being heard.
After the no-show by Mr. Jagdeo’s lawyers, I picked my wife up at Wortmanville and we went to German’s Restaurant, owned by Clinton Urling, to have split peas soup. I wanted to go to German’s for two reasons. First, to temper any boycott call that is being planned. I don’t have a Facebook page, but I heard that there is an advocacy on Facebook for a boycott of the soup man because of his candidacy for the PPP in the general elections.
Secondly, I faced some justified criticism for the way I penned a critique of Urling in my March 19 column. Imran Khan, PR consultant for the Alliance for Change, didn’t seem to like the word “cook-shop”. Dale Andrews of this newspaper felt I shouldn’t have emphasized the two robberies that took place outside the restaurant.
Both Khan and Andrews are right. The choice of word to describe the operation was inelegant. I apologize to readers. Robberies take place all over Guyana and my description could have caused people to avoid Mr. Urling’s Tiger Bay entity.
If there is a boycott of Mr. Urling’s restaurant I will support it, but with one huge condition. The boycott must have context. And the context cannot be Urling’s PPP candidacy. It has to be something far more morally questionable.
During the 2012 campaign to explain the budget cuts, I spoke at a Stabroek Market Square public meeting where I suggested a boycott of German’s, but I didn’t repeat it. I have gone back to German’s since 2012 more times than I can count. With a rising tide against Mr. Urling’s PPP embrace, subtle shouts are being heard for a boycott of German’s. I cannot support such action and will not support it for moral reasons.
Here I am speaking for me only. I am refusing to boycott German’s because of how I see life. And the way I see life, it will not be possible, contextually speaking, to discontinue my patronage.
People buy at Muneshwer’s. I would close my eyes and say that I find Clinton Urling a far more acceptable person than any of the Muneshwer’s. That is my opinion that I am entitled to express. I patronize Survival Supermarket quite often. The things workers there complained to me about this business place cannot be published here out of fear of libel.
Give me a Clinton Urling any day than an Eddie Boyer, and I buy at National Hardware. I have an account at a commercial bank that refuses to have trade union representation. I could name more than a dozen places where those who want to avoid spending at German’s will willingly walk into those places.
There are three popular stores whose management told me plainly that they will not discontinue the ‘whites only’ faces in their advertisements. They say they want white faces in their ads. If we withhold our purchasing power from Urling, we must do so for others who are far worse people than Urling.
Because of what I wrote about the two robberies that have deterred me from taking my wife ever again to German’s, I felt I had an obligation to Urling to take her back there, and I did so last Monday. Urling’s food and local juices are way too expensive. That will deter me from buying there again.

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