Norman Bates and Dracula at bottom house meetings

Dec 13, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I read where someone wrote that Volda Lawrence was addressing a private meeting, therefore she did not publicly echo a racist rhetoric. The most obvious thing to note is why in a country torn asunder by racial animosity, ethnic discrimination and racist demagoguery for the past seventy years, would a politician speak to Guyanese using the kind of emanations that punctuated Ms. Lawrence’s delivery.
What Ms. Lawrence said is just routine stuff. It is the nature of party politics in Guyana and it comes in the sickest manifestations at the bottom house meetings of the PPP and PNC.
In the age of the smart phone, we may eventually see the decapitation of Norman Bates at these bottom house insanities. The damage to Lawrence is so great because of someone recording her with his/her phone, that at these Draculean, ethnic rituals at bottom house meetings, PPP and PNC leaders will now be careful how they spew the ethnic lava.
In the 2011 general elections, I was in the company of some AFC leaders in Linden, when one of them named a top PNC figure who at private house meetings during the campaign in Linden urged attendees to “vote for your own.” Make no mistake about it; while the PNC guy told his audience that in Linden, at exactly the same time, somewhere in Mahaicony, a PPP leader was giving out the same exhorts.
Deadly ethnic demagoguery has destroyed this country, but few persons know that the most venomous, nasty, diabolic racist rants take place during election campaigns at the bottom house gatherings. The worst racist poison to come out of the mouth of a human being anywhere in the world is seen in Guyana during election campaigns, and they are mouthed off not in public spaces, but the secret bottom house meetings.
When the attendees leave those nocturnal indoctrinations, they are overtaken with emotional passion about their own people winning the elections. I am not optimistic that what happened to Lawrence will end the spread of the ethnic lava at these bottom house affairs. Attendees will simply be told to leave their phones at the entrance on a table. I was told that you are not allowed to take your phones with you at the quarterly meetings of the AFC’s executive body.
People do not realize it, but racist indoctrination and ethnic triumphalism will continue to thrive in Guyana, because at these bottom house affairs, both ethnic leviathans (PPP and PNC) find them indispensible. If supporters are going to go out in all parts of Guyana to get their own people to vote for you, then you have to inspire them to think in terms of “them versus us.”
What Lawrence said is typical of what takes place at these bottom house rituals. Lawrence did not use language that was any different from what other PNC and PPP leaders mouth off at these secret gatherings. Lawrence was exposed, but the identical sermons have been preached by the PPP and PNC for decades now.
I suspect that when the Amerindian party is formed, they may join the chorus. I could imagine what will take place at those selected nightly forums in the villages during the 2020 campaign. Amerindians will be fed a diet of who don’t like them; who want to keep them out of Guyana; who is denying them their share of the pie; who thinks they are more superior to Amerindians. And parting words before the followers exit the door would be – “vote for your own.” Obviously, no such language will be said publicly. But as night follows day, the Amerindian party is going to emulate their counterparts in the PPP and PNC.
Of course, the context is different. The Amerindian party has a right to agitate for the well-being of the Indigenous people. They are definitely Guyana’s neglected people. With the PNC and PPP, the situation is entirely different. The semantic terror that characterize bottom house conspiracies will not stop in 2020. This columnist believes that Lawrence’s words will be repeated by other PNC leaders. PPP leaders will use the Lawrence infamy to remind Indians that they must take back Guyana for the sake of the Indians in Guyana.
Lawrence has been condemned for what she wrongly composed. But you are foolish to think that equal nastiness has not been said before by PPP and PNC leaders. Lawrence was unlucky. She got caught. Guyanese will continue to view each other with ethnic anger because of what PPP and PNC leaders instill in them. But really! Why would PPP and PNC leaders damage the psyches of the young by preaching race hate at these bottom house outings?

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