One day Guyana will come good, so we must write

Mar 08, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I had brunch on Tuesday morning at the Spicy Dish on David Street, Kitty with a WPA fellow traveler who was very active with the WPA in the seventies. He is visiting Guyana from the USA. He still functions with the WPA. I consider him one of the very few persons from the seventies that have remained faithful to the political culture of Walter Rodney.
With the exception of Dr. David Hinds, Moses Bhagwan, Eusi Kwayana and Dr. Nigel Westmas, every one of the WPA leadership and its extended leadership from the seventies has in substantial ways moved away from the ideological essence of the WPA Rodeneyite culture.
Many of them have embraced styles of politics that not only have Walter Rodney turning in his grave but are depraved and reactionary. Looking at how they have deteriorated really lacerates my psyche. How can people so rich in activism forty years ago become so disgustingly jejune?
Naturally our first set of discussions was on the WPA. He thinks Rupert Roopnaraine should be made by the WPA to leave the government as its representative. He thinks Roopnaraine does not represent the WPA’s essential thoughts and quintessential ideas in the government of Guyana. He told me Roopnaraine is unapologetic about the dichotomy of his (Roopnaraine’s) politics when he met with him. For that reason the WPA should remove him.
My reaction to that was to ask him if he read my analysis of the evolution of the politics of Rupert Roopnaraine since he returned to Guyana in 1976. I explained that when all the disappointments with Roopnaraine are laid on the table that as far back as 2013, I had done my analysis of Roopnaraine. I went home after our brunch and emailed my assessment to him. It is titled, “The Sky’s Wild Noise” drowned me with pessimism” done in May 2013.
I made reference to this meeting last Tuesday with this important WPA personality because based on the rich source of information that resides inside his head on the WPA and Guyana’s politics in the seventies, he needs to write. Such recording of this country’s history is invaluable. Too many of my political comrades keep insisting to me why I name names and places when I write, and over the decades my answer is the same – I may be a social/political activist but I was trained as a historian and I want to record history.
That is the same answer I give to friends in the media when they ask me why I name names all the time. It happened as recent as last Saturday at the barbecue fund-raising event for Ron Robinson’s heart surgery. One of Guyana’s most prominent and likeable businessmen said to me in the presence of many others; “Man, Freddie why you had to mention, David DeCaires in your column the other day.” My answer was standard; “I’m recording history.”
There is a very important letter in the press yesterday, written by Harry Hergash, one of UG’s first graduates. He was in the batch of UG’s first graduation ceremony. Hergash lives in Canada and is moving into his eighties. His letter on how Turkeyen came to be the site for UG’s expansion is a well documented one in which he cites publications from people like Professor Harold Drayton, Professor Mary Noel Menezes and former Guyanese diplomat, Dr. Odeen Ishmael.
He brought out facts on the transfer of land by Bookers for UG at Turkeyen that though existed in many publications before his letter, a majority of Guyanese may not know about. With his letter, young UG students will now know how Turkeyen came to be the location for UG and who the personalities in Guyana and in the colonial office in London were that made that happen.
Before he became Prime Minister, on every occasion that I met Moses Nagamootoo, I would ask him if he is not writing about his long political career. At the 2014 Christmas lime of the then AFC’s General Secretary, David Patterson, I asked him again and he said the publication is on its way.
Now is 2018. That was three years ago, so I guess his work is completed. Dr. Henry Jeffrey who served for seventeen consecutive years as a Cabinet Minister wrote the following words last week; “As requested by Mr. Nandlall, one day I may well elaborate on my contribution to trying to get the PPP to take a course different from the destructive one it ultimately set itself upon.” I think all Guyana would welcome such a publication because one day this empty society will come good and there will be a fascinating history to be read.

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