AFTER reading Asquith Rose’s letter in the Kaieteur News of April 4, 2011, captioned, “Those who speak from both sides of their mouth should not be trusted”, I must say that I am very much uninterested, considering the fact that this fellow seems to be writing, essentially, about the same things in all his letters. While the titles of his letters are different, they all carry the same content. It is surprising that the editor has not picked up on this.
Asquith Rose is starry-eyed, completely unrealistic in thinking that his take on President Jagdeo is gospel and that all of Guyana should buy and sell wholesale, everything that he says in his letter. President Jagdeo’s address at Buxton was fitting. We should not indulge in every aspect of the past. As a people, it is imperative that we wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Nevertheless, the aspects of that past which resurface and remind us of that tragic past must be re-engaged and dealt with so that we can overcome it and not make the mistake of being once again dragged into that past by shadows of that past. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, the solemn words of George Santayana. It is fitting that so many refer to the months leading up to the election as the ‘silly season’. It really is silly that just about anything and everything is picked up and ran with.
In Asquith Rose’s previous letter, “Desecration of the Babu John Holy Shrine” in the Kaieteur News of March 31, 2011, the phrase “It is outside the purview of this letter to explain how depraved, perverse, venal, wicked, spiteful and immoral the PPP regime is”, would have been negated from that letter by any fair-minded editor. That sentence is completely unnecessary and unwarranted. I must say that I am disappointed that Kaieteur News, a newspaper of such calibre, and with wide circulation, would publish without appropriate editing.
The fact of the matter is that Guyana is a democracy, where the people elect their president through free and fair elections. The people of Guyana have spoken and they chose the person by whom they will be represented. President Jagdeo is the president that the people chose to govern the affairs of this country; and whether Asquith Rose likes it or not, the day to day running of Guyana is the President’s responsibility. If this fellow has difficulty accepting this, I will urge him to exercise his democratic right on Election Day, which is a mere couple months away and vote for the president of his choice.