President Granger and his victims of the Stockholm syndrome

Dec 29, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I am using Stockholm syndrome very loosely here, but in a complex way it can be applied to electoral politics, and Guyana is not the almost perfect but the perfect milieu in which it can thrive. Looking at the definition, it is not hard to see how it works. Stockholm syndrome is the gradual birth of a feeling of empathy in a hostage after spending time with his/her captor. The victim comes to develop sentiments of understanding and sympathy with his/her kidnapper.
The core element is the process of “understanding.” Sharing the same space over a period of time, the captive falls prey to the constant lamentations of his/her jailor. In a complex way, the victim believes that fate has dealt the captor a bad hand, and that explains why the jailor does the desperate things he does. The psychologist explains it in detail, so there is no reason to elaborate.
If you study the perpetual ethnic predicament that Guyanese of African and Indian communities live with, then it can explain why the two major parties – Indian PPP and African PNC – continue to receive massive support from constituencies that they neglect or don’t give a damn about or just take for granted. Indian rights activists always point to the 44 percent vote that the PNC got in 1992 despite its 28 years of power, in which Guyana’s economy was almost in ruins, and President Hoyte’s ERP had literally devastated the lives of public servants.
African Guyanese seem to think that despite all the corruption, criminalities and depravities of the PPP in office, Indians stuck with them and will continue to do so. I remember during the 2015 election campaign in Berbice, Raymond Hall of the AFC took us to a wake one evening. There I met a woman who explained her tragic life (see my two columns of January 19 and March 3, both in 2015) to me.
Her husband was killed by a speeding lorry from an influential business firm. Nothing was done. Her brother-in-law was killed by a speeding superintendent of police. Nothing was done. This lady was going blind because of glaucoma and the Ministry of Health told her they could not support her medical expenses abroad. I queried why she didn’t ask the PPP’s representative in Berbice to get justice for her and to secure medical attention.
She said she gave up after being pushed around all the time. I did two columns on that woman’s sad life and intervened with the Ministry of Health to fund her expenses in Trinidad. In the 2015 general election, that woman voted for the PPP. She was honest to tell me that is how it goes in Berbice. I will always remember this situation in my journalism career, because I came face to face with the Stockholm syndrome.
It is important to note that despite the loss of her husband and her sister’s husband and near blindness, she voted for a group of people that left her in that situation. This was the Stockholm syndrome, where a captive sleeps on a dirty mattress, is given unfit food, and cannot enjoy freedom, yet is happy to sympathize with persons(s) who are doing that to them.
I thought about the Stockholm syndrome when I saw photographs of President Granger visiting vendors in Stabroek Market Square; they embraced him, he embraced them, and the laughs and smiles were broad and inviting. It is my opinion (I am entitled to express it; don’t I?) that Mr. Granger was directly involved in the decision to move over 100 Stabroek Square vendors for the celebratory observance of 50th anniversary of Independence. The President and his planners needed the float parade to move off from that site.
All of those vendors were poor people whose lives were disrupted. Maybe some of them just went out of business. It is my considered opinion that more vendors will be moved, and that is happening at the Georgetown seawall. This time Granger is not the main culprit, but Minister David Patterson.
At the wedding reception of Leonard Craig, in my speech I mentioned that David Patterson was one of my favourite politicians. That was the Patterson I knew as a friend. Patterson is no longer one of my favourite politicians. David Granger will not be one of my favourite politicians. Granger and Patterson can move vendors because they never had any direct knowledge of what poverty was like. They don’t know what its like to endure poverty. But why bother. Once the Stockholm syndrome exists, Granger and Patterson will continue to get hugs and kisses from their victims.

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President Granger and his victims of the Stockholm syndrome

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