Comparing 18 months and 15 years

Jan 18, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Why would any sane, rational, logically thinking mind find the Granger Government guilty of favouritism, corruption and violent in the exercise of power and not the Jagdeo regime? Could it be that such a mind is indeed irrational? Could it be that such a mind sees Guyanese life through the prism of ethnic solidarity? Or is it such that a mind is so devoid of civilized content and it is made essentially of depraved, immoral nastiness.
Which of the three is your choice? I am asking the question so I should give my answer. I don’t believe for a moment, Swami Asksharananda is an indecent person. On the contrary I think he is a fine gentleman. But during the 2015 election campaign he published newspaper letters in support of the reelection of the PPP. That was the choice he made about who should hold power in Guyana. I doubt anyone would describe Ms. Ryhaan Shah as an indecent woman.
Like the Swami, these people are fairly-law abiding citizens whose integrity no one has questioned. Like the Swami, Ms Shah sees Guyana through an ethnic prism. That is the right of any citizen. And many of these citizens prefer to see their own in control of the future of Guyana. There is a school of such people, especially in the diaspora who love Guyana, do not hate other races but they write in favour of the PPP and they want to see the Granger Government go.
They freely express their view in a paper named the Guyana Times, a newspaper given so many concessions by Bharrat Jagdeo that if the Granger Government does the same people probably would take him to court.
The fundamental philosophical problem I have with these people is their lack of courage. And because of this trait, they open up themselves to having adjectives with negative connotations thrown at them. Tom Dalgetty comes into the picture. He is a friend of mine a long time now and he knows my wife when she was a little girl.
Dalgetty is an African-rights activist whose views are frameworked in candid theoretical arguments. He published a letter in the press criticizing Walter Rodney for opposing Forbes Burnham because he thinks that Rodney should not have weakened a Black leader. He uses the word “Black.”
You can fight with Dalgetty as long as you like but you have to concede that he describes in honest terms what his politics is, and why he is not an admirer of Walter Rodney. A plausible polemic can emerge because you can debate with Tom questions of race in politics and how successful was Burnham in elevating his own ethnic community. There is a starting point.
But for those people who see an 18-month old administration as racist, nepotistic, violent and undemocratic, there is no starting point. Unlike Tom Dalgetty, they are dishonest in their political positions thus denying the kind of polemic we can have with Dalgetty.
What explains a citizen accusing an 18-month-old government of depravities of the worst kind in the face of a rampaging Opposition Leader whose tenure was marked by unspeakable atrocities? The explanation is simple. They do not think the types of people in the Coalition are suited for carving out a purposeful future for Guyana. But they deliberately obfuscate their political philosophy with the banality of propaganda.
There is an open market day four times a week between Alexander Street and Bourda Street on Robb Street near to Bourda Market. I go there quite often for my fruits and vegetables; I was there yesterday. I bought star-apples and pomegranates from a vendor who, with a huge smile said, “Yuh think deh gun get another five years?” He was referring to APNU+AFC of course.
I told him that is very uncertain but the other side is far more terrible and I don’t want them to come back in to power. His broad smile got broader. He chose not to say another word.
There has been a creeping disdain for the new government which has grown into a full-fledged attitude of rejection. My point is where these voices were the past fifteen years. The 15-year-old balance sheet of Presidents Jagdeo and Ramotar is simply horrible. What is needed in this country is for there to be a counter-attack to these types of people who see everything wrong with the Coalition Government and are totally oblivious to the horror show Jagdeo and Ramotar left us with.
Want to see how crazy these people will become? Let Granger say something critical about the private media, the very media Jagdeo tried to decapitate.

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Comparing 18 months and 15 years

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