Guyana Press Association mourns Osman’s death
Raschid Osman
Raschid Osman

FOLLOWING is the full text of a statement issued by the GPA yesterday on the death of veteran journalist Raschid Osman:The Guyana Press Association mourns the passing of veteran journalist Mr. Raschid Osman and hereby extends condolences to his wife Yvonne, his daughter Ruth and his other relatives and friends.
As we reflect on his life, the words of Martin Carter’s Death of a Comrade resonate. Carter said “death must not find us thinking that we die.”
Indeed, the sting of death certainly will not wash away Mr. Osman’s illustrious career in print and broadcast journalism. His was a sterling commitment and dedication to the profession he loved. His colleagues at the Guyana Chronicle remember that on Friday Nov 20, 2015 he left early to get ready to attend the opening of the National Drama Festival. He did cover that assignment and died the following morning at the age of 78.
Mr. Osman started his career as a feature writer at the Guyana Graphic in 1963 and continued in that role when the newspaper became the Guyana Chronicle. Eventually, in 1982, he was appointed Managing Editor and from then on was promoted to Sunday Editor, then Editor and eventually Editor-in-Chief in 1989. In 1991, he left for Dominica and took up a job as Editor of the Dominica Chronicle and stayed there until 1999. He returned home and worked on Special Projects at the Guyana Chronicle and then took up a job as News Editor of the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation. From 2003-2005 he served as Editor at the Government Information Agency. Before, rejoining the Chronicle, he had served as the Head of the Public Relations Department at the Ethnic Relations Commission.
At the time of his death, he served as Assistant Editor with the Sunday desk at the Chronicle.
During his long career, Mr. Osman travelled to many different parts of the world, including Nigeria, China, Korea and several islands in the Caribbean.
Osman’s love for the arts moved him to pen brilliant critiques of stage plays, musical and dance concerts, and national cultural events.
In his writing one could have seen not only a commanding use of language, but also deep knowledge of what he was writing about.
In a review of the full first performance by the National Dance Company for the first Caribbean Festival of Arts in 1980, he wrote of the performance of the Cuban modern dance instructor Orestes Mejico, who was then attached to the company: “His work was unique, much of the choreography keeping him close to the floor, his torso and arms inscribing low patterns, an intricate ballet performance that defies the classical position of the upright torso, with only the arms and legs moving at angles.”
He also took time to pay tribute to those who championed the art forms, as is seen in a 1979 ode to Rajkumari Singh, a cultural leader of the time. “The truth is that long before the obsession with ‘roots’ became the ‘thing’, Rajkumari Singh clung to her Indian Heritage with all the vitality she could muster, in all this, never allowing her nostalgia for the life-style of her (forebearers) to so cloud her raison d’etre that she thought the thing to do was to go back to the Indian Sub-Continent.”
At the dawn of the 1980s, he told readers of the introduction of Mass Games here: “Mass Games came alive yesterday (February 28, 1980) for thousands of Mash [Mashramani] revellers, a spectacular sweep of colour and pageantry and informed by a precision that had to be seen to be believed….There is little doubt that Mass Games has instilled the children with discipline that would be hard to beat. For the most part, the participants moved as if they were all parts of one big machine operated by a single operator.”
As the decades rolled on Mr. Osman would continue with insightful art reviews.
But there was another side to him that brought magic to a different audience, something that had become part of his life.
For half an hour every morning mid-week, 9:30 to 10:00 a.m., his radio programme Mid-Morning classics regaled listeners of classical music – “the poignant music of Chopin, or flowing Strauss waltzes, or Tchaikovsky melodies, or inventive Mozart opera, with arias which progressed logically, every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed, or a rousing Rossini overture, chockfull of crescendos that he loved so much,” he wrote recently.
He began presenting the programme in 1979, but handed over the programme to someone else when he left for Dominica in 1991.
When he returned home in 1999, the programme had lost is sponsor and was off air. He resuscitated the programme, and was thrilled when, not having to reply on vinyl LPs he could present a more “vibrant and heavenly” programme using music recorded on CDs. At the time, the Tenors Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, sopranos Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle were in their prime, and he ensured that listeners received a great deal of their work.
The programme was put on pause for a brief period this year, but he had only recently started doing the programme again.
More than his professional life however, Mr. Osman endeared himself to those he came into contact with. He proved to be a genuine soul, who possessed incredible charm and wit.
Importantly, he loved his family dearly and would often talk about them. He was proud of his wife’s activities in the church and the talent of his daughter Ruth, who grew up to be a jazz musician, often crediting her talent to her father’s love for music.

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