Ian McDonald rejects Stabroek News’ position on Article 13

Oct 10, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I have spent my entire life in social and political activism and one of the continuous threads running through that life is my philosophical position that you cannot get a bad guy to change his ways if you think and act the way he does. He is going to ignore your criticism of him.

I entered politics as a 16-year-old D’Urban Street youth in Wortmanville when I became a polling agent for the PPP in the 1968 general election. I had two close friends – Ronald Gordon and Leyland DeCambra – at the time.

We knocked around the PPP and became active with the PPP though we did not join. I became an employee in the PPP-owned book store at the bottom level of Freedom House.

We have remained friends and relate to each other up to this day. We didn’t like what we saw in the PPP and we moved on and became the foundation of an organisation we joined named, East-German-Guyana Friendship Society.

There I met one of the most beautiful persons politics produced – EMG Wilson. “Willo” remains one of the best leaders the PPP ever founded. One of the reasons, I left the PPP was because of the behaviour of Dr. Jagan’s bodyguard, Harold Snagg.

Harold was an incredibly reckless and irresponsible person. He chose to smoke marijuana in the bookshop. When I complained, he assaulted me. I never got any redress from the PPP leaders because they felt Snagg was too big to be disciplined. No one in my world is too big to be disciplined.

I moved from one organisation to the other but I maintained my embedded philosophical position – you cannot be an anti-dictatorship voice if your morals are no different from the little dictators you want to remove.

In the WPA and AFC, I saw morbid hypocrisy that equals any depravity you find elsewhere. But I kept to myself. Every person alive today in the WPA can tell you, I never knocked around the big wigs because I didn’t like them. Any AFC leader can tell you I was never in touch with the AFC’s big boys. My friends in the AFC were always the second-tier leadership.

So we come to the title of this column and it is on theme of the incapacity to change government’s attitude of intolerance if you are just as intolerant. I wasn’t surprised at the revelations by professor Randolph Persaud at what the Stabroek News (SN) did to him.

If you missed the subject, please see my Friday column: “An open letter to Isabelle DeCaires and Ian McDonald.” Dr. Persaud conveyed to me a conversation he had with the editor-in-chief (eic) about his missives to SN not being published.

The EIC confirmed in a telephone call by me that he stands by his position that letters from Dr. Persaud and the government will not be carried if they are critical of civil society groups especially, Article 13. Mr. McDonald has replied to me. He informed me that he resigned as chairman of the board of SN in June of last year. I quote Mr. McDonald’s words to me: “If Dr Randolph Persaud’s letters were rejected” because they are critical of civil society groups including Article 13″ I, of course, reject that reason.”

I wrote to Ms. DeCaires and the Guyana Press Association also. I am still to hear from them. Why would any EIC tell a scholar, the paper cannot publish his analyses of national organisations? It makes no sense in the world of journalism.

But there is a more important point to be adumbrated here. If an organisation or a newspaper or an influential individual that takes a critical view of the nature of governance and itself is not an example of an open mindedness then that person, newspaper or organisation will be unable to get the attention of governmental leaders. And herein lies a great danger?

A very prominent person in government and the ruling party said to me that he was at the wake for PPP stalwart, Philomena Sahoye-Shury and he met Professor Persaud who conveyed to him what SN did. I hope sober sense prevails on both sides.

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

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News