Election 2020: I discovered Charlene Wilkinson and I have something in common

Oct 07, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – UG lecturer and African rights activist, Charlene Wilkinson and I developed a fairly solid comradely relation as part of a grassroot movement named People’s Parliament. It was a 24-hour grounding session with the Guyanese working people that developed after three protestors were shot dead during the 2012 protest against hike in electricity rates in Linden.
The People’s Parliament was situated directly at the junction of Brickdam and High Street, opposite Parliament Building on the empty lot that became vacant after the demolition of the building that housed the Bureau of Statistics. It was one of the nicest periods in my 50 years of social activism.
From 2012, I grounded with Charlene and we founded an organization with others named “Coalition for the 1823 monument at Parade Ground.” The purpose of this entity was to galvanize public support to pressure the Ramotar presidency to locate the monument at Parade Ground in honour of the 1823 slave rebellion.
I would never say that Charlene and I were on the same ideological wavelength. The fight for certain causes bring people together. She at that time was a WPA supporter and a strong activist inside many African cultural organizations. I, on the other hand, stayed away from any organization that was ethnically driven and saw the WPA through negative lenses.
We continued our friendship after the People’s Parliament and the 1823 organization fizzled out. I have not spoken with Charlene since middle 2019. So yesterday, I needed some information on an event during those days, and I called her. After speaking about the specific purpose, I brought up a sensitive subject-matter.
I said I have not been able to gauge how she felt about the five-month old election sage. Now read this please because this part of what I will now write is important. Charlene Wilkinson is trained in literature and teaches that discipline at UG. She never struck me as having an interest in politics both at the practical and academic level. Her interests are African rights, women rights and broad issues of culture. But Charlene took a most principled position on the election disaster and as she spoke, it was clear to me that she and I had one thing in common – we took the same position on the election rigging because we saw Guyana’s future at stake, we saw Guyana’s future in doubt.
Charlene said that it was five months that traumatized Guyana and that was wrong. She was selective in what she allowed me to print for this article. She said that she cannot see why the Americans would choose PPP over PNC or PNC over PPP because the two parties are alike so there is no reason for the Americans to choose.
Secondly, she intoned that her position on the five month imbroglio has caused her to lose friends because of the position she took. She said a number of them came from the WPA. Thirdly, she remarked that she is profoundly disappointed with the WPA’s role during those five months. She explained that this party was deeply intertwined with the most radical thinker of the 20th century – Walter Rodney – in the Caribbean and it did not do justice to his legacy.
She requested I use the word “degeneracy” in describing how she felt about the WPA’s behaviour. She said the WPA degenerated in a dog eat dog situation. I wish I could have outlay more of her expressions but she restricted me to what I have penned here. In requesting I publish more, she responded, “I’m not interested in politics, and Freddie, boy you use your pen, you know what happens.” Actually I don’t know what happens but I thank Charlene for letting me print her views on the election saga.
What are the conclusions to be drawn from my little chat with Charlene? She didn’t see the election drama as an African rights activist or as a WPA supporter. She saw what went on from March 4 until August 1 through the eyes of a Guyanese. It was about Guyana. It was not about party loyalty and race.
I look back at the times Charlene and I were active in the People’s Parliament with so many others whose true feelings we would never have seen and know about if there wasn’t five months of election rigging. Interestingly, I spoke to Charlene at 3PM yesterday, and earlier in the day, I was speaking to a prominent UG lecturer who asked me if I read what Dr. Melissa Ifill wrote about the election saga. I said yes I know and I was shocked.

(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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