2022: The year that Guyana will see the unbelievable

Jan 24, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News– Just to inform readers, I am still to produce part 4 of the review of 2021 and will publish it but so many things got in the way. I once wrote that life in Guyana is so curiously intriguing that a columnist can do three daily pieces.
Few other countries are so interestingly hypocritical and disturbingly interesting as Guyana that a columnist can churn out three daily commentaries. Do you know how many articles of mine are completed on topical issues but they are still on my flash drive because each day I wake up, I see another strangeness and the intended column gets shifted.
So today’s article was supposed to be on the police exercise against erring motorcyclists that have been taking place outside my home since December last year. I just hope I can publish it soon without postponing it again. It was displaced because of an intended court case I read against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Exxon.
Three women are the litigants. I don’t know one of them. The other, Melinda Janki, is a person I would say hi and hello to. The third person is Sherlina Nageer. I spent a year with Ms. Nageer as part of a grassroot movement named the People’s Parliament outside the National Assembly fighting for justice for ordinary people. It was a 24-hour movement.
Apart from Charlene Wilkinson and Chris Ram, I know of no other soul in that wonderful activism that has come out against the attempted rigging of the March 2020 election. I repeat only Charlene Wilkinson and Chris Ram. I spent time in the People’s Movement with the Red Thread women, Tacuma Ogunseye, David Hinds, Desmond Trotman, Dr. Melissa Ifill, and countless others.
I believe all that time I was struggling with people who were multi-racial in philosophical thinking and a deep yearning for justice. On the stroke of midnight in one of those sessions, as I was going to my car, I was attacked and almost got killed. Michael Carrington of the AFC saved my life. I will always be thankful to Michael. Yesterday, I was taking a beautiful painting of Kaieteur Falls to him but he told me that he will not be in. Our friendship has endured.
Many of those who I grounded with at the People’s Parliament I hope never to see again. I don’t want to see them ever in my life. I believe in justice for humans. I believe people have a right to vote. I believe governments should rule based on the rule of law and the votes of the population.
I am East Indian in colour and physical appearance and I couldn’t be bothered with having an East Indian mind. I didn’t give a damn in March 2020 who won the election. I voted for Lenox Shuman. What I saw in March 2020 was the attempted destruction of this country. I want to be recorded as saying that those who remained silent are not people who the young ones of this world should look up to. If you cannot stand up for the right to vote then you cannot convince anyone that you know the difference between right and wrong.
I wondered what became of Ms. Nageer. I never read one word from this lady about the election insanity. Well, Ms. Nageer is alive and kicking. She has filed a lawsuit against the EPA and Exxon. I am still to see what Ms. Janki has written about the election. Maybe she has but I haven’t seen it. I like to remind readers just in case they don’t know that Ms. Janki heads an organisation named The Justice Institute. Through this column, I am kindly asking Ms. Janki to tell me about the activities of her organisation.
2022 is going to be an incredible year. One can easily come to that conclusion based on how it began. All kinds of people are masquerading as civil society. All kinds of people see everything wrong with the elected government, the oil contract, etc. But the most disgraceful act in the history of parliament occurred in this country as 2021 was about to end but the voices of freedom are yet to speak.
We saw a Minister speaking on a Bill and he was almost physically prevented from doing so. It was a spectacle that on yet another occasion since Independence in 1966, our CARICOM partners must have been sickened to the core about what Guyana is and what Guyana has become. Personally speaking, I am sickened to the core of what some people have become in this land.
(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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