I welcome the note of civility in Vishnu Bisram’s polemics

Jun 08, 2021 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

In acknowledging Dr. Vishnu Bisram’s response to my letter published in Kaieteur News, captioned, “Tacuma Ogunseye’s response to Vishnu Bisram” I welcome his response and note the civility of his polemics, something that is often absent in Freddie Kissoon’s polemics or advocacy.
Bisram, no fault of yours, you are fortunate to have your letters published in both the electronic and paper editions of the Kaieteur News. I am been denied the same treatment. This unequal access in the public media is in part responsible for unfair public discourse on national issues.
The editor captioned your letter, “Personal differences should not prevent applause of work of opponents.” While you did not mention the word personal in your letter, it is important that I state for the benefit of readers that my disagreement with Freddie Kissoon is not personal but political. Mr. Bisram is no stranger to the letter columns of our newspapers and should be aware that my public polemics with Kissoon dated back to the 90s. I recalled that it started out as respectful disagreement between a friend and comrade. Over time however, Kissoon’s tactics of misrepresentation, outright lies and cuss out led to a degeneration of our public discourse into tit for tat.
As Bisram correctly pointed out I am familiar with Kissoon’s activism and on this matter, I have no problem. I have never objected to Kissoon’s activism from our youthful days to the present. What I object to is his dishonest utterances, uncivil polemics and character deformation of others simply to score points, dishonourably so. While I applaud Bisram for highlighting the ventures of his “hero,” he cannot at the same time plead ignorance of his hero’s negative behaviour. “Iconic” status is no excuse, more so since Kissoon is an intellectual and not a lay writer like me.
Readers should know that the political and personal relations between Kissoon and I go back many decades. I was always welcomed in his home and his spouse was always hospitable and I held his baby daughter in my arms. It is for these and other reasons over the years that I tried to have a measured response to Kissoon’s provocations – something Kissoon sensed it and took advantage of. However, I felt constrained to avoid disrespect to his wife and daughter. Unlike Freddie Kissoon, who denies his ethnicity when it suits his purposes, I proclaim mine. As an African cultural activist I have respect for cultural tradition, and I value human relations above political relations. In doing so, I bring to bear an African world view to my politics.
While I agree with Bisram’s observation that Indians lost their lives fighting the Burnham dictatorship, I was taken aback by his claim that “Whites” were also killed. My query is his use of the plural since to my knowledge the only white person killed during that period was Father Darke.
He refers to my recent letter published in the paper edition of KN (June 01, 2021) “Tacuma Ogunseye sets the record straight.” Having read the letter, Bisram should have been conscious that thousands of Africans at different points and time came out in open resistance against Burnham and the PNC. Despite the obvious he chooses to see that, “only a small number did play a meaningful role opposing Burnham’s racism against Indians.” My initial polemic with the unnamed writer of the KN letter had to do with the blanket statement inferring that no Africans spoke out against the Burnham regime. Bisram while acknowledging the correctness of my position deliberately shifted the discourse to “opposing Burnham’s racism against Indians.” Why this desperate attempt to claim that Africans supported racism against Indians? If the yard stick is that by supporting your race based party you are showing support for racism, Africans could rightly claim that Indians’ support for Jagan and the PPP was supporting racism against Africans. My point here is that leaders manipulate “race” and their supporters become victims of their action. We have to be careful of not going down the road of collective accusations on this sensitive issue which will inevitably lead to support of collective punishment.
Bisram writes, “Regrettably, their great work against Burnham/Hoyte rigging were overshadowed by their reluctance to condemn the barefaced attempt at rigging by Mingo and others in March 2020 and onwards.” While Bisram is right in calling me out on the election crisis, he has to factor in that unlike him and others I was a candidate in those elections and on election day I was receiving information of electoral malpractices in PPP/C areas, hence my reluctance to bat on the PPP/C “wicket” of rigging by one side. I was reserving judgment after the findings of an election court addressing in the election petitions. I asked Bisram and others to state one instance when a PPP/C candidate in elections spoke out against his party rigging. To date the PPP/C, in defiance of a court ruling that the Region 10 seat was won by the AFC and not the PPP/C, that party held on to the AFC seat throughout the life of the (2006) parliament: and this is not election rigging in the eye of the present defenders of election rigging.
I conclude this polemic by making two observations: (1) to draw to readers attention to a recent observation by Dr. Henry Jeffrey that elections are rigged long before election day (2) a few days before the court threw out the second APNU+AFC election petition I wrote a letter explaining my attitude and response to the election crisis which was sent to Stabroek News for publication and to date it was never published. I am taking this opportunity to inform readers and Dr. Vishnu Bisram that I will forward the above mentioned letter to the Kaieteur News in another attempt to get it published.
Yours truly,
Tacuma Ogunseye
Editor’s Note. There is no policy or directive to restrict any letter published in the newspaper from being published online.

---

---