THERE is an almost tangible, renewed sense of respect for the Office of the Presidency. With it, a re-introduced sense of national patriotism has engulfed Guyana, more so Guyanese. This renewed national patriotism, is reflected aptly in the countrywide clean-up efforts which were spurred mere hours after the swearing in of the 8th Executive President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, at the Independence Arch.Guyana today observes its 49th Anniversary as an Independent and Sovereign Nation. Independent from its colonial masters. The nation commemorates that time in its still young history when the Golden Arrowhead was hoisted and fluttered majestically atop the skyline for the first time, and the British Union Jack was forever lowered as a symbol of supreme power in Guyana.
On Sunday, May 17, 2015, literally hours after he was sworn in as Executive President, Brigadier (ret’d) David Granger, MSS., made his way to the Independence Arch, on Brickdam in Georgetown, Guyana’s Capital City.
He commenced the clean-up and restoration of Guyana’s ambience, beginning at its symbol of nationhood and sovereignty—a monument that was allowed to be overtaken by its surroundings over time, serving almost solely as a resting place for vagrants at night.
HIS EXCELLENCY
I sat with His Excellency, the President, this time mere hours before the Golden Arrowhead is hoisted symbolically at the Independence Arch, in observance of Guyana’s 49th Anniversary, to report on his perspective and thoughts of Guyana as a nation state, its Independence Anniversary, its people and of course, their newly elected leader.
Placing this symbol of nationhood back in the public domain, President Granger said he hopes it will contribute in bringing Guyanese together.
He said, “I really hope it will contribute to national unity, that feeling of oneness.” The President surmised that Guyanese have been “battered over the years, by being treated like pariahs when they travel.”
This sentiment expressed by the President immediately brought to mind the infamous ‘Guyanese Bench’ located at an international airport in one of Guyana’s sister CARICOM countries.
The President spoke too of the many thinking Guyana to be a “rogue state…they feel that we are a nation of migrants, people just looking for work to take away work from other people (in other countries).”
The President said he hopes the initiative which began on Sunday May 17, “regenerates pride in country.”
1966
When Guyana gained its independence 49 years ago today, in 1966, the President said it was a time of euphoria for Guyanese. He said when Guyana gained its independence, Guyanese recognized and truly appreciated what it meant to break free from the colonialists and the concomitant potential that freedom brings to a nation.
While he was not in Guyana on the day Guyana gained its independence, Granger said by the next week he was home and that there was ‘great expectation’ among Guyanese.
Guyanese people, he said were excited. The straight talking former military commander said bluntly, “Gary, colonial society is not nice.”
HUMBER WHISKEY BICYCLES
Sitting across from the massive ornate wooden Presidential Desk with the Golden Arrowhead behind him on its staff, the President shifted position barely, and with his silvery hair as testimony to speaking from experience, said bluntly that was a time, before 1966 that is, when Guyanese were even restricted in the places they could go.
Providing an example of the era, the President pointed to advertisements at the time.
There were cars of the day, such as Humber, Vauxhall and Hillman, President Granger recalled, but recalled too that these were advertised primarily to the “whites” Black people, President Granger recollected, advertised bicycles.
“It makes an impact on you,” a now impassioned President Granger said, and added, that “the only time you see black people in advertisements (at the time), rum and bicycles.”
White people, according to President Granger, “advertised whiskey and cars.”
Explaining his frank description of colonial society, President Granger said his examples used are “symbiotic of what society was like.”
It was a time in Guyana, according to the President, where the whites dominated the prestigious positions of Office. He pointed to Offices such as the Governor General, since replaced with Office of the President, now Ministry of the Presidency.
The Governor General of Guyana was the British Emissary and custodian of executive power in the land at the time, a white man, President Granger recalled.
The posts of Chief of Staff, Archbishop, the Vice Chancellor as well as a large percentage of the professional workforce, were all whites.
There was a ‘social ceiling’ in place for Guyanese as against the British living here, according to President Granger.
The President said this brought a feeling of inferiority among Guyanese people. “You get the feeling, are we an inferior people?”
This was essentially removed with Independence.
ALOOF?
He will, as Head of State, witness the hoisting of the Golden Arrowhead at the Independence Arch today. He will, God willing, lead Guyana’s Executive Government for the next five years and while a resume can certainly be googled, it was thought best that the Guyana Chronicle, as the State’s newspaper, follow up on its profiles of the new Cabinet published last Sunday, with a personal discourse with the nation’s leader.
He’s been described in some circles as “Aloof” and a “Strict Military Man”, while others have grown to know a more personable individual.
I asked the President if he considered himself aloof? His response, “I really belong to the people.”
The President said he is happy when he is among the ordinary people, either in rural or urban settings.
“I am not aloof in any way,” the President added. He said persons that would have observed him on the campaign trail would be able to attest to this.
The President said he is warmly received by many when he visits places and he does not shun people.
“In fact I say to my security let the people come.”
BLACK SHIRT-JACK
With the eradication of poverty and the elimination of racial discrimination guiding his actions as Executive President, I was interested in what moulded our Head of State into the man he is, what his life experiences were that prepared him for the job. He did after all drive himself to Church on his first morning as the country’s Head of State.
He was born on July 15, 1945, which would make his Zodiac Sigil, ‘Cancer’ for those interested. With a smile softening the sober creases on his stern, stately profile, he straightened his neatly pressed black shirt-jack, reminisced as it were for a moment, and said as a boy growing up, “I was always conscious of the differences in the three main places in which I grew up, Bartica in the Essequibo, Whim on the Corentyne, and Georgetown in Demerara….I became aware of the diversity, of course, among the people.”
He was speaking to the various ethnicities making up Guyana and said too “I became aware of the diversity in religion too.”
He chuckled at religious confusion as a lad, raised as an Anglican, starting off formal education at an Anglican school, then moving to a Catholic school.
Bartica for a young David Granger “was the greatest place on earth.”

Looking upwards to the ceiling of his no longer frigid office, as if to visualize what he was saying, the President spoke of waking up in the mornings to the mist rising off of the mighty Essequibo River.
Corentyne also contributed to Granger’s growth as an individual, which he recalled for its rice, sugar and fishing. while there was the hustle and bustle in the Capital City.
Living life as a young man split across the three diverse communities in each of Guyana’s counties, President Granger said, “I think it contributed to my broad mindedness…I was able to see different sides of Guyana.”
Understanding Guyana’s diversity is a credit, Granger surmised, and reminded that on May 16, when he was sworn in as Head of State, he said “I am a president for all the people….maybe people didn’t understand what I meant, but I can’t think purely in terms of PNC any more, I have to think in terms of the nation.”
CLASSICAL ARTS
Some complain that school hardly ever teaches lessons needed for real life, while others disagree; whatever your supposition, there is little doubt that in school young men and women tend to hone in on their interest.
He attended the prestigious Queen’s College. According to the President, while there, he leaned towards what was called the Classics Stream, which entailed modern languages, history and such like.
The President said, “That is where my interest was, although many of my friends were going into science, I stayed with History and English and Literature.”
Pondering on his response to my question, President Granger said his upbringing ahead of high school would no doubt be responsible for direction of study in school.
“If I had been the child of a doctor or an engineer, I might very well have gone into a different field,” the President said as he spoke proudly of his books at home that he read at the time.
As a school child, Guyana was still a colony and a great deal of the teachers were foreigners, whites, British citizens. But the cork helmets worn (at Q.C.) were among the fond memories.
A stickler for discipline, seemingly encoded in his DNA, the President said as a young man in high school he enlisted in the Cadets in his mid-teens and also credits this aspect of his upbringing to helping mould the man he would become.
Learning, he said, seemed easier in those days, and of course there was ‘caning’ executed by the headmaster from time to time.
He said, Potter, whom the Cyril Potter College of Education is named after, and E.R. Burrowes, after whom the Burrowes School of Art is named, were among his teachers, “real gentlemen,” he said, adding “I am proud to have been taught by them.”
6 OF THE BEST
Asked about ‘caning’ and his appointments if any with the Headmaster wielding the cane, President Granger, with an ear to ear grin said, “We took what they called six of the best, normally it was six strokes of the cane for misdemeanors; but we took it in our stride.”
He said the occasional six strokes of the cane were not regarded as any form of cruel or corporal punishment.
“I don’t think we were psychologically damaged because of that,” said President Granger.
Regarded today as a respected historian and academic, Granger said he does not think he performed that admirably in school, in fact he said he only did “adequately” in school “because those were the years of the disturbances and our education, particularly between 1962 and 1964, was disturbed because of what was taking place in politics.”
This reality, President Granger said, affected not just him, but his colleagues as well, pointing out that at one stage even the teachers were on strike.
He said the political friction between the then People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government, the Peoples National Congress (PNC) and The United Force (TUF)—a significant political force at the time—led him to feeling that there was literally a threat to the way of life.
Political inclination, even at that time, told President Granger, “There was a threat in the sense some things were said and some things were being done which were pulling society apart.”
The President was adamant however, leaving Guyana permanently was never an option, one that had been exercised by many, almost in a mini exodus of the time.
Brigadier Granger, now Executive President of Guyana, said he was never attracted to go live “in not a single foreign country.”
GUYANA HOME
The President said while he would have had to travel and live for some time overseas, be it in Nigeria or neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago, to further his studies, he did not have any desire to take up residence, to live permanently in any of them.
The greater part of his life at home has been spent in the Guyana Defence Force, ascending to and retiring with the rank of Brigadier, Commander of the Army at the time.
While upward mobility professionally was recognized, such a rank was the least of his concerns as he made what he calls a smooth transition into the Military, five decades ago.
By this time Granger had already ascended the ranks of the Cadets at Queen’s College to that of Sergeant, and he formally enlisted in the Army shortly after its creation.
Being in the Cadets, according to Granger, ‘was fun rather than rigid. While in the classroom, learning some history, he reminisced, “it was fun, we go on camps, we go on marches…the person sitting next to you in class could be a Corporal and you could be a Private, but we were friends, it was not rigid.”
NEW & EXCITING
He joked, “We know that when we went on parade he could give you orders, it was giggles, we weren’t enemies, we weren’t adversaries, so it wasn’t ever a problem for me going in the Army.
Coming out of High School at Queen’s College, a young Granger attended University in the same compound he recalled, as the current edifice at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara had not yet been built by the Forbes Burnham Administration.
“I had already made up my mind I was going to settle in Guyana and I was not going to migrate,” said President Granger. He was speaking to 1965 when he formally enlisted in the GDF.
The Army was formally constituted on November 1, 1965, and by December, the following month, he joined up.
“It was new, it was exciting, we were becoming independent…we didn’t have any prospect about becoming Brigadier or Chief of Staff,” he said, interrupted by a well-earned yet seemingly blushing chortle.
Earning his first promotion by 1969, President Granger said, “In a way it was expected,” as long as there wasn’t the commission of any grave sins, of course.
LAST BRITS
“We were expected to advance,” he said. According to the former Military Commander, now Executive President, he and his colleagues were well aware of the fact that the plethora of British Officers in the GDF would have to leave. The last of the British Officers left the GDF in 1969, he recalled.
“So we knew that there would be upward mobility sooner or later…People knew that in time you would be given higher responsibilities and you would be given higher ranks””
I asked if he considered himself as always being an ambitious person, even at that age, to which he replied, “It is difficult to expect a person not to be ambitious. You want to do better, you want to get higher training; you want to achieve a higher rank, I think that is normal.
According to President Granger, it would be good to be wary of persons content with living a mediocre life.
45 YEARS OF MARRIAGE
Though cliché sounding, there seems to be some truth in the saying that speaks to the woman behind every great man.
Married 45 years to Sandra (née Chan-A-Sue), the two, before tying the knot, lived in Queenstown, Georgetown, a couple of blocks apart from each other.
She was a friend of the family, and according to the president, the two first met at his father’s house.
“It was natural in a way,” the two getting together and eventually getting married. He said it was not a case where “I didn’t go out looking for a girlfriend and she didn’t go out looking for a boyfriend, there we were, together and we’ve been together ever since.”
He said it was her decency that solidified his decision to marry the woman, now First Lady.
The President did slip in, “She’s a beautiful girl, but sheer decency, you know.”
He said of his spouse, “we have a family and she is a good mother to our children, she is a good wife to me.”
It’s been a quality life with his wife, according to President Granger. He divulged, “I can spend time with her and family without having to really go out and carouse.”
His wife, he said, is a hard worker, “and she expects me to work hard too.”
When the two met, President Granger had by that time already earned for himself the rank of Lieutenant and by the time the two got married, he was a Captain in the Army, and according to Granger, both worked hard to raise their children.
The President is of the view family is the foundation of communities and communities are the foundation of the nation.
According to Granger, at the time he realized he was elected president of Guyana, he also knew, “it gives me an opportunity to fulfill a vision for Guyana, I don’t have much concern about personal wealth or fame, but I have a mission.”

By Gary Eleazar