Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 23, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Do you know who generates improvement in this country? The press! If the press does not highlight that a kite is stuck in a transformer, a road has a crater deeper than the Atlantic Ocean, a high voltage wire is dangling over a police station, a horse is living inside a school, a public mortuary hasn’t got electricity, a homeless man is terrorizing school kids, then our leaders who are in power will just merrily go on their way attending meetings and visiting the cocktail circuits in the night.
I have little regard for politicians, but there are countless ones who are nationalists. I was educated in Canada and I saw the power of the nationalist dream in Canadian politicians. The most fervent, patriotic politicians can be found in France. I have made many journeys to Barbados, and if their politicians had the kind of money available to politicians from the developed world, then they would have made Barbados another Singapore. I will round off the examples with Singapore. Long endowed with benevolent autocracy, Singaporean politicians are fanatical nationalists. Each one of them wanted to make Singapore a little United States; they have done just that.
In this country, there seems to be a Draculean spirit that was born many moons ago, that has devoured the nationalist soul of every Guyanese politician. I do not see the patriotic spirit in any of them, since my thought patterns were formed while growing up as a teenager. Fans of Forbes Burnham cite him as an exception. They are right; he was an exception in how to use power to broaden the ego and invincibility of the maximum leader. Politicians like Cheddi Jagan and his wife showed little inclination in the area of nationalist reconciliation. It was under Bharrat Jagdeo that Guyana was ruined in ways that may never see recovery.
Hopes are being pinned on the Granger/ Nagamootoo team. I have my doubts. I have my reservations. My hesitation to embrace is widening. We keep saying that Granger is an honest man. No one has doubted that. But a school boy would tell you that out of the seven billion people on Planet Earth, a substantial majority are decent people, but of that majority many would not successfully transform an army, a billion-dollar business, a village, a large hospital, a country. And why not? Because integrity, honesty and decency have to be accompanied by leadership qualities.
I spent 26 years as an academic at UG and I hobnobbed and developed close friendships with many decent scholars and the minute they were given leadership roles, administrative structures went astray and transformational endeavours went missing. At that very university I saw men and women who were arrogant and hardly pleasant, but they were visionary people who could have effected changes. It all comes down to leadership qualities.
Take Nagamootoo. One would have expected him to overshadow Granger. I remember when Granger was elected as head of the PNC, I casually encountered Clarissa Riehl at the entrance of the court yard at the High Court. During the conversation, she told me she never heard about Mr. Granger either in PNC circles or in political society. She went on to make that observation publicly.
The point is Mr. Granger is brand new to politics and is in the learning mode. Moses Nagamootoo has chalked up fifty years in it. For the 17 months that Mr. Granger has failed to galvanize the imagination of Guyanese, Mr. Nagamootoo with his ocean of experience has not outshone Mr. Granger. Both men are decent and honest, but where are the leadership qualities? One can say in many areas of concern, there needs to be a decisive intervention from both gentlemen. When they sit and listen to some of the visionless decisions in Cabinet, how could they concur?
I remember vividly my words to my wife as we were driving when the lights went on at the Atlantic highway. I said wait a few years and see if they will not just go out. And that has happened. Surely, Granger and Nagamootoo pass on that highway a few nights out of each week. Don’t they see the large areas of darkness? The lights went out years ago. But both of these men put up hands and voted for the assignment of 1.4 billion dollars to repair the Convention Centre.
I end with a few words from one of the most philosophical songs ever written, “The Circle of Life” from the movie, “The Lion King.”
Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars.
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