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Jan 10, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One area of post-graduate studies for me at both Mc Master University and the University of Toronto was philosophy. This is a melancholy, lugubrious aspect of human knowledge that tends to leave its recipient with a pessimistic view of the human condition. But philosophy is a beautiful subject that comes close to answering many perplexing questions of life. One great value in studying philosophy is that it instructs you that when you are dealing with Homo sapiens nothing should be surprising. This is one of the lessons of life I have asked my only child to always remember.
For me, 2009 has been a disappointing year for many reasons, many of which cannot be enunciated here because of space. But topping my list is the lack of East Indian rejection of elected dictatorship in this country. I grew up in Guyana watching half the country fight the other half. I belonged to the East Indian half. There was a predominantly African Government that this East Indian half felt was discriminating against it. My dilemma was that I straddled both sides. I had four siblings that were married to African Guyanese. I had nieces and nephews whose name was Kissoon but the naked eyes could never tell they had East Indian blood. My first girlfriend was African – our neighbour’s daughter.
But once you belonged to the East Indian half, you felt the Government of the day was not for you. I received a letter dated 12 September 1973 signed by Major Joe Singh which stated; “This is to inform you that based on the results of the assessment tests held at Timehri, you have been considered fit to undergo Officer Cadet training.” My neighbour Wills and I applied together and we were both successful. Major Joe Singh (later to become very famous in Guyana) wrote me another letter dated 11 October 1973 indicating that the appointment had been rescinded but Wills got through. Was it race? My parents felt so.
I experienced that feeling again when compulsory National Service came to UG and the names of recruits were put up on the notice board. Out of 40 students (my name was number one), only two were African Guyanese. Yes, believe me; only two were Africans. I still have that notice from 1976. I would be glad to send a copy to anyone who is interested in seeing it as Radhakhrisna Sharma, former CEO of GBTI did in 1998. I still have Major (now Brigadier) Joe Singh’s two letters to me. I knew about the pangs of racial prejudice and human decency drove me to fight against it. I met thousands of Indians born in Guyana, living in Guyana who felt there wasn’t a place for them in their own country.
That was not the end of the drama. There was an optimistic side to it. I met brilliant, extraordinary, courageous African-Guyanese who were indignant at the prejudice meted out to Indians. One name comes to mind automatically,Walter Rodney. But there were other superb African minds in the Guyanese community who fought for the end to racial discrimination in their land. Their names are worthy of mention, particularly one of my heroes, Brian Rodway, who I mistakenly wrote as Rodney in my last Sunday article. There were people like Professors Clive Thomas, Rudy James, Harold Lutchman (not Indian), Arthur Alexander and Perry Mars. Hundreds in the WPA like Tacuma Ogunseye, Bonita Bone-Harris, Dr. David Hinds, Andaiye, Mobutu, Sase Omo etc. Lawyers like Benjamin Gibson (father of Dr Keane Gibson), Nigel Hughes who defended me when UG charged me for arson in the strike on the campus against the 1989 budget. There were journalists like Hubert Williams and Bert Wilkinson of course, whose friendship with me has endured over those long years. The names of African Guyanese who fought valiantly for Indian rights are just too long for enumeration.
After 1992, the African dominated Government fell. Paradise that we so anticipated got lost. An African regime was replaced by an East Indian Government bent on revenge, vendetta and cultural hegemony. This junta has gone too far. It has crossed lines that the African administration didn’t dare to go in the seventies and eighties. And where are the people that were on the receiving end of racial domination in the seventies and eighties? Some have joined the oligarchs’ hegemonic procession. Some feel that the PPP is bad but Indians must remain on top. Some are too fearful to speak out. Where does that leave human decency? Where does that leave the right of all Guyanese to belong to this country and to be treated fairly? Where does this leave the children of this land?
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