Constant banging caused shamelessness to evaporate

Jul 05, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – I’m not sure I am good at satire though I have tried a few pieces on this page over the years and I had a few positive reviews. But before I get down to the analysis, I would like to try satire again. Here we go.
While reading the newspapers, I saw Red Thread condemned the racially targeted vendors at Mon Repos. In the state of shock I was in, the coffee dropped on my leg and burnt it and I was hospitalised for the day. I came out of hospital on Sunday and went back in for the same hot coffee and on the same spot on my leg after I read that the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) also weighed in on the attacks on the Indian vendors.
I came out of the hospital the next day and went back after reading the newspapers again. I saw two items and was so surprised that I couldn’t control my hand and the hot coffee for the third time descended on the same spot. “In the Diaspora” and the Election Reform Group appeared in the Monday edition of the newspapers condemning the racially driven mayhem.
So there you have it. I am walking on crutches because of the political shortsightedness of Guyanese society. The doctor says that I will never be able to walk freely again. This means from today I will no longer be on the seawall and elsewhere with one of the loves of my life – my dog, Princess.
But not to worry, I still have my finger (I type with one finger and have been doing so since the use of a typewriter, this is no joke; ask my wife and daughter) and a keyboard. Once I have those, then I will continue to analyse those political defects among Guyanese and reflect on the nationality named Guyanese.
Let’s move from satire to analysis. I went back from the no-confidence vote (NCV) in December 2018 and onwards to September 2020 with the anti-Indian mayhem in Region Five, including in the five months of election rigging, and began to examine the reactions from those entities I mentioned above.
From December 2018 to July 2022, there was nothing on the NCV, five-month election impasse and the Region Five violence from “In The Diaspora.” From December 2018, it is the same picture with GHRA and the Election Reform Group.
It must be noted that the election reform organisation was not in existence during the long battle in the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2019 over the NCV. But it would be interesting to find out how that organisation feels about the proposition that legally and mathematically a majority of the 65-member parliament constitutes 34 and not 33.
For the purpose of this article, in order not to be accused of inaccuracy, I painstakingly researched the letter pages of the four dailies from the NCV in December 2018 right up to February 2022 when the dildo comment was made to ascertain the position of Red Thread on these issues listed above. I did not extend my research to the popular online news-outlets.
On the NCV, the Region Five mayhem and election rigging, I found nothing from Red Thread. But there is in fact a letter of April 24, 2020 in the Stabroek News condemning the election shenanigans. Interestingly, it was signed by only two members of the Red Thread leadership and they made no mention of the organisation but signed in their individual capacity. There were two other signatures that are not in the leadership of Red Thread including that of the brother of Walter Rodney, Donald.
On the dildo comment, there is chastisement of the Cabinet minister who made the utterance by Red Thread, In The Diaspora, GHRA and all the women groups in Guyana as well as the LGBT organisation, SASOD. I saw nothing in my search in the newspaper on the insult APNU+AFC parliamentarian, Maureen Philadelphia made towards a high official of the House, referring to him as a house slave.
What could be the answer for the attitudinal metamorphosis we have seen the past five days? I believe and will always advocate that we serve the priceless purpose of history when we reply to fictions and call out societal actors who fail to fulfill their obligation to their fellow humans by refusing to denounce human rights violations.
If we remain silent on these things, those societal actors will become fixed in their opportunistic ways. I endorse the vexed sentiment of the President when he asked some civil society organisation why they were silent during the attempts to rig the March 2020 election. Nothing can redeem a person who remained reticent on and who supported the rigging of elections.
(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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