The historian’s only loyalty is to country

May 13, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Every admirable activist that I have had a profound tête-à-tête with; from those who fought the Burnham, Hoyte, Jagan and Jagdeo administrations to those who see danger ahead with the Granger government, I have said that my task is to write about power and politics so that after this generation goes, the subsequent ones will know what their county was like
I have no reason and will have no motive to obfuscate historical knowledge that subsequent generations are entitled to know about Guyana. From the time you take that step to enter a university classroom to become a historian, you have the obligation to record history without fear or feeling, without sacred cows or sacred secrets.
I have tried to do just that after thirty years of newspaper commentary and over twenty-six years of academic teaching. I have always mentioned to those activists whenever we have lunch or just a coffee, that unlike the great ones in the PPP, PNC, WPA, AFC, and other organizations, I do not have sentiments of struggle that deter me from writing about the facts of history (truth is another matter altogether; really, What is truth?). What I have are memories of struggle.
The names of places and events are too plentiful to mention. My time as a radical, wayward, politically-driven UG student between 1974 and 1978; my time with the WPA; my time as a UG lecturer and the struggle to change UG from a cemetery to what an academic institution should always be like; my friendship with some nice AFC people since the birth of the AFC until its acquisition of power in May 2015; my time as an activist against the horrendous regimes of Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar. Those memories are philosophically enthralling for me, and I will always reflect on them when I am alone, wherever. But sentiments I do not have. Sentiments are the enemy of the historian.
When a painter sits before a canvas, the thought is to create an everlasting image. The historian does the same thing with his/her pen. The image is called the recording of history. When the historian picks up the pen, the thought is never far away that secrets must be prized open. The historian wants to open up cloistered cupboards, because the knowledge it generates subsequent generations are entitled to know about.
Memories and sentiments must never clash when one writes history. They must never be confused or be substituted; one for the other. That is why history is best written by trained minds and not partisan activists. The activist should be confined to memoirs and autobiographies. It is for this reason; we cannot expect historical accuracies from the leaders’ beneficiaries and the leaders’ admirers. People like President Granger and Vincent Alexander are never, and I emphasize never, going to offer subsequent Guyanese generations both sides of the coin that Forbes Burnham minted in Guyana. The ageing PPP leaders who so passionately loved Cheddi and Janet Jagan, are not going to juxtapose their faults with their achievements. They are only going to serenade the next generation with the angelic interpretation of the Jagans.
It is the same with all other organizations including the WPA etc. It is for this reason, I devoted an entire column recently to the confession of Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, when he is quoted in a book on Walter Rodney as admitting that the WPA was going to attack the State under President Burnham, and was accumulating arms for that purpose. Many WPA persons put sentiments in front of historical recording and were disapproving of that piece on Roopnaraine. To preserve sentiments, they even denied what Roopnaraine wrote, even though Roopnaraine was recording history. I am not an admirer of Roopnaraine’s politics, but I am a huge admirer of the way he engaged history in that book.
It is a pity no more Roopnaraines are coming forward to enable the historian to record history. But the historian should not be deterred. The historian has a job to do like the policeman, the banker, the soldier, the doctor, the lawyer. One of the great things about the older and more developed nations of this world is that the importance of recording history is a precious value in society.
Of course it has to do with age and experience. The older a country, the richer is the experience, and over time, people come to see how serious it is to write about history. Here in Guyana, we are still to learn about the precious art of passing on the facts of Guyana’s history to those who will inherit this land.

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