Trotman’s attack on Jerry Gouveia is intellectual fraud

Aug 01, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It is my opinion that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) comprise of people that are close friends of Bharrat Jagdeo, an intimacy born out of the Jagdeo presidency. Some of these people have benefited enormously from Jagdeo’s patronage. Today their wealth is stupendous.

Freddie Kissoon

In the era of the PPP’s hegemony, the PSC lost its credibility as an important actor in civil society. For my thoughts on the degeneracy of the PSC see some of my columns particularly – Saturday, July 15, 2017, “Isn’t the Private Sector Commission tired of sprouting ignorance and nonsense?” Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011 “The Private Sector Commission has missed the point badly.” Monday March 26, 2018, “Only idiots do not know things come back to haunt you.”
In the years of the presidency of Jagdeo and Ramotar, the PSC was shamelessly pro-government. Today it is pro-PPP. I would classify Gerry Gouveia as far from being an independent actor. For the record, I don’t believe the PSC is an independent unit in civil society. It has a political agenda.
Gerry Gouveia of the PSC wrote the Chief Election Officer (CEO) rejecting GECOM’s embarkation of house to house registration. Some of Mr. Gouveia’s points were plausible and valid.
One of APNU’s GECOM Commissioners (APNU’s partner, the AFC was overlooked by Granger to fill a vacant seat in GECOM; he chose Trotman over the AFC’s Trevor Williams) Desmond Trotman replied to Gouveia using acidic language but in the process engaged in vulgar distortion of history and attempts at cheap political propaganda using historical fictions.
Here is Trotman trying to score cheap political points; “Further, what I found most disconcerting is the tone you adopted – a tone consistent with that of a white slave owner, who, in the presence of his overseers, is penalizing a delinquent slave for failing to carry out the instructions of “massa”.
“When I read that part of your letter I was filled with anger and I imagined the treatment of my forefathers by yours, as they were beaten– the sound of the whips and the voices of the slave owners as they counted the lashes one, two, three.
“The tone of your letter was reminiscent of that sordid period and I felt that you longed for a return of that time. It appears as if you imagined yourself wielding the powers of your ancestors as you berated Lowenfield for daring to do what you believed he should not be doing. While you may not think so, massa day has finished a long time and nothing that you do will see a return to those days.”
This is intellectual fraud on naked display. Gerry Gouveia is half-Amerindian and in my eyes appears more Amerindian than Portuguese. Mrs. Gouveia is also half-Amerindian. In my eyes, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gouveia looks like a pure Amerindian.
Now let us do a comparison using the vulgar epistemology of Desmond Trotman who is an executive member of the party that bears the mantle and legacy of Walter Rodney.
Is Barack Obama a white man? Is Claudette Singh Indian or African? She has both types of DNA. Is Beyonce a white singer? She has both Caucasian and Black American blood. Is basketball icon Stephen Curry a white man? He has Caucasian and African genes. Is Curry’s team mate, Klay Thompson a white man? Thompson’s mother is white, father Black.
I know of no non-white human in the world that would refer to Obama as a white man. Beyonce and Curry would take exception if you call them Caucasian.
So Trotman feels that Gouveia ancestors once ruled this land and Gouveia wants to see that happen again. Trotman ignored the other half of Gouveia. But there is more sordid morbidity from Trotman. Gouveia has never been associated with any group or set of people in Guyana that had a European or Portuguese agenda. Gouveia spent his life in the army of a government that had a black, nationalist agenda.
The little I know of Gouveia, I don’t think I can refer to him as a racist. On the contrary, I rather suspect that Trotman has a close WPA comrade that openly preaches race politics.
Trotman has introduced race into the election controversy. This Guyana must reject. The PSC has every right to enter the election fray in a partisan manner because Trotman and his parties, APNU and WPA, have entered the controversy in partisan ways.
What is worrying about Trotman’s political masturbation is if Indians stand to be referred to as racist if they insist that the GECOM’s CEO stop the registration exercise. Walter Rodney is turning in his grave.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)