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Where are the suitable persons that can cross the race divide?
Dear Editor
When Guyanese meet up on the subway in New York, politics is always the favourite topic. I have been living in New York for over thirty eight years and I am still to find out why Guyana has not produced a top leader in the political parties or in Parliament or in the government itself who is from the diaspora. I say this because there are so many of us who are interested in politics.
Last Sunday, my cousin and I were travelling on the subway. We were off to a family event when I showed him something in the Kaieteur News on my smart phone. It was about Freddie Kissoon in a new political party. As he read it, he handed back the phone almost immediately. He said the story is not about Freddie Kissoon. He is a great admirer of Freddie. As we talked about the article, he made the point that I never thought about.
He said that in all of Guyana, there is only one Indian that Black people accept as a genuine person in politics, and that is Freddie Kissoon. He went on to say that Guyana is a poorer place for such a distraught situation. He is not right, he is a thousand percent right. In the total population, only one Indian is eligible to get the support of Black people. How can Guyana move on if we do not have people on the other side of the racial divide that we welcome and trust?
Guyana has produced smart and educated Indian doctors, lawyers, businessmen, writers and poets, engineers, teachers, bankers, agriculturalists. Yet Black people would only put their faith in one Indian to lead them in politics. That is a poor country indeed as my cousin observed. Where have all the Indians gone? I am a Black man and I know from inside my mind that I do not see those Indian names. Your letter writer mentioned Major General, Joe Singh and Dr. Janet Bulkan. I know the General served his country well and is a distinguished gentleman.
He was a top army officer well respected in the seventies when I left Guyana. But I am not sure he can carry Black people votes in a third political party. I don’t know the other name, Dr. Janet Bulkan though I have read her writings in the newspapers. There is a white businessman in Harlem whose name I will not mention, and I can tell you this, Black Americans in Harlem would choose him in an election over many Black candidates. Guyana will not go anywhere unless it can produce dozens of Freddie Kissoons in the Black and Indian races.
I am a Blackman and would only want to stick to expressing the feelings of Black people since I am not qualified to speak on how Indians see Black leaders, but in all honesty, Black people have not produced leaders that Indians would welcome the way Freddie Kissoon has been accepted by Blacks. Please don’t tell me the Blacks in the PPP are welcomed by Indians. Where and when? Which Indian would vote for the PPP’s Black leaders if they lead the PPP or form a third party? The PNC is the party of my choice but I have to say that I do not think among its current Black leaders there is a Black version of Freddie Kissoon.
President Granger is a growing version of Obama and may be accepted by the Indians in the next five to six years, but I do not see that happening right now in Guyana. To think the PPP and the PNC have been around long before Guyana gained its independence and there is no Freddie Kissoon in the PPP and there is no Black version of Freddie Kissoon in the PNC, then, this tells you how poor a country we have been in our cultural acceptance of each other. I want to end my opinion with the AFC. In all the letters I have read about the need for a new party, the name Nigel Hughes has come up. I haven’t been to Guyana since 2009 and it was after that Mr. Hughes made his name so I am in no position to assess his relationship with Indians, but from all that is said about him from my friends and relatives, he seems to be well liked and admired. Is he the Black Freddie Kissoon?
Henry Albert Joseph, Jr.
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