Latest update May 17th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 15, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I first heard it from my mom when I was a small kid. She would say that when people are in advanced age (from seventies onwards), they should make peace with God. She made this observation whenever an older person does something wicked. As I grew up, I learnt that my mom wasn’t the inventor of that judgement. In fact it is a common saying of the folks here in Guyana.
Often you would hear people remark about a devilish person who is in advanced age; “Why he is so terrible, isn’t it time he mek peace with his God?”
What is exactly meant by this observation? It doesn’t call for an academic explanation. I think it speaks to the need for us to finally do some good in our lives seeing that we are getting on in age and we are near the time when death or the Maker calls. In other words, the young folks expect us to finally change our bad habits that we carried so long with us and finally turn to Godly things as a way of amending for our not so nice ways when we were young.
When I read the praise Rickey Singh showered on President Bharrat Jagdeo about the Day of Appreciation that kicks off tomorrow, I conjured up thoughts of my mother and the saying she was fond of repeating in the home. Surely at his age, (74), and with a UWI honorary doctorate, Mr. Singh should show more respect for the long suffering Guyanese people.
What was outrageous about Singh’s panegyric is his conclusion that Mr. Jagdeo’s “outstanding legacy is his sustained efforts to heal the bewildering ethnic/social divisions that have for too long plagued Guyana.”
This is not only sickening propaganda but shameless eulogizing that is a deprave insult to this nation. For many, the ethnic and social divisions have worsened these past ten years. Two of the founding fathers who became presidents – Burnham and Jagan – would never, I say, never. have allowed Guyana to sink to the deep levels of poverty that characterize the economic landscape of this tragic country at the moment.
Mr. Singh went away long, long ago, and has not lived under the reign of the PPP since it returned to power. He has no direct experience of Mr. Jagdeo’s governorship.
What is nauseating is that this same Rickey Singh saw the need to comment negatively on the role of Prime Minister Golding (of Jamaica) in the Dudus Coke affair. He remains silent on the WikiLeaks cables on Roger Khan’s relation with the most powerful politicians but instead heaps praise on Mr. Jagdeo and his Day of Appreciation event. When I read Singh, I think of how misguided the world is. This propagandizing journalist who has for the past nineteen years sermonized his readers with the achievements of the PPP Government (while enjoying Barbadian democracy) was awarded an honorary doctorate for excellence in journalism.
Can someone tell me what Singh has accomplished in journalism that justifies this award? Now in all seriousness, if Singh can be honoured by the UWI, then so must Adam Harris and Bert Wilkinson.
Guyanese people have the strongest sense of humour amongst the peoples on the globe. Persons have been coming up to me with funny stories about a march from Office of the President to the National Stadium tomorrow and on the way, President Jagdeo, his Ministers, his advisors and his press personnel including Mr. Singh will be sharing out laptops.
Whatever jokes are told about the Day of Appreciation, there can be no denying that it is the culmination of a 12-year-old road that Mr. Jagdeo has engineered with delusions, illusions and deceptions.
And people like Singh have played the game for Mr. Jagdeo. To speak of ethnic and social division being healed under Mr. Jagdeo is tantamount to saying that there is virtue in dictatorship and that dictatorship is better than democracy.
It is a road paved with the most brittle bitumen that has been burdened with the sadness, pessimism, angst and tragedy of the Guyanese people. The long, winding pathway of Mr. Jagdeo leads to the National Stadium and another moment of tragedy will occupy space in the annals of Guyana’s misery.
Comic after comic, sycophant after sycophant, bully after bully will mount the stage and sing songs of praise from the lyrics of Rickey Singh. Singh will return to Barbados, the house slaves will return to their bank books, lavish cupboards and sexual partners. And the poorer classes will continue to cry.
Public Servants salary can double overnight by just fencing the oil projects.
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