A $6 million offer by a Guyanese racist

Apr 30, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I will be looking at the released MI5 files on the PPP in the fifties and sixties. It is impossible in any country, except Guyana, for such documents to not be analyzed for the education of the forthcoming generations. There are people in this country that would gladly let priceless, historical information die, and the country becomes intellectually poorer.
When national figures die, those who knew them offer wonderfully inspired eulogies, but the other side of the coin is never told. That of course is understandable. Eusi Kwayana and Moses Bhagwan did just that – offered glowing tributes to Miles Fitzpatrick. They were right to do so, because they highlighted the positives they knew about the man. It is for others to analyze the negatives they saw in Fitzpatrick.
This is where my pen comes in. I have an undying loyalty to Guyana, the land that gave me birth and the land I chose to spend my entire life in. Long after I am gone, those who make Guyana their home should be entitled to read about who was who in their country eighty years ago, and who and who shaped or developed or destroyed their country eighty years ago. In other words, history must be recorded. It is an undying passion in places like Europe and the US. It must be so for Guyana.
Unfortunately, we will miss great opportunities to inform the next generation about many things it needs to know. It has to be a display of the sickest mind steeped in racist miasma when one reads what one of the Shah sisters divulged recently. For over 40 years, the Shah sisters staged a dance show named Nrityageet, originally a performance of East Indian dances. As the show grew, it took on a more diverse flavour.
There were dance pieces that were not exclusively Indian in origin and non-Indians specializing in Indian classical dance performed. Two notable inclusions were Andre Subryan and Philip McClintock, the latter benefitting from a scholarship from the Indian government. The National Dance Company, whose performers were not East Indians, was a regular feature.
Because of the inclusion of non-Indian performers, Ms. Sita Shah wrote that she was offered six million dollars if she excluded non-Indians from performing in her show. Lost forever is the name of that person or company that made the repulsive offer. One doubts Ms. Shah will want to identify him or her. Obviously, there is the libel threat.
Stop for a moment and think of what this person is made of. In a country where ethnic tensions and ethnic suspicions have destroyed this nation, and where there have been phenomenal attempts to heal this country, someone was willing to pay six million dollars just to keep a non-Indian from being part of a performance. How could someone have such a mind? Cultures must always reach out to each other, learn from each other, and help build tolerance. There could only have been one result if Nrityageet had incorporated diverse talent in its midst – diversity would have brought a better appreciation of the difference that separates people in Guyana.
What Ms. Shah wrote about that offer is so shocking that it numbs the mind to think that we have such types in the country. That person is a truly sick human that should not be part of a multi-racial country. I would like to ask Ms. Shah if she ever saw that person again, and if she ever asked for an apology and was the apology given.
There were more shocking revelations from Ms. Shah. In declaring that 2019 will see the last rites for Nrityageet that endured for forty years, she said the show over the years was decimated by boycotts from the Indian communities because they wanted it to be an all-Indian affair. She intoned that the mandirs didn’t offer support for that reason too.
What a tragic country we live in. When I read what Ms. Shah revealed and what Lincoln Lewis wrote about foreigners coming here to take our “economic greatness” (a subject I will return to in a forthcoming column), one must despair for the future. When I read these things, I think of the young ones who will not get a visa and will have to spend the rest of their lives here.
I wish Ms. Shah could reveal the identity to someone who can put it in context that will avoid libel. But such poisonous minds have no right to exist in this country. To think such minds that brought Trump to power dwell right among us here. I doubt God cares about Guyana.

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A $6 million offer by a Guyanese racist

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