I find UG Chancellor Harris’ words offensive

Aug 09, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I don’t want to single out for criticism any diaspora personality who has returned here to work. In two previous columns on the Vice Chancellor of UG, I carefully worded my paragraphs to avoid any personal remarks on him. I have dealt with UG as a microcosm of the larger society, and in another column I looked at the issue of the diaspora. I am not interested in the personality of UG Vice Chancellor Ivelaw Griffith, its Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris, and former UG academic, Dr. Mark Kirton.
This column is about the diaspora as an issue. I would have to make reference to Griffith, Harris and Kirton, but the names are mentioned here only in relevance to the discussion of the issue.
I am not opposed to qualified diaspora Guyanese having employment here. I am inflexibly opposed to that process only if we have locals who are eligible. And we have. There is a phrase we use in local lingo, “the trenches.” Locals with the requisite qualifications have been in the trenches, living here in Guyana the past thirty-five years (35 years is a long time to live in the trenches). The diaspora talents that are back in GT have not even seen the trenches, much less to have stepped in them.
It is for this reason I endorse the employment of former soldiers. I did an entire column in support of such employment (see my June 11th article, “Former soldiers and diaspora Guyanese in state employment.”). Many of those soldiers I taught at UG; they stayed in their country with their university degrees. UG has opened up a Diaspora Engagement Centre, and its acting head is quoted in the newspaper yesterday as saying he would come back to Guyana if the conditions are right.
Here is a Freudian admission that things aren’t right in Guyana. But many of us stayed, one of whom is Dr. Mark Kirton, who remained at UG for thirty-two years while others went away and never came back. Things still are not right, but we are still here and have not asked for super salaries. I was educated in a “First World” country so I know about lands.
At age sixty-five, what has the developed world to offer some of these diaspora Guyanese? So they kill two mosquitoes with one stone (don’t like the use of the words, birds”). They have nothing to do in the industrial world, but they come back to Guyana at their retirement age and get the jewel and the crown. And our visionless politicians in power are too unconcerned to detect the con.
In a polemic on this subject, I find the words of UG Chancellor, Professor Nigel Harris deeply offensive. Speaking on the coronation of the 10th Vice Chancellor, Ivelaw Griffith, he told his audience that we do not know the personal sacrifice Griffith made to come to Guyana. Let me repeat for the umpteenth time; the emphasis is not the man Griffith, it is the issue. But maybe Harris or Griffith himself can tell us about Griffith’s sacrifice.
Dr. Griffith, Dr. Kirton, former Chancellor Carl Singh and I were students at UG at the same time. We all left at the same time for higher degrees in the “First World”. Dr. Griffith didn’t come back until 2016. In an interview with the Stabroek News, he said for the thirty-six years he was abroad he learnt a lot about the world. I would like to go on record as saying for those thirty-six years I have been in Guyana and in the trenches with Kirton, Singh and others, we have learnt a lot about our country, Guyana. Pardon my chauvinism, but I think I am a little expert on Guyana.
As for Professor Harris, he left forty years ago and has never returned. He retired as Vice Chancellor of UWI two years ago and lives outside. These are not personal or personalized statements on any names mentioned here, but the context is germane to the polemic on the diaspora. Harris said that Griffith is back to help with the transformation of Guyana. Harris made no mention that why the university is still standing is that while he and Griffith were working for other universities, some academics, using meagre salaries and working with non-existent resources, kept UG alive.
I end with a story about the great basketball player, Stephen Curry. He agreed to take a salary cut so his team could retain some of his colleagues he plays with by making funds available to keep them. I call that nationalism. Our diaspora returnees should emulate Curry.

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