A great scholar dies and leaves a sad statement on Guyana

Oct 19, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

“But man, proud man,

Dress’d in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d

(Shakespeare – Measure For Measure)

Let me quote my source. I don’t want to be accused of malicious incorrectness. In the Stabroek News of Friday, October 16, 2015, on page 11, there are the photographs of siblings Ryan Roberts and Lisa Mangru with the caption, “Siblings fined for ganja possession.” The story mentioned the fine of $5000 for each defendant.

The Stabroek News printed $5000. At the time of writing there is no correction. Was it a mistake by the newspaper or is it my imagination or is Guyana becoming a modern nation? On the same day I read about this unbelievable attitudinal metamorphosis (a phrased first used by President Burnham) in the judiciary, I saw the news of the death of one of Guyana’s most learned and prolific scholars, Professor Raymond T. Smith.

His seminal work on this country, “British Guiana” was on the compulsory reading list when I was a student at UG. Professor Smith died with the belief as expressed a few years ago that Guyana was not much better off; if better off at all, since Independence in 1966. How sad the goodly professor won’t be around in seven months’ time when we celebrate 50 years of sovereignty. He may ask what we are celebrating.

As I stated in my last Saturday column, look out in the future for my critiques on the 50-year achievement show. My first column on the subject will be titled, “Shall we celebrate the anniversary of a ghost?” Those columns will probably be penned next year

The same day I read about the incredible turn around in sentence structure and the death of Professor Smith, I also read that the police charged and the courts fined a male for cross-dressing. A heavily burdened police force found time to charge a person, put him through the courts, and the courts convicted him for cross-dressing. It was a full day of reading the newspapers because on the very same day I saw that Magistrate Ann McLennan was promoted to Chief Magistrate after her predecessor, Ms. Beharry was elevated to the High Court.

Is there any connection between the day of the announcement of the promotion and the visible departure from a pattern of harsh sentence on young offenders for mere possession of small amounts of marijuana? In the case of the siblings, they were found with one gramme of marijuana.

For those who are reading this and you are not familiar with weights and measurements, a gramme of marijuana is a little less than the content of that tiny packet of sugar or Splenda that you get at any airport cafeteria around the world. President Desmond Hoyte actually brought in a law where the sentence for possession of a gramme of cannabis or possession of a smoking utensil is three years in jail. Here now is the problem I have with this country. The official governmental reason for changing the name Home Affairs Ministry to Public Security Ministry was that the former was the retention of a colonial appellation. There doesn’t seem to be a problem here. Why should a post-colonial country retain colonial semantics?

The sad state of post-colonial countries is that they have kept values, semantics, aesthetics, cultural traits, legal systems, administrative rules that the colonials themselves have discarded many moons ago.

Our Mother Country was the UK. In the UK youths do not get three years for possession of a smoking utensil. In none of what we cynically and derisively like to call white man country – the UK, US, France, Germany, Canada, Australia – you are charged for a gramme of marijuana much less a smoking utensil

The white man brought his nonsense here, gave us Independence, and the nonsense he had in his own country he got rid of while we glorify the mores, customs and values that the white man gave us and that the very white man would frown upon in his own country. How admirable that we changed the Ministry of Home Affairs to Ministry of Public Security. Are there any leftovers from the white man days we should also dump in the garbage? What is wrong with a woman wearing an expensive sleeveless dress that prevents her from entering a Government building in Guyana? Really, can some of the philosophers in Guyana tell us what is culturally or aesthetically wrong with a sleeveless dress? The ancient Greeks once wrote that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A little colonial knowledge is a self-hating thing.

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A great scholar dies and leaves a sad statement on Guyana

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