Coffee from rice: Goodbye forever, Osaze

Jul 18, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Osaze, one of the greatest foot soldiers of the WPA from the Walter Rodney era is gone. He died on Wednesday. I didn’t know until I read a letter about his death in the newspapers.
One of the reasons, I came to intensely dislike the WPA leadership after the fall of the PNC dictatorship with the rebirth of free and fair elections in 1992 is how they treated these working-class comrades who formed such an important fulcrum of the WPA’s street activism.
My dislike grew intensely after 2015 when the WPA formed part of the government. I grew up with Osaze in Wortmanville. He lived one block from me on D’Urban Street. I spent most of my time in the WPA grounding with these working-class stalwarts. Most of them that I knew died in poverty after 2015. Not one of the WPA middle class leaders cared about them.
There was Mobutu. He came regularly to visit me and had no one to give him even a penny. I remember one day, he came to my home and asked what I can do to facilitate an early date for surgery since he was in pain and the only date the Georgetown Hospital could give him was two months away. I contacted the CEO of the hospital, Michael Khan, and he received surgery two days after.
Mobutu died penniless. I did what I could have done but I was never a moneyed person. Mobutu’s neighbours in Friendship beat him up badly and permanently mangled his right palm. The police did nothing because the police in that village knew the perpetrators. Mobutu complained to me hundreds of times for justice and I would say why not seek the assistance of Clive (Thomas) or Rupert (Roopnaraine) and he would just say; deh ain’t gat time for people like me.” He was right.
There was Todd when the infamous Desmond Trotman, of GECOM notoriety and the infamous Tacuma Ogunseye and I were looking for his funeral; we were directed to his home. This stalwart of the Walter Rodney era lived in a little hut unbecoming of a great revolutionary soldier.
There were so many of them that fought to protect the depraved, middle-class bohemian pseudo revolutionaries of the WPA; they were just cast into the wilderness. I saw many of these youthful cadres endured violence from the PNC thugs and House of Israel goons and look how they ended up today. None of the WPA elitist cabal that survived the Rodney era ever looked back at them. I acknowledge the role of Rupert Roopnaraine in providing a shelter for Osaze for decades now. But that was because of personal attachment not of ideological convictions.
Of these working-class cadres of the WPA, I spent an inordinate amount of time with Mobutu and Osaze but particularly Osaze because we lived a block away from each other. There is one incident I always remember about Osaze that I will never ever forget because it forms part of my memory bank of the seventies and the great Walter Rodney.
One night after a WPA meeting, Osaze and I left to go to a place he was staying in West Ruimveldt. It was a smelly bottom house outfit. On a “fireside”, he put on a pot of coffee. After it was finished and I took the first taste, I spat it out right away shouting, “wuh de rass is duh?” Osaze boiled a pot of burnt rice, and called that brew, ground coffee. This is one of the memories of my Walter Rodney days I will always remember.
Of all of these youthful cadres, my wife liked Osaze because she found him to be extremely funny. Osaze would tell you the stalest joke and would laugh loudly at his own joke. I would say Osaze is one of the few humans I met in this life that I never saw got annoyed.
Looking back at those days, I knew in my soul and psyche that in the company of Todd, Osaze, Mobutu was where I belonged. Shortly after the coffee fiasco, I got married in 1978 and left to study in Canada. I kept in touch with most of them and renewed our camaraderie after I returned in 1984. By then I was a family man and working as an academic at UG so we saw less and less of each other.
I remember when Mobutu died, his wife came to Kaieteur News looking for me to assist in any way I could. It was a heart-breaking moment for me because I knew what he did for the WPA way back in the Walter Rodney era. I guess, the poor will always suffer. Goodbye Osaze!
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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Coffee from rice: Goodbye forever, Osaze

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