Instead of healing, unity and togetherness, the PPP is preaching race hate, fear, and bitterness

Apr 24, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Kaieteur News on April 21, 2015 has a photograph of APNU+AFC leaders David Granger and Moses Nagamootoo and Guyanese living in Canada and who attended the coalition’s activity in Toronto recently. Perhaps most prominent in the picture is a person who I believe to be Claude V. Chang (right foreground). The accompanying article quoted the coalition’s Presidential Candidate David Granger as having said to the audience at the function: “For the past 50 years we (Guyanese) have fought each other to a standstill … It is time for us to come together as brothers and sisters … the war is over. It is time for a new Guyana” and for which he received a standing ovation.
I venture to say that no one would have been more pleased than Claude Chang to hear that emphatic statement, for a decade earlier he had echoed identical sentiments when he wrote that “For Guyana to enjoy prosperity, respect and pride … it must seek social cohesion through inclusion, through consensus government.” (SN, May 29, 2005). I will add that such a message was valid the decade before that, and the one before, in fact, 50 years ago as Mr. Granger alluded.
A few years after Claude Chang’s plaintive cry, Ishwar Prashed, in a letter published in the Stabroek News of August 17, 2008 commented on this very issue, one that has been the bugbear and that is largely responsible for the degeneration of our country since Independence.
Editor, given the critical juncture that Guyana now faces, might I suggest that both the aforementioned letters be reprinted? In any event Ishwar Prashad’s point of departure was a then recent statement of President Jagdeo who had said: “we have to change the political culture of the land.” Ishwar’s equally plaintive plea was a hope that it would cause a debate to begin on healing the racial cleavage which has hamstrung the country and its development “and that it will be done in a non-partisan way, where statesmanship and not parochial pontificating will prevail.” He said further: “It is time! ( exclamation mine) for healing and not name-calling and blame-mongering.”
Having uttered his platitude, Bharrat Jagdeo showed no interest in using the highest office in the land in either fostering or participating in such a debate.
Jagdeo, however, has showed up with a hysterical vengeance and at a PPP rally on April 19, 2015 at Albion, Corentyne uttered the unutterable. In a naked appeal to fear and hate he said: “When they (APNU+AFC) link up with the Military and come into your homes and start kicking the doors down and when they come after you, who is going to be there …?”
Instead of a message of healing, unity and togetherness Jagdeo and the PPP are preaching race hate, fear, bitterness and division.
There are other signs that the PPP’s campaign which is based on fear and race hate, has allies. Mayor Hamilton Green has exposed the actions of a handful of “persons of African descent (who are) threatening our brothers and sisters of Indian ancestry.” The Mayor says his investigations reveal that these persons are working for the PPP/C (KN. April 21, 2015). Popular columnist Freddie Kissoon too has recently exposed this phenomenon and provided specific examples. Social activist Mark Jacobs has done the same on his blog <markjacobs.co>.
Editor, it is clear to me that an increasingly desperate PPP led by former President BharratJagdeo (a man who does not have a chick or a child) have mounted a tiger and seem very comfortable and prepared to rule over a wasteland. APNU+AFC, however, have grasped the mettle of racial division and are desirous of turning away from this road to perdition. We invite Guyanese both at home and abroad to reject the poison the PPP are now offering and to focus on our collective future which lies in racial harmony and unity. As IshwarPrashad’s letter implored: “Diversity is strength if properly handled.”
Ronald Bulkan
APNU+AFC coalition

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Instead of healing, unity and togetherness, the PPP is preaching race hate, fear, and bitterness

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