Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 18, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – I quote from the Peeping Tom article of Monday, May 16, 2022: “The Stabroek News has written a nasty editorial describing as vulgar a recent fundraising event purportedly organised by the Office of the First Lady. The reason for this characterisation is because the editorialist felt that the cover charge for the hosting of the all-white party was higher than the current minimum wage.”
This is not coming from Frederick Kissoon’s pen. I am not Peeping Tom so some other person out there understands the double standards that this country is drowning in. As I argued in my column yesterday, some dangerous passions directed against the PPP leadership has been unleashed since the ending of the March 2020 election.
Let’s quote from the editorial itself: “There is something vulgar about hosting an “all white” party on a barge in the Demerara River with a ticket price that is higher than the current monthly minimum wage even if it is for a good cause. Charity does not excuse such “in your face” ostentatious indulgences in what is still a desperately poor country. Of course any criticism will be drowned out by the popping of champagne corks and the clacking of louboutins. These days, wealth is a virtue in and of itself…”
What does one make of this statement in the Guyana context? I emphasise in the Guyana context. I plan to do an iconoclastic article on Walter Rodney. I couldn’t understand how Rodney could have been preaching people’s power and revolution to the masses and he was deeply (emphasis on deeply) embedded in a highly middle class outfit where his party leaders, without exception, were middle class elites that did not socialise with the ordinary people.
In contrast, the PPP and PNC had always encouraged working people to be in their hierarchy of their respective parties. In this respect, Cheddi Jagan’s contribution to the birth of working class leaders in his party is simply phenomenal. Mrs. Janet Jagan hardly socialised with Georgetown’s middle class elites. I have known Aubrey Norton a long time now, and I will be doing my academic training a disservice if I classify Norton as having middle class motifs throughout his career. In this context, revisionist historians need to revisit the praxis of Rodney.
What I am going to do here is refrain from commentary and just look at the facts. I will leave it to readers to put their own interpretations. Two points need to be made before the factual enumeration. One is that I have grown up in politics seeing people talk about liberating the masses, and after the rhetoric, they would retire to the world of wealth and privilege.
The second one is that I support the project of the First Lady. To argue against her fund-raising effort targeting contributions from the well-to-do to help charity organisations is foolish. It is normal and has been perfectly normal in the contemporary world and is very much a social characteristic in most countries today. If you are going to get at the PPP leadership, then look for justified issues not something like fund-raising programmes by the First Lady. Really man! Please! What is heartbreaking is not another soul is going to join me and Peeping Tom and pen a few lines on this outrage.
Now the factual numeration. The Stabroek News is owned by a wealthy expatriate family. One of the persons that often speak on elevating the masses publicly said his company paid $600,000 for a booth at the February oil conference and exhibition.
Another person who talks about the working people needing help has bought the latest model in the BMW brand of cars. As I wrote above, I am not going to comment on the assets of these people. I see no reason to condemn the assets people have. In terms of poorer folks, comparatively speaking I have more than them; I drive a car and live in my own house. But I am not going to criticise a fund-raising dinner by a socialist politician if he is targeting people with money so he can help charitable causes.
In these days in Guyana, it is becoming impossible to tell who is who. We are living in uncertain times in Guyana where moral compasses and ethical foundations are ebbing away with the tide. One of the leading female politicians in Guyana in July 2020 sent her colleagues an email saying that maybe it is time for racial partition of the country. The graveyard of political discourse and the cemetery of journalism failed to call upon her to explain.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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