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Oct 18, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I read and see little things in my country and my mind wanders and wonders on them. These are tiny things that may or may not have importance, but somehow my mind does not miss them. I would reflect on them and I say there are bigger concerns to expand on. But the interest is there and the urge to write is compelling. I guess a few reflections can’t cause any harm. So here goes.
This newspaper featured two news reports in which the two unions say that the UG administration needs to practice transparency. Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean what the unions say is factual, but the head of Transparency International (Guyana) is a UG lecturer. I thought it funny that UG is being accused of not being transparent and the transparency body in Guyana is headed by a UG lecturer. I am not making any comment on the UG administration, the unions and Transparency International (Guyana). The thing just caught my eyes.
I read where a UG law student at UWI said that when he comes home, he intends to be an agent of change. Immediately I thought the statement was strange. He was a student at UG. Students have always been agents of change. It occurred to me to ask; why wasn’t he an agent of change at UG before he went to UWI? But I guess the fellow must have his reason(s).
I see every week the consumer corner in this paper, but I never hear or read about any activity of the Guyana Consumers’ Association. That was a sprightly body in its earlier days, but I don’t know what has become of it. A consumer affairs organization should be an active entity in any country.
You must ask yourself what happened to the Bar Association in the past twenty years. This was a very inspiring body in the olden days, that is, the remarkable seventies.
I grew up in politics with the Bar Association having some powerful voices in its midst. At that time, the Bar Association would show interest in any human rights violation, whether it was a dismissal of a state employee, a violation at UG, a situation in the trade union area, etc. When Dr. Josh Ramsammy was shot in October 1971 in the vicinity of the Coop Bank, the Bar Association was active in forming a committee to demand a state investigation.
Ramsammy did not die. He survived to become one of the leaders in the formation of a group named the Movement Against Oppression. After that, he became a founding member of the Working People’s Alliance (footnote; few Guyanese would know it, but Ramsammy remains a rare feature in Guyanese politics; not many scientists have taken to politics; he was a biologist – Cheddi Jagan, Ptolemy Reid and Makepeace Richmond were in medicine).
Ramsammy lived. Courtney Crum-Ewing and Ronald Waddell suffered attacks similar to Ramsammy’s, but they didn’t make it. They died on the spot. Strangely there was no Bar Association involvement to press for an investigation.
I am just thinking out loud here when I ask if the Bar Association should not at least say something about a bank resisting the decision of a court. But this is Guyana as they say.
Where else but in Guyana would you find some of the things that are both unbelievable and incredible? I read all the time where this Amerindian gentleman writes the IDB, the different ministries, the police force and other institutions, and signs his name in the capacity of President of an Amerindian rights organization. He demands answers. But no one knows who are the other members and where it is located. In other words, does this organization exist?
And since we are on the topic of one-man armies, it makes you question the make-up of some of the smaller parties that are in Government today as part of APNU.
I was embarrassed on a television programme when I forgot the name, “National Front Alliance.” That is a party under the APNU umbrella, but it was out of the news for so long that I forgot its name. I honestly do not know if you can speak of the functionalism of the National Front Alliance, but I am willing to concede that I may be wrong.
These are just little dots on the Guyana landscape that may or may not have any sociological or political importance, but they do titillate the analyst and commentator to cause him/her to pen a reflection. But in hidden ways, little things can have serious consequences.
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