LGBT groups, women groups and Minister Sonia Parag

Sep 14, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – This country is so filled with crushing, drowning hypocrisy that it compels patriots to expose this relentless hypocrisy whenever its mash-up image shows itself in the society.
Before I proceed, let me record my feeling on two sections of this society – LGBT groups and women organisations. I am not a supporter of the activism of these formations in my country.
At the philosophical level, I am not against the practice of homosexuality. I believe the protection of women is a patriotic duty of the citizenry of this world. Women perform a unique role in civilised life.

Women are special people we must admire and society must protect. Of the two genders, I think women are far better humans than men. My mother was a better human than my father.
I was politically educated by the radicalism of the PPP, Walter Rodney, civil society organisations and dynamic intellectuals of the 1970s. I remember that this was an era of immense radical values that inhere in the culture of liberation.

In those days, the intellectual argument was that all human rights are inherently connected and humans must fight for the preservation of those rights even if the violations do not directly impact our group’s sphere of existence.

In other words, trade union rights and LGBT rights and other rights must be seen in a holistic context. Their differences do not exist and we must accept that their separation leads to brutality and dictatorship.

I have absolutely no respect for LGBT entities and women rights groups in this country. It is my right to assert my attitude to things in my country once I do not drift into the area of libel or sordid grammar.

I will continue to use my pen in exposing the hypocrisy of LGBT groups and women rights associations in this country because they do not warrant society’s admiration. These entities carry huge hypocritical traits about them. They conveniently select issue to highlight and their choices are driven by racial and political thinking.

The disgust I feel about so-called rights activists run deep after I witnessed their silence over the five months of election rigging in 2020. When Minister Priya Manickchand was our guest on the ‘Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show’, I did the research before she appeared.

I went through the letter section of all four dailies from March 2020 to August 2022 and did not find one, I emphasise ONE, letter or commentary of rejection of the attempted rigging by even one women rights group.

To date, the record shows that not one women rights organisation penned a condemnation on what took place from March to July in 2020. In that disaster, many women activists in the fight for free and fair elections were assaulted.

Current Minister of the Public Service, Ms. Sonia Parag could have lost her life in that storm of violence. Ms. Parag found herself alone one night on the top floor the GECOM head office. There was no other opposition activist there. While she made her exit, a hostile crowd approached her. That incident constituted the most violent episode in the five months of rigging.
I was livid, and I mean really angry when I saw the headline for the column, ‘In The Diaspora,’ in the Stabroek News that went like this, “Educating others, speaking out and holding hands to build just communities.”

The article, written by Vidyartha Kissoon, listed four Guyanese organisations in the areas of LGBT activities and women rights activism – ‘Red Thread’, ‘Breadfruit Collective’, ‘Guyana Trans- United’ and ‘SASOD’ that are urging people to educate others and speak out.

But educate Guyanese on what? Speak out on what? First, I did not see the pen of Mr. Kissoon (no relation, quite fortunately) when the world spoke out on the denial of the right to have Guyanese vote and the right to have that vote counted.

Secondly, it appears that ‘Red Thread’ became black thread during the election fiasco. Here I am referring to the subliminal instinct of race. My theory is the decision by many to remain silent on the election fraud or to support it was driven by racial instinct.

Thirdly, the breadfruit was not on the ground from March to July in 2020 in Guyana. You see the breadfruit was still in the tree thus could not have been on the ground to have a vantage position to observe the election nightmare.

Kind of reminds of Eusi Kwayana’s two responses to me in April 2020 that he did not have a vantage point to see if there was rigging. Fourthly, ‘Guyana Trans- United’ has transitioned to something unspeakable. Finally, ‘SASOD’ has transformed itself into the comic book character popular when I was a kid – ‘Sad Sack.’

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