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Oct 01, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – Cricket commentator, Naim Chan was the guest last week on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show and in passing made a reference to David Hinds.
Chan said that when he saw Guyanese cricketers from different ethnic backgrounds embracing each other during the recent CPL tournament, he thought of how persons like David Hinds hinder racial unity.
The next day, David replied to Naim in a very harmless way without using toxic or demeaning words. But his analysis of Naim’s expression though without vexation portrays the corrugated perspective of many African Guyanese leaders on the attempted rigging of the March 2020 election.
David acknowledged that Naim is his friend and has a WPA background. Naim on the show described how WPA’s big leaders used to meet often at his mother’s place in Queen Street, Kitty in the 1970s.
Then David began his twisted analysis of Naim’s mind. He said that during the five-month election saga, Naim took an Indian position. He went on to add that Naim’s approach to the five-month drama was based on race.
I didn’t know that David had said those words until Naim called me to enquire if I knew how David had portrayed him. Naim was upset by the accusation of racial profiling. He exclaimed in the telephone conversation that he didn’t take any racial position but a pro-democracy stance in March 2020.
I calmed Naim assuring him that he must expect words of attack once he is in the public eyes. So what is wrong with David’s characterization of Naim and is Naim’s explanation of his own position tenable? I can answer those two questions with extensive clarity because my attitude during the five-month disaster was identical with Naim’s.
I voted in the March 2020 election for Lenox Shuman’s party. From 2015 to 2020 when the APNU+AFC regime was in office, this page was critical of both major parties. I took no ethnic or party line from 2015 to 2020.
I denounced the election rigging because it was an assault on my right to vote and have it counted. I condemned the election rigging because it meant that once the PNC got back in power, Guyana had returned to election fraud and permanent power.
The PPP lost in 2011 and 2015. Changing government is the right of voters and voters must be allowed to change governments. Former Barbados Prime Minister, Owen Arthur was a competent and successful Prime Minister but he lost power because the electorate felt leaders should not be in power for so long.
David’s analysis of Naim’s motive becomes convoluted within the context of how countless Africans from Guyana and beyond Guyana pronounced on the rigging. And be advised that none of the names that will now be listed here have had or has even a distant relation with the PPP before March 2020.
One of the most visible names in African rights politics before March 2020 was UG lecturer, Charlene Wilkinson. Ms. Wilkinson gave an interview to me (see my column of Wednesday, October 7, 2020 “Election 2020: I discovered Charlene Wilkinson and I have something in common”) in which she did not support the attempted rigging and spoke out against it.
If Chan rejected the conspiracy to tamper with the results because he was Indian could theorists like David Hinds explain why Ms. Wilkinson said what she said? Could minds like David Hinds explain the public rejection of the election conspiracy by the current Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies Professor Hilary Beckles.
He is the chairman of the Caribbean Reparations Committee. In holding that position, he is endorsing a right and a claim that Afro-Caribbean people embrace, therefore he is no pro-Indian academic but an African rights scholar.
Then there is Dominic Gaskin. His is a name that the PNC, the AFC and their surrogates avoid like the COVID-19. These groups of people never, never, never touch Gaskin’s name and behave as if he doesn’t exist,
PNC propagandist, Ganesh Mahipaul was a guest on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show and when asked to comment on Gaskin’s denunciation of election fraud foolishly, barefacedly, and hypocritically said he cannot remember what position on the election Gaskin took.
What I am about to write now is going to shock countless persons who did not know this fact. The fact is there is nothing spoken or written by Professor Clive Thomas since March 2020 that is in support of the attempts to rig the 2020 election.
Now I agree that there are no words from Dr. Thomas conceding that the PPP won. So there is silence on both fronts. This is important given the largeness of Dr. Thomas’ presence in the opposition sphere.
(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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