propaganda press! boycott Carifesta X

Snippets of memory in 2007 - Freddie Kissoon column

In terms of politics the contest in the PNC leadership was the largest vignette of 2007, but it petered out in recrimination and retaliation. The number of delegates was highly questionable. And given the areas of dubiousness that clouded the voting, Team Alexander withdrew.The divisions were so deep that, unless some super hero descends into the arena of PNC politics, the PNC looks likely to implode in the near future. Amidst the debris of vindictiveness that followed the boldness of Team Alexander, Vincent Alexander stood out in 2007, maybe with more bravery than Moses Nagamootoo.

He made public a radical departure from the political culture of the PNC and PPP that will certainly earn him a place in the history books. He actually had a resolution to be tabled at the PNC Congress seeking a new rule that would make it mandatory for the PNC Leader to serve only two terms at the helm of his/her party.

We don’t know, if that resolution had passed, what would have become of it in the future; politicians are capable of any and every conspiracy. But, in the end, it was a phenomenal break with the past, for which Mr. Alexander ought to have our admiration.

In 2007, Kaieteur News came in for some scathing criticism from Mrs. Janet Jagan and her nephew-in-law, Stabroek News business columnist Patrick Van Beek. Mrs. Jagan, in her Mirror column (for those who don’t know what that is, it is the PPP’s newspaper published every weekend at a circulation of 2000, which is distributed freely to PPP supporters), informed her readers that Kaieteur News is a “lousy newspaper filled with nonsense.” She then explained that she stopped reading it a long time ago. One should not dignify these wild, imbalanced ramblings by Mrs. Jagan but three points need to be laid out.

First, the classes and strata that patronize the Stabroek News buy the Kaieteur News. Mrs. Jagan must be in an elitist class of her own to opine that it is a “lousy newspaper filled with nonsense.” The upper classes and the middle classes in this country support both independent dailies. Maybe they see things of importance in the Kaieteur News that Mrs. Jagan is incapable of detecting. And I guess we know why.

Secondly, I have been reliably informed that Mrs. Jagan reads the Kaieteur News. I have been most assuringly told that she reads this corner of the newspaper. I guess much to her annoyance. Thirdly, who reads the Mirror newspaper of which Mrs. Jagan is Editor-in-Chief?

Mrs. Jagan’s nephew-in-law, Patrick Van Beek, in one of his business columns for the Stabroek News, in support of Martin Gough, informed his readers that he doesn’t read the Kaieteur News. These were his reassuring words to Gough. Gough, as you will recall, was the BCC cricket journalist covering CWC 2007 in Guyana, and wrote a lamentation of Guyana simply because, as he left sunny St. Lucia to come to Guyana, the rains created a damp sight in Guyana that made him yearn to return to St Lucia, a tiny island that is smaller than Wakenaam (no offence to our sister country, St. Lucia).

In his very first blog, Gough went on to derogate Guyana , typical of the arrogant foreign correspondents from the disgraceful London tabloids. Only that Gough represented an organization that avoids that kind of condescending journalism.

Another European, based in Guyana, (he claimed he was born in Guyana but left for the UK in nappies), John Mair who writes in the Stabroek News as Bill Cotton, jumped to the defence of Gough after the Kaieteur News and my column took fiery resentment to Gough’s gutter journalism.

It didn’t come as any surprise that the two gentlemen who were quick to jump to Gough’s side were fellow white British citizens. Though both of these men live in Guyana (Cotton comes often), they refused to see the nastiness in Gough’s first blog. I must confess, though, that Cotton may have been motivated to write his condemnation of me and the Kaieteur News after a long session of bottled enjoyment with Gough.

One of the meanest things that happened in Guyana in 2007 was the way the police arrested three Jamaican visitors to CWC 2007 for parking outside Celina Atlantic Resort. The police should never have behaved like that, and we in the media should have offered our apologies to these people because Guyanese are generally nice people. I think I did in my column on the incident.

An open back pick-up pounced on the men with guns, took them to Brickdam station and had them there for almost the entire day. Yet Guyanese complain when mistreated at CARICOM airports. We in Guyana should have definitely shown our disgust at this incident. They were visitors to Guyana . They didn’t know it was a non-parking zone. There was no sign to indicate that.

This was in April 2007. There is still no warning board.

I got deemed a sleaze-ball by President Jagdeo last year for taking umbrage at the Prime Minister’s justification for the continuation of one radio station in Guyana . It was a sad moment in Guyana to hear the Prime Minister say that the opening up of the radio license could be a dangerous thing because look at what happened in Rwanda .

This is the very government that struggled against the power monopoly of Forbes Burnham but now has the absolute shamelessness to tell this nation last year that it cannot permit the introduction of more radio stations.

Yet, at the end of 2007, Cheddi Jagan was honoured with the so-called highest award, the Order of Liberator.

Here is a government honouring its dead leader, Cheddi Jagan, for his fight for rights and democracy yet could be barefaced enough to tell the people of Guyana that, in 2007, forty-one years after the granting of independence, it is best for Guyana to maintain the policy of one radio station because, if the state permits more frequencies, people may preach a sermon of race hate and that can harm Guyana. Obviously, any baby can see the non-logic in that edict. The bulk of the Guyanese people live in Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice where they see television 25 hours a day and read the newspapers 25 hours a day, yet we haven’t had Rwanda in Guyana .

But we may have it if we have more radio stations. There were more absurdities like this nonsense in 2007. As the days go on, we will focus on them.

Tags: 2007, freddie kissoon