IN the interest of fairness, can you  kindly consider publishing this response to Mr Eusi Kwayana’s tirade in the Kaieteur News? It would be much appreciated.

So far, I have not seen any response in Kaieteur News to Mr. Kwayana’s (KN 9/26/12) criticisms of my letter, or that of  Mr. Barrington Braithwaite (KN 7/30/12 ).

I respectfully hope you may be able to facilitate my response since my name was so prominent  in the headline of  that newspaper.

Mr.  Eusi Kwayana normally sends his letters to be vetted by his inner circle. Apparently his missive in the KN of 26/9/12, titled: ‘Sultan Mohamed misdirected racist attacks’ did not get such usual supervisory scrutiny.  Consequently his letter, with his trademark stings, was rambling, unfocused and all over the place. Mr.  Kwayana’s poor memory previously elicited sympathetic commentary. It’s all the results of old age and it does him no favours.
Not accustomed to anyone boldly (he says “brazenly”) holding him responsible it makes him uncomfortable. At ease and only at ease with  “class” chattering cyclops like Dr Rupert Roopnarine, Mr. Moses Bhagwan  and our  deculturised extraordinaire  Mr. Frederick Kissoon, etc, he has never  faced any serious accountability in his exclusive black rights advocacy in our plural society.
Craftiness and political shrewdness have always been his most  exemplary qualities. So what has been left standing for his entire political life’s work? Admittedly, raising black consciousness can be commendably credited to him. His cultural awareness, however, was catalysed from Indian cultural awareness where “he was found” and retrieved, self-admittedly overlooking an Indian play after sneaking away from parental control.  In as much as he feels that he can get away with a sarcastic address to me as “Guru Mohamed”, it is only a reminder of how full he is of himself.   He will never dare make direct disrespect to the Holy Prophet Mohamed as he knows perfectly well its consequences.
Mr. Kwayana cannot be begrudged however, for his pride, that he has no equal opposite amongst his Indian peers. But that is not his fault or problem either. Ever so consumed by “slavery” for most of his life, Mr Kwayana  has found it difficult, indeed unable or incapable of emerging from its cocoon. Both his County High School and ASCRIA fell into ruins, was fired as head of the Guyana Marketing Corporation and expelled as PNC General-Secretary by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. But it has never affected his ideas or goals.
However, what was most laughable was Mr. Kwayana’s refocusing to “look at his treatment of Mr. Frederick Kissoon, because Mr. Mohamed wants all Indians in one camp, but is above race!” Of course significant bragging rights are due to the creolised programming for the excellent, shining trophy (give him his credit; he is no coward) of Mr. Kissoon’s self-admitted Afro-centric transformation, especially after Mr. Braithwaite leads the ACDA agenda that “we must dismantle the racist victim themes now being used for sinister political agendas” in his KN, 30-7-12 letter, which treasures such Kissoons.  Definitely no vagueness here  at all. Irony or hypocrisy  or both? Consider now, that with both black activists as proactive vigilantes to regenerate their distant geographically varied black tribal cultural heritage in Guyana, their best trophy is an outstanding but ironic crossover victim. Excellent or  shameful or both?

Mr. Braithwaite’s revealing confirmation of Mr. Kwayana’s personal opinions of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his wife Janet is, however, more a fascinating contrast to Mr. Kwayana’s championing of Mr. Kissoon’s whatever. Persistently  a crafty Machiavellian  “by any means necessary” (Malcolm X) look how Mr. Kwayana continuously strives  to achieve his political agenda. Mr. Braithwaite reveals how Mr. Kwayana was contemptuous of Dr Jagan as “he cannot even fight against his own slavery; cannot even carry out a revolution within himself”.  All this from a  supposedly queh queh socialist with whom Mr.  Bhagwan’s IPRA  found commonality in forming  the WPA?
Mr. Braithwaite promptly affirms  “Eusi Kwayana was correct, because Jagan’s communist  agenda was an extension of Janet’s quest…They both accommodated the (sic) antique (Indian) prejudices (sic) that were a pool of readymade (sic) fanatical support”.

This perspective through  a “stone ager’s slavery”  lens by  which Mr. Kwayana views all,  including the Jagans,  has  trapped  Guyanese   in mental  shackles  since the previous century and must be reviewed conclusively.

It has become a new,  questionable ideology for imposition of an outdated  misery, renewed  fanaticism and cultural deformation. Mr. Kwayana’s double standards  can only confirm his  guilt  by race, vis a vis Mr. Kissoon’s similar,  apparent  outstanding  deficiencies.  What sanctifies Mr. Kwayana to demean Dr Jagan’s  personal non revolution (similar to his private disdain for Dr Roopnarine) but  proudly champion Mr. Kissoon’s “freedoms” shows what matters to him preempts and makes them a priority.  Moreover, all Mr. Kissoon’s  Guyanese Indian cultural antecedents come in for scathing vilification by  similar Braithwaites who  find them damnable   “because the roots of these (Indian) belief systems rest in the archetypical imprints of another age”. So even as there is blatant disdain of “Indian antiquity”, it is, (like Mr. Kwayana’s metamorphosis when he was found), the same admirable basis for emulation and regeneration, or  a  black  heritage which dates  back to the ageless origin of humankind. What facilitates Mr. Kwayana’s and Mr. Braithwaite Kaieteur News prominent piggyback to boldly demolish, define  and refashion their Indian countrymen  and themselves  is  also  testament in itself of seeming entitlement in Guyana for an aggressiveness  which finds little timidity or uproar. To disagree with them becomes “brazenness” Christianity at work? Hardly likely.  Rejection of such crusading impositions, by the same equal token, cannot  therefore be wrong, unfair or unjustified when found uncompromisingly unacceptable. Building black cultural pride is perfectly possible through its own merits and should not be through cultural or ethnic cannibalization. Hopefully, all Guyanese would find their comfort and security, not because of their cultural differences, but in spite of it.

In fact, the genesis of Mr. Kwayana’s creation of ASCRIA’s cultural awakening was based on his historical analysis that Guyana’s Indian cultural organizations would automatically seek refuge and support the PPP during political crises, tensions and upheavals.
Who would precipitate any problems was never clear nor did it matter that political tensions mostly occurred before and after elections. Never mind t
hat all the Indian cultural organizations were only preoccupied in exclusive cultural pursuits and certainly without racial or political emphasis or acquisitions as their goals.
Mr. Kwayana nevertheless felt that such organizations’ existence were a threat specifically to black Guyanese political aspirations.  ASCRIA’s creation became the black counterweight. All three elements of (a) black cultural awakening, (b) racial pride, solidarity and unity  and (c) a battle-ready machine to achieve  political power  were combined into one.  All that was now necessary for Mr. Kwayana’s  ASCRIA to  achieve its goals realization was political tensions in the country.  This came in the 1960s upheavals and now it’s the current Linden brouhaha where old habits die hard for Mr. Kwayana and his friends.
With the predominantly black PNC controlling and charting Guyana’s destiny after being catapulted into political power (1964-1992), ASCRIA faced extinction as it became irrelevant. The PNC had fulfilled ASCRIA’S goals of black empowerment.  Battling for survival, ASCRIA  started  accusing the PNC of not doing enough for black people. As agitation against the PNC for rigging successive elections gained traction, even among black people, ( all black Guyanese are obviously not ‘evil’) ASCRIA  joined the bandwagon to ensure it was a black bridge to future political power.
Dr Walter Rodney’s arrival was an excellent development but his subsuming of race to class was a novel and unheard-of approach for a popular black leader. With Dr Rodney’s gigantic success in  harnessing  increasing black loyalty and significant Indian support,  he  therefore had a deleterious  effect on ASCRIA’s black base. His  presence was now an emerging threat.  With the die-hard Marxist Dr Rodney’s secret understanding with Dr Jagan’s PPP that he would harness  black working -class support  and then merge back as it was in the pre-1953 PPP, the future looked grim for the predominantly black  PNC as well.
Dr Rodney’s ultimate goals of reuniting Guyana’s betrayed 1953 socialist voyage would have effectively scuttled and finally remove black guilt forever if he were proven successful.  Dr Rodney’s life’s work then became optional as his mission was disemboweling  both ASCRIA and the PNC.
He had to go quickly as together they were threatened and became fearful of his continued existence. Since ASCRIA’s residue leadership could not openly attack the popular Dr Rodney, they were content to bide their time. With a hazy Indian Political Revolutionary Associates (IPRA) led by expelled PPP Marxist operative, Mr. Moses Bhagwan, billing themselves as the Indian rights champions, Mr. Kwayana’s ASCRIA found common ground and they became wedded as the WPA. Unfortunately, IPRA had practically zero Indian support and while Mr. Kwayana could proudly champion black consciousness and cultural awakening, Mr. Bhagwan’s IPRA, with no grounding in Indian consciousness, was most happy spouting their usual working-class solidarity with the communist world, embellishing Indians as red devils.  Even in the WPA they were on totally different wavelengths with IPRA’s failure to graduate from  “class”.

Dr Rodney’s Pan Africanist background, however, attracted him to black Guyanese, while his “class” emphasis endeared him to the Indians constantly saturated with it by both the PPP and  less so by IPRA.

Without much local Guyanese political experiences, however, Dr Rodney was easily duped and he was very unceremoniously but dramatically killed in an explosion.  A popular black martyr was now created to rally black support as he was easily identifiable and proudly defined as one of their own.
Dr Rodney’s threat to both Mr. Kwayana’s ASCRIA and the PNC had been effectively removed. The bitterness that the WPA never got any awards for all its (sic) tremendous sacrifices explains its current anger. How does this remind us what has occurred in Linden, with Mr. Kwayana and company so vocal and in so much anguish to achieve due entitlements? Linden’s historically paying less for electricity while all other Guyanese burn less and pay more is only an iceberg  blueprint of  Guyana’s  back to the future.