IT is quite heartening to open a Kaieteur Newspaper and actually be confronted with some light comedy, even amid all of the sensationalist writings that pour out of this publication on a daily basis.
I’m referring to one of the paper’s columnists, Freddie Kissoon, and his daily ranting, in this case the one he dedicated to what he so euphemistically called “The Three Musketeers’ and the subsequent back and forth exchange of words.
Mr. Kissoon‘s reference to the three functionaries, all of whom he initially claimed work out of the Office of the President, as the Three Musketeers is laughable and his subsequent defence even more hilarious.
What Guyanese context is Mr. Kissoon referring to when he says “In the Guyanese context, when we refer to the Three Musketeers we are using the term facetiously, meaning blunderers who cannot get anything right”; I am a Guyanese myself and I’ve never known that term to be used in such a way.
Back in school, both primary and secondary, I was part of group of three friends, all girls, and quite popular too.  Other students referred to us as any number of names among which was “Three Musketeers” and it was not used in a derogatory manner.
Maybe people that he alone are familiar with use that term in a derogatory manner, but no one that I am affiliated with does.
I would also like to question who this Kissoon person is to be calling anyone names, or even to pass judgement on any group or individual in this country.
The book of Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 reads “Judge not, that you be not judged”.  Verse 2 continues “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you”.
I think these are wise words and Mr. Kissoon should take note and try to heed them.
That aside, I am also well aware of Mr. Kissoon’s usual and quite monotonous rants about this country having an elected dictatorship, which are quite vehement and bordering on being ludicrous.
It is simple for me; if a country is a dictatorship why would they allow anyone, much less a supposed academic who deludes himself that the whole of Guyana reads, digests and agrees with everything he churns out on a daily basis, to continue to do so without censorship?
Why would this individual be able to continue with the kind of vilification of public figures that is there in every word he writes day after day? If this country really were a dictatorship and as bad as he tries to portray it, I am quite certain that most, if not all, reasonable thinking Guyanese would abandon these shores for greener and much more democratically inclined pastures.