BRAY DONKEY, BRAY

Sep 27, 2015 Features / Columnists, From the Diaspora

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By Ralph Seeram

During a recent family reunion, my brother George and I reminisced on our boyhood days. We let the younger nieces and nephews know how “tough” life was in our youthful days in Guyana. Most of the younger ones never heard or saw a donkey or a donkey cart, so naturally they were keen to hear stories about how we survived as a poor family.

My brother recalled our donkey, “Saga Boy”. Saga Boy was a very smart donkey, if not stubborn sometimes. Life could not exist without Saga Boy. If you need barrels of water fetched, it was Saga Boy.

To make a long story short Saga Boy was what is today your SUV and Pickup Truck.

So when I saw that Freddie Kissoon mentioned me in the letter column this week inferring that I am an “Indian Supremacist” Saga Boy readily came to mind. Saga Boy had one tune in braying, Freddie has one tune in writing.

Saga Boy was essential to making our chores lighter, Freddie as an entertainment writer (he probably is the only person who thinks he is a serious writer) is essential to bringing comic relief in our everyday lives.

But there is one major difference between Saga Boy the Jackass and Freddie Kissoon. Saga Boy was an intelligent ass. Therein lies the difference. But remember a Jackass will still remain a donkey.

So what Freddie brayed about me lately? Actually I did not know I was that important; actually never thought of myself as Indian then Guyanese. If I am guilty of anything, it is calling me a Berbician first before saying I am a Guyanese. You will find a large number of Berbicians think that way.

So what did I do to gain this “honor” from the self-styled, political activist? Social activist?? “Trained historian”?

Oh I criticized Moses Nagamootoo in the run up to the last election. Freddie brayed that I was afraid Nagamootoo will cause the PPP to lose the election, resulting in Indians losing power.

As I recall, and I still maintain, Moses Nagamootoo in my view is a political opportunist. Fact, he claimed he was anointed by Cheddi Jagan to be his heir. When he did not get the PPP nomination he jumped in bed with the AFC, with demands of a senior position. Then he jumped into bed with the PNC, a party he opposed for over 40years with the promise of a Prime Ministership and powers he is yet to achieve. Ask Joe Harmon.

But back to Freddie braying. He was actually replying to what one Lormarsh Roopnanarine wrote, it had nothing to do with me, but dragged me in as a “Indian Supremacist” in the Diaspora.

This is what he is good at, name calling and labeling people, in his warped mind, the world must share his twisted illogical views. His envious mind is more focused on people and personalities who are more successful than him, he tries to belittle people who disagree with his singular view of the world.

A supremacist is one who advocates the supremacy of some particular group or race over all others. I would like to see where I advocated that Indians are supreme to other groups.

This fool knows very little of me, my family, friends and upbringing in making such an idiotic inference.

Two weeks ago the comedian mentioned me also in an article unrelated to me, but mentioned I am an untrained journalist, I did not see the relevance of that to the article. Freddie brays about him being a trained historian versed in research He did not have to go far he only had to ask the editor of this newspaper for info on me.

First I would like to know where the fool was trained in journalism. Being a mediocre college teacher for 26 years does not qualify you to be a journalist. You got to be pretty stupid and dumb to spend 26 years of your life in an institution you “bad mouth” every day.

Back in the day journalists trained on the job, there was nothing like a journalism course in Guyana. Reporters started as apprentice and worked their way up. Some fresh out of high school were also trained on the job. A few were able to go on courses abroad, but that was far and in between. So Freddie, store this in your file on me.

I worked as the Berbice correspondent for the now defunct Evening Post and Sunday Argosy in the early 70’s. The job as a Berbice correspondent is a rounded position, you do all aspects on reporting – sports, crime, court and anything newsworthy.

With the closure of the Evening Post I moved on to the Guyana Graphic, then Guyana’s leading newspaper, as their Berbice correspondent. The Graphic had some heavyweight reporters and writers. Your standards had to be very high to have your stories published by then Editor Montague Smith. You had to be pretty good to last four years with them.

I actually succeeded George Barclay who is still around and probably Guyana’s oldest journalist after Adam Harris. Ok Adam, I threw that one in.

Incidentally George must be the only journalist in Guyana who still writes shorthand. I lost that skill decades ago.

After a few years with the Graphic I moved on to Radio, succeeding the great Oscar Ramjeet, as the Berbice Correspondent for the then Guyana Broadcasting Service forerunner to today’s government owned radio stations. Remember there were only two radio stations in those days.

That had to be somewhere in the mid 70’s, I can recall a young long hair hippie looking Ron Sanders, now Sir Ron Sanders without the hair, interviewing me and giving me assignments to make up and report before giving me the job as a stringer, paid on stories, which paid more than a salary.

Of course Radio was a new experience, but I had the late great Cecil Griffith as Editor to guide me.

After Sanders moved on to bigger things, the late Terry Holder placed me on staff on the top of the salary scale as a senior reporter where I stayed for some four years until I moved to the United States. For an “untrained” reporter I think I did pretty well.

But what about the training, Freddie? Considering that he does not have a creative mind, I mean the poor fellow can only write about the PPP, Jagdeo and Ramotar. That is the extent of the journalist experience.

The PPP has been out of office going on five months now, but everyday his article is on Jagdeo/PPP. He is stuck in that mode. The truth is he is not creative enough to write on any other subject.

You would have thought the “trained historian” would have enlightened Guyanese on the history on the Venezuela crisis, and how the issue was settled in 1899. That would be more topical than Donald Ramotar’s misuse of the word “intuition”. It shows he cannot think beyond PPP.

Ralph Seeram can be reached at email; [email protected] and Facebook

 

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