To Kwayana, I say I am proud of 50 years of tantrums

Nov 01, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Since the election rigging, I have engaged Eusi Kwayana over his racially driven attitude to the rigging. I would say I even have exposed what he has successfully hidden for over 80 years. In a voluminous letter in KN and SN last Wednesday, Kwayana says he stands by what is contained in his frequent letters regardless of the tantrums I throw in my columns.
If my efforts to stop dictatorship in my country are regarded as tantrums, I want Eusi Kwayana to know I am proud of throwing tantrums the past 50 years as a social activists and newspaper columnist. My tantrums have always been on the side of rights, justice, liberty and the poor and powerless.
I have never sided with any ethnic community that proclaimed inherent entitlements. I have spoken out against ethnic communities that discriminated against other Guyanese for racial reasons, even condemning the race group I was born into for such backwardness.
My entire life in this country has been lived in the struggle for rights and justice that the poor and powerless are entitled to. I am a working-class man from Wortmanville in South Georgetown and I have never neglected the class I came from. I had my political upbringing as a 16-year-old lad in the PPP where, at that age, I worked in the Michael Forde Bookshop owned by the PPP. My sojourn with the PPP was short-lived because the radicalism of youth drove me away.
I ended up in the WPA but didn’t like what I saw. I contributed to the WPA efforts to free Guyana from the absolute tyranny of Forbes Burnham but, like when I was a 16-year-old in the PPP, I saw things I didn’t like. I have spent more than 20 years exposing the moral and political bankruptcy of the WPA.
I supported the presidency of Cheddi Jagan but his administration failed to take Guyana away from the banality and aridity of party incestuousness and racial preferences and I became a critic of his government. I supported the presidency of Bharrat Jagdeo but his governance was characterized by all the sad and tragic things that made Guyana an unlivable place. My activism against Jagdeo almost cost me my life twice. It cost me my job and much to my eternal chagrin, my wife’s job too.
I wanted to see my country move away from the racial cauldron that it was living in since the mid-50s, so I gravitated to the Alliance For Change. I was a personal friend of one of its leaders, Khemraj Ramjattan. People have said that Kaieteur News and I played a small role in the PPP losing the elections in 2011 and 2015. They still tell me that today. I have no regrets for the shape of my activism in that period.
I campaigned extensively for the AFC in 2015. When it came to office in 2015, in what must be one of the most degenerate displays of power drunkenness, the AFC became a moral shame on the face of this country. The PNC was no better. When David Granger came to power, I gave my support publicly. But Granger’s mask fell off as soon as he got power. The 2015 dispensation had failed Guyana. I used my pen relentlessly to expose both the AFC and PNC. People tell me that the Kaieteur News and I played a small role in the defeat of APNU+AFC in the 2020 election. I don’t know if that is true but if it is, I am glad my tantrums helped to defeat the PNC and AFC.
Then March 4 came with a man named Clairmont Mingo. From March 4, Mingo, the PNC and AFC, their racially fanatical surrogates and elements in GECOM tried to reintroduce naked power that Forbes Burnham once smothered Guyana with. If in exposing those vicious attempts to destroy Guyana, my activism was about throwing tantrums, then I am proud of all the tantrums I have thrown since I was 16.
We come to President Irfaan Ali. It is unreasonable for any independent mind not to give Dr. Ali a chance to govern. Dr. Ali went through a horrible period where for five months there were relentless attempts to deny him the presidency. I first met Dr. Ali when we both functioned as members of the Council of the University of Guyana. Though I was a strident critic of the PPP, Dr. Ali never showed me a hostile face. We worked closely on UG matters and developed a kind of friendship. He may go in wrong directions in the future and when that happens, my pen will write.

(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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To Kwayana, I say I am proud of 50 years of tantrums

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