AFC in 2020: Does life have meaning?

Oct 10, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – In the life of every human, dead and living, they once experienced a moment in which they listened to a song, read the headline in the newspaper about a prominent place, heard the mention of the name of a famous singer or movie, looked at a photograph, and then uttered silently; “where did it all go, does life have any meaning?”
When the budget debate was in session, and I saw the photo of Raphael Trotman in the newspaper with the story of his remarks on the budget, I was momentarily stunned. My mind asked me if that was Trotman in 2020 in the opposition.
You realize it was real. It is Trotman. So what happened to Trotman, his political partner, Khemraj Ramjattan, and their close friends who created history by removing the PPP through election and became the rulers of Guyana? How did Trotman and Ramjattan return to the opposition benches in 2020? What happened to Trotman who was a huge star in Guyanese politics and together with Ramjattan was set to change Guyana in breathtaking ways?
The statement, “the more you live, the more you learn” is one that I encountered when I was growing up in Wortmanville in south Georgetown. My parents would say it so often that by the time you left primary school, you are repeating it yourself. No other saying is more potent in its truthfulness than it.
What happened along the way to the people I admired from within the deep sea beds of my mind? Where and why did they go astray? I truly thought that with the demise of Walter Rodney, it would take a long time for anyone to come up, break the vicious ethnic cycle and that of mutual suspicion, and take Guyana far away from the mundane thoughts of “we versus dem.”
After Rodney, it took ages, but it came with Trotman and Ramjattan. I have always been active politically – with my pen and my body and in my activism I saw that Guyanese wanted to give Trotman and Ramjattan a chance to weaken the pernicious pattern of PPP versus PNC, Indians versus Africans.
These days I open the newspapers and I see Trotman and Ramjattan sitting in parliament as opposition members and my mind gets trapped in spinning windmills. Where did the magic go? Why did it melt away? I guess it comes down to the inherent weaknesses of Homo sapiens.
When I see what Trotman and Ramjattan have become, I keep the flame of fear lighting in my heart. It is the fear that those phenomenally brave boys and girls, who relentlessly expended their energy to stay inside of the GECOM Command Centre and demand that their votes be counted, will not be disappointed with our new leaders as I am with Trotman and Ramjattan.
I looked through my bedroom window and saw them enduring the sun and the rain to be there to see the CARICOM–observed recount count for something in the life of this country. And it did. I fear for these lovely, inviting, courageous young people and what will become of them if their bravery means nothing because our new leaders will walk the pathway of Trotman and Ramjattan.
Can many of the younger politicians who fought so bravely to stop five months of rigging and who now are in the seat of power become Trotman and Ramjattan? Are we humans the masters of our own destiny? Will those young people when they turn 28, 30, 32 years and when they hear the mention of High Street or Arthur Chung Conference Centre, be forced to say like me; “ I was there, where did it all go, why is Guyana still like this? ”
I would never have thought Guyana would still be like this after my embrace of Trotman and Ramjattan. There are times in this life that Lady Luck protects you and holds that invisible canopy over your head. What would my wife and daughter say in the year 2020 if I had been murdered in 2015 in the big battle to put Trotman and Ramjattan in power? And there were times when murder was close.
I remember as the campaign of 2015 drew to a close, some madman from the AFC’s East Coast section organized a public meeting in Mahaicony where not even the birds go. The place was dark and desolate and as we packed up to leave, a guy drove a tractor on me and I was saved by the split of a second. I survived to see how life goes by without meaning because Trotman and Ramjattan typify all that is wrong with life.

(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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