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The AFC’s descent into Orwellian politics
May 04, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Elise Harry is one of those young Guyanese I see as one for the political future. She is a final-year UG student and the television presenter of Cuffy 250’s education programme, “African Drums,” aired every Sunday evening on Channel 9.
Ms. Harry had me as her guest last Sunday to discuss the role and nature of the state media against the backdrop of the Chronicle’s censorship of David Hinds and the paper’s refusal to publish the press release of Transparency Institute of Guyana, which was a condemnation of the unexplained dimensions of Joe Harmon’s China trip.
Ms. Harry was disappointed that someone that she reposed confidence in, as a young Guyanese with an independent mind, did not turn up to be on the panel. Ms. Harry was furious that he was not honest with her in his reason why he could not be on the panel. This gentleman now has a senior position with the Government. After the interview was over, I said to Ms. Harry that she will have many more disappointments like that, but that she must take them in her stride and not let them affect her activism. Then I made some confidential remarks to Ms. Harry.
I told her that during the PPP reign I functioned with others to remove the PPP, but they were people that were just like many in the PPP leadership. I named a few. I went on to tell Ms. Harry that I believe that there were people in the PPP Government that were better personalities than some of those with whom we struggled to remove the PPP. I never had any illusion that during the reign of Presidents Burnham and Hoyte, many in the PPP were worse than some of the PNC leaders they criticized.
I was never under any illusion that during the 23 years of the PPP reign, many of those in the wider opposition were not politically qualified to denounce the PPP. In my unending columns I even named some of them. The name Ramon Gaskin comes straight to mind. I would choose many former leaders of the just removed PPP Government to run my country than Gaskin.
Over the long years I can remember naming Miles Fitzpatrick. I have no hesitation in saying that I never admired Ralph Ramkarran and still don’t. I see no political or nationalist value in Dr. Henry Jeffrey. Dislike me or hate me, but appreciate my honesty. I do not hide my feelings. I will not.
This has been a long introduction to my rejection of the AFC’s press release on that party’s attitude to Dr. David Hinds. I consider Hinds a Guyanese icon. A young man who chose to defend the rights of Guyanese during the Burnham era and in the process was jailed for five years. He has made his contribution.
We could not have had the Coalition victory in May 2015, if in 1978 there weren’t people like David Hinds, Walter Rodney and others. Ruling parties have to defend themselves against their critics. But they have to distinguish between critics.
The AFC‘s press release did not. Its language was insulting to an icon like Hinds but more importantly, it was semantics that betray the old, primitive, destructive political culture that has been with this country over sixty years.
The AFC describes Hinds as “A self-proclaimed critic who sits in judgement of others and shelters under the new freedom which our Coalition Government has afforded and guaranteed him and others like him to express themselves…” This is an incredible display of autocratic chauvinism and distorted history, and it goes beyond the rhetoric of even some PPP leaders.
Who composed that press release? Are these composers of sound, moral quality? I beg your pardon! Which freedom the Coalition Government gave and is giving us? I would like to think that people like David Hinds gave the Coalition Government the freedom it now enjoys to pursue censorship at the Chronicle, protect Joe Harmon, put Wales sugar workers out of employment, chase down vendors all over Georgetown. I could go on.
One wonders who is next on the AFC’s anger list? Will it be the UG student leader who led a picket last month against the Coalition’s continuing neglect of UG? Will it be Lincoln Lewis who is critical of some Government’s policies?
Let me leave a reminder with the AFC. Surely, the AFC cannot be that naïve to think many do not know what is happening inside the Coalition and inside the AFC too. I think David Hinds was responding to those flowing tides. Who is next on the list?
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