The world’s most dangerous minds exist in Guyana

Sep 24, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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One of the most unbearable patterns of thoughts I find exist in this country was manifested in the newspapers weeks after Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali was sworn as president. This shape of the mind is so curious that you don’t know it is evil at work or the mind honestly, without any scheming (and the emphasis is on honesty), believes what it churns out.
I remember writing about Tony Blair’s decision for British intervention in the war in Iraq because he believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Academic society in the UK tends to reject this claim by Blair, postulating that he was happy to be a sycophant of President Bush who ordered the invasion. But we would never know? Suppose Blair, deep in his soul, thought that Iraq had those weapons.
We are seeing letters often in the press, since the new president was sworn in last month, written by people calling for racial tolerance, inclusive temperament, moral honesty, clean politics, mutual appreciation of each other who hold opposing conceptualization and in the same breath lamenting that Guyanese society lacks good people, thinking people, ethically driven people and is devoid of important values like honesty, incorruptibility, open-mindedness, etc.
But when you go back before August, those same letter writers were displaying poisoned, imbalanced, depraved attitudes on the political developments since the election impasse began with Clairmont Mingo on March 4. How can you reconcile this contradiction?
In March, April, May, June, July, you wrote that the election was tampered with by the opposition. You support the incumbent’s wild, sick, degenerate claims that it won the poll. You sang songs of praise to racist, corrupt leaders that were putting Guyana at the precipice. You denounced foreign governments for rejecting rigged elections. You accuse international observers of insulting Guyana’s sovereignty. Then comes August, the incumbent used up its ghastly, ghoulish energy and the world demanded the rightly winner be accepted and suddenly, you want a Guyana where people must be good, conscientious and honest.
You contributed to the erosion of those values now you are barefaced enough to question where they have gone to. Are we dealing here with sick and dangerous minds? Or are these letter-writers just pouring out what they feel without a hidden agenda? I had a chat on Monday midday with Kaieteur New’s publisher, Glenn Lall, on one such letter writer and he said, “You sure he wrote those things during the election crisis?”
There were columnists in other newspapers writing that in Guyana there is relevance of the Black Lives Matter movement while a majority of Black Guyanese were attacking and robbing East Indian in Region Five. Not one of these columnists wrote that East Indian lives matter. Did they deliberately chose not to write on what happened to that 16-year-old girl and her grandmother who were caught up in the Region Five mayhem or are we judging them too harshly?
In this context we should appraise the new organization founded by David Hinds with a most exciting yet intriguing name in the context of it being birthed by David Hinds. It is titled Society for African-Guyanese Empowerment. Is David Hinds a dangerous mind like some of those letter-writers or he is genuine?
This man wants to empower African Guyanese or he is looking for African hegemony. In September, Hinds is seeking African empowerment. From March to August in 2020, Hinds was attempting to achieve African hegemony in a context where modern democratic institutions would be abolished.
Two pieces of evidence need to be looked at. He intoned that if the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled in favour of the Caribbean observed recount it would be tantamount to a coup against the Granger presidency. So will African empowerment be effected in the context of the rule of law? Not one in that panel of judges was Guyanese. None ever lived or worked in Guyana. Hinds simply did not accept the rule of law.
Secondly, during the five-month impasse, he argued that there are greater sociological exigencies that Guyana needs to examine and that must be prioritized rather than the 2020 election result. He was rightfully talking about the ethnic volcano. Then he sought to trigger a device to explode the volcano. He insisted if a result has to be made then it should be for the Granger regime. This was not a search for African empowerment but a declaration of African hegemony in multi-racial Guyana.
Two other minds have to be examined for the shape they had before Dr. Ali’s swearing and since he acquired the presidency. They are Vincent Alexander and Lincoln Lewis. More on those two later.

(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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