Moses Nagamootoo and Harvey Weinstein: Life’s comedic tragedies

Jun 28, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – I believe few persons in politics in the entire world, since WW2, have had a more inviting opportunity to build an ever-lasting legacy as Moses Nagamootoo. Politicians are given that circumstance but not against the praxis and historical background that Nagamootoo came from.
Today, Nagamootoo is the political version of the Hollywood movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein. While Weinstein may die in prison and a little unnoticed obituary will appear in the National Enquirer, Nagamootoo will enter the supermarket and young Guyanese pushing their trolleys next to him may mistake him for the janitor.
Weinstein gave to the world some famous stars and movies but his lust for sex erased his contribution to the culture. Nagamootoo gave Guyana decades of contributions in the fight for free and fair election. But like Weinstein, a one-dimensional mind became his untergang. It was sex for Weinstein. It was power for Nagamootoo.
Weinstein expresses himself on Facebook from his jail cell. Nagamootoo reflects on his pathetic, ugly, career dénouement on his Facebook page too but luckily from his home where he evades the glorious sunshine that the end of the May-June rains brought.
I was told he sits in his home and does a daily comment on his Facebook page. I am willing to give him my daily column if he negotiates that with Mr. Glenn Lall. Why not? The man was a former prime minister. He should be allowed to be involved in the mainstream media. I heard that he soon will be editing the refurbished organ of the PNC – “New Nation” – after an article by him was rejected by the AFC’s organ, “The Key.” I asked my AFC contact why his piece was scorned upon by the editor of “The Key” and was told that Nagamootoo is no longer with the AFC and since 2019 was firmly in the camp of the PNC.
I don’t have a Facebook page so I was sent screenshots of Nagamootoo’s daily vexations. All the ones I receive except one are critical of the government. Not one of Nagamootoo’s puerile outpourings is an analysis of his time as prime minister.
The exception referred to above relates to Charrandass Persaud. He contends that Charran’s yes vote in the no-confidence motion was racially determined. He went on and on about the racial implications of Charran’s act. I have known Nagamootoo for over 50 years and I never saw analytical depths in his mind. If he had, then the ugly dénouement I referred to above would not have taken place.
Here is evidence of the foolish mind of Nagamootoo. When he was Prime Minister, Raphael Trotman was his leader in the AFC. Here is what Trotman wrote last year in the Stabroek News of December12, “We are a people comprising several nations living in a geographic space we call Guyana. Those of us living here know that at any given time one or two of those nations will not like another, accept another or give the other the legitimacy it needs. The PNC discovered this from 1966 to 1992 and 2015 to 2020.  The PPP discovered this from 1992 to 2015. What it comes down to is that almost half of the population will not accept you.  It is well known that the major parties have always regarded each other with great distrust….” For my analysis of Trotman’s admission, see my column of Monday, December 14, 2020, “The sickening admission/confession of Raphael Trotman.”
If Nagamootoo had intellectual strengths, then he would know that Trotman’s statement explicitly denotes failure of the APNU+AFC government to achieve multi-racial embrace thus admitting that he, Nagamootoo, as prime minister and the AFC as a party made no breakthrough in our ethnically driven governance.
If you study Charran’s vote in the context of the nature of the rule of the APNU+AFC as described by Trotman, then Charran perhaps was acting out of protection of Indians who felt betrayed by the mediocrity, inanity and banality of Nagamootoo’s poor mind and humiliating failure to transform Guyana.
Since we still have curfew in Guyana and you cannot go out after 10pm, I would suggest, if you have a Facebook account, spend some nights examining Nagamootoo’s commentaries. It appears that he is undergoing a different, mental journey. The man writes about Cheddi Jagan, the PPP, the past, his history as if he is still the Nagamootoo he was prior to 2015.
For example, he pours excessive praise on the PPP’s government’s recognition of Walter Rodney’s legacy. But if Nagamootoo had political decency, he would have added a footnote saying, “Sorry Guyanese for not doing for Walter when I was Prime Minister what the PPP government has now done.” Nagamootoo is indeed a tragedy.
(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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