Inside the diaspora

Apr 20, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I had email exchanges with several diaspora Guyanese who told me that they are disappointed with other columns whose raison d’être is to highlight topics that are of interest to them who live in the diapora but they never see any reviews and reflections of these crucial, evolving developments.
One correspondent wrote this to me about the raison d’être; “Freddie, how can these people avoid bringing to us things like the confusion about the no-confidence vote, the election rigging and the uproar in parliament…”
I replied to that particular sender saying that he has lived too long outside to see that the world that existed in Guyana in the 70s, 80s and 90s are long gone and if he comes back to Guyana, he would see the psychology of people whose shape is simply unimaginable, in terms of its contortion, hypocrisy and depravity.
Another sender informed me that she is 65 years of age and missed the integrity and fairness in journalism that Father Morrison brought to Guyana. I was laughing when I read her email. She said when she goes online to read Kaieteur News, she sees the same hairstyle I have when I was a young columnist writing for Father in the Catholic Standard decades ago.
She said she is willing to donate a large sum to have a bust of Father erected next to the Brickdam cathedral. I suggested that was an issue to be raised with the Catholic Church. My second point to her was that Guyana has changed completely from the era of Father Andrew Morrison who remains one of my heroes.
One gentleman is perplexed at the selected issues that are brought to the diaspora and candidly told me that the things that interest Guyanese in the diaspora are not published in those pieces that are meant for the diaspora. My reply to that was simple.
I explained that Guyana’s political antagonisms and ethnic divisions are so deep and wide that there are no independent minds left in this place. I went on to pontificate on the frightening dimension of this reality that truly lacerates my psyche.
The very people inside and outside of Guyana that write about our political calamities and ethnic troubles from the skies looking down on Guyana wearing so-called independent eye glasses and neutral minds are worse in their immoralities and prejudices than the politicians they criticise.
I went on to add that the danger with these hypocrites is that Guyanese in the diaspora and those who live here know where they stand with their politicians and have made up their minds about how they feel about their politicians but they must always be on their guard with these so-called independent minds and so-called independent organisations.
I got an interesting email from a former policeman who told me he works as a security detail at a large private company. He wrote that his sister is a security rank at a private guard service and she and her colleagues are enduring frequent horror experiences at most of the private companies in Guyana.
Nightmares range from: no payment to the NIS through deductions, arbitrary deductions for no apparent reasons and no compensation for long extra hours.
He wants to know what certain organisations would write on about a vulgar comment made against a female parliamentarian by another parliamentarian but they don’t pick up their pens in defence of helpless women guards. I indicated that he is living in another world. This is not the Guyana he knew when he lived here.
I suggested he reads what I described for him as one of the most pleasing, informative and analytical commentaries in recent years written by opposition politician, Ralph Ramkarran.
I informed him that the answer he is looking for me to give him is beautifully put by Mr. Ramkarran in his Stabroek News column of March 6. Mr. Ramkarran posits that there are issues that bring sex appeal thus organisations seek to pursue these subjects rather than the topics for which will not give them the limelight they are looking for (I am putting it here the way I wrote to him not the way Mr. Ramkarran wrote his piece).
There was this sender who appreciated a recent column advocating term limits for organisations in general. He wants to know why it is not a hot topic in the press because for him it is commonsensical. I simply replied saying, I too find it commonsensical but do not know why no one is interested in keeping the topic alive. I did say to him that I guess people just love power so they want to be at the helm of their organisation forever.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)