Oscar Wilde, flour, marijuana: A Guyana tragedy

Jul 26, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the fictions I read early in my life was “Picture of Dorian Grey” by Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. The book was introduced to me by the brother of the then leading economics professor in Guyana, Dr. Rawle Farley. I came to like Wilde even though I never read another book or play by him ever. Wilde’s life was destroyed after he was jailed for homosexuality and he never flourished after that.
Today, homosexuality would not carry a jail sentence and countless writers as good as Wilde are openly homosexual. With the passage of time, taboos die but when those taboos were the law of the land, those who ran foul of them were either killed, murdered or jailed.
There was a time in this country when wheat flour was banned and those found with it were jailed; some had their vehicles and boats confiscated. When I came back from studies abroad I went on matutinal walks on the Camp Street seawall. Each morning my eyes would glance at a confiscated speed boat in the compound of the headquarters of CID. This was an expensive boat that the wealthy folks use for leisure. It was nabbed in the transport of illegal flour from Suriname to Guyana.
Barrington Braithwaite told me a story in the era of banned flour when a governmental team visited the vendors selling bread on Orange Walk next to the Bourda Green. Barry said the vendors scattered and left their bread on the stands when the team came upon them. Barry said a prominent Minister, pelted loaves of bread behind a vendor running east on Robb Street. That person is still prominent in Guyana in 2016. Barry didn’t give me permission to quote the name. You would have to ask him if you are interested in an identification of the person.
As the name Barrington Braithwaite is mentioned here let me offer a belated apology to Barry. We had discussed some angles of serial killings of gay men and I misinterpreted Barry and erroneously wrote that we could piece together a picture. Barry was annoyed and called me up. Time passed on and I never got to my apology. Barry is a friend and I agree – I didn’t use appropriate sentence construction. Back to flour.
The ban on wheat flour was lifted by President Hoyte in 1986 but when it existed many lives were broken as back in the days when Wilde was prosecuted. I know shopkeepers and vendors whose lives were permanently disrupted because they were charged for possession of flour. Look at Guyana today. Flour is as perennial as the grass.
Pick up the newspapers for any day, and you will read about persons between the age of 16 and 40 remanded, then jailed for small amounts of marijuana far less than the legal limit in Jamaica which is forty grams. One day in the immediate or distant future, the draconian marijuana law will be removed from the law books, but the devastation that it would have caused cannot be measured. If you count it on a monthly basis, at least ten persons go on remand and get jail time for ganja possession.
In most instances, these men leave behind families with very small children. In the case of the famous footballer, Vibert Butts, he had three young children to support, none of them above twelve years.
I’ve been reading comments in the Kaieteur News in which people opined that I would not make a good politician because I am too idealistic. I agree, but I want those persons to know it will not stop me from going on the platform in the election campaigns and denouncing our hypocritical leaders. And I will do just that when we get into the election mood in 2019. I will ask voters not to vote for any party that refuses to amend the law as it relates to quantity of possession of ganja and the sentencing structure.
One day the morbid conservatism of Guyanese politicians will give way to more decent, visionary and modern thinking. And it will sweep away anachronistic laws that the PPP, PNC and AFC have maintained in this tragic land. One day a man and woman will enter a High Court room and tell a judge, that they have moved away from each other and therefore want a divorce. They will not have to lie to a judge in order to get their freedom. When that day comes, we must remember Oscar Wilde, the vendor who got pelted with loaves of bread, the convicted youths and also the hopeless leaders that once governed this tragic land.

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Oscar Wilde, flour, marijuana: A Guyana tragedy

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