2021 Review Part 4: Entitlement and betrayal

Feb 16, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Kaieteur News – I would like to apologise to my readers for the confusion I caused by numbering Part 4 of reflections of 2021 as Part 6. My review published on February 7 should have been Part 4 but I numbered it as Part 6.
Here is how the confusion came about. I stopped the series on the PNC congressional election at Part 5. Then I continued the series on 2021 and numbered it as Part 6. What I will do then is conclude my looking back series on 2021 by publishing Part 4 and 5 after Part 6. I guess in that way, there will still be a package of 6 articles.
Here now is Part 4 retroactively. Among many African rights activists is the acceptance of the entitlement ideology. It goes like this – African Guyanese came here as slaves and build Guyana ensuring its survival. Slave labour then built this country and that is the seminal section of Guyanese history that must be recognised when that history is being discussed. Out of this sacrifice should come the entitlement of African Guyanese but others control the wealth of Guyana and that must be corrected.
There isn’t one exception among African rights Guyanese that fail to advance this ideology. As recent as December last year, Charles Ceres noted: “…all lives cannot matter when the current level of disparity exists between African Guyanese who were enslaved to build Guyana and other Guyanese who are enabled by the state.”
Last year, the story of entitlement and betrayal in Guyana was laid bare for the world to see. The NDC of Beterverwagting (BV) sold John Fernandes Ltd, 134 acres of land for 35 million Guyana dollars. That is about $240, 000 per acre. There isn’t any parcel or plot of land in Guyana where an acre of land is less than five million dollars.
The NDC of BV is all-African and elected under the PNC ticket in the 2018 local government elections. It is closely associated with ACDA and is part of the annual emancipation festival. BV is 99 percent an African village. The land was not sold to an African family but a Portuguese one. After the price tag was made public, the NDC cancelled the sale agreement. There hasn’t been one word about this transaction from those who advocate African entitlement.
More importantly, no African-rights activist has put forward the suggestion that if the NDC could have contemplated selling the land for $240, 000 per acre then now that the deal is cancelled why not sell it to BV residents and African Guyanese elsewhere. I am absolutely sure if the NDC round off the price at $300,000 per acre, literally thousands of African-Guyanese would rush to buy.
I cannot comment on the public waterfront property sale by former Minister, Winston Jordan because the matter is before the courts. But one can examine the political attitudes of African rights commentators during the announcement that Jordan would be charged. All of them supported the arrangement Jordan made with B.K. Tiware to purchase the property which is state land.
It never occurred to any Black politician that argues for the ideology of entitlement that public property in Guyana belongs to the Guyanese people and that includes those that are supposed to be entitled because their ancestors preserved Guyana while working as slaves.
The average Black Guyanese no doubt, is quicker and quicker becoming aware of the betrayal of those who are relentless in efforts to instill anti-government sentiments and entitlement instincts in them. That awareness increases when these betrayers are consistently exposed.
Some of the advocates of African protection have been protecting themselves by remaining in office for 30 and 35 years while demanding transparency from the government and run their respective organisations without even an ounce of transparency.
There are those preaching to African Guyanese in this country and are happily ensconced in foreign lands while there are thousands of vacancies existing in Guyana in both the private and public sectors where they can serve. But they aren’t coming back; no matter what.
2021 ended on a note of blatant contempt for Black people in this country by one of those who shout for African rights each day. Rickford Burke openly advocated violence against the government when he opined that unless someone is run off the road the PPP will not change its ways.
When the police charged him for incitement, Burke was literally laughing when he told his viewers that the Guyanese police cannot touch him because he lives in the greatest country in the world – the US. He went on to wax lyrical about his comfort in the US. 2021 can easily be described as the year of Black betrayal.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---