I REFER to the Freddie Kissoon column, published in the Sunday, December 07, 2014 edition of the Kaieteur News, entitled, ‘The idiotic, pathetic nonsense of Minister Ashni Singh’.Differences there will be, and the strong advocacy of different views is essential to the ‘clearing’ of our way, but I was, indeed, shocked and pained by the intemperate language, bordering on the vituperative and vulgar, in that article. I felt the attack, personally, and I wondered: Why?
I recognised that, partly, it was because it could have been directed at me; for, when I had read about the event of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) dinner, late on Saturday, December 6, 2014, after having been aboard for a few days, I had concurred with what Ashni Singh was reported to have said at that event. So, emotionally, I was reading the attack on Ashni, as an attack on me. Freddie is not right- and that column will anger many and misguide many others, intensifying discord in our society. I cannot find a redeeming feature in it at all!
My reaction, however, was tempered by some maxims that I recalled. One was that, to be attacked like that might be a good thing, and not a bad thing- it makes real or perceived differences in positions and views, very clear. But that intemperate language was not necessary; it was painful, and not helpful. Freddie has allowed his frustrations to get the better of him! There will always be differences in positions and views, which rightly ought to be debated, and in the course of that debate, we will all be educated and even amend our views.
In the course of getting things done in our country, with people, the resources, including money, and the time available, one needs feed-back, particularly feed-back that is critical in nature. It is in this view that, I admit, I read Freddie’s columns and others’, as often as I could. There is no doubt that Freddie’s column presents a view from ‘another’ side. There is, this, some ‘efficiency’ in reading Freddie, to get quickly some of the ‘other’ views.
A second maxim that consoled me some (particularly on reading Freddie’s columns), is about ignoring the person of the speaker, but paying attentions to the words – how true or not, the words are. In this regard, I say without reservation that, in this matter, I stand alongside Ashni, Ashni was correct, and Freddie is wrong- Freddie should eat his words!
What is the essence of Freddie’s criticism of what Ashni said? It is that Ashni’s reference to the 238-year-old U.S.A still having democratic stalemates similar to, and at times even more intense than, that our 48-year-old Guyana, is invalid and not relevant, because the effects of such stalemates and in-figting is much more disastrous on Guyana, than on the U.S.A. That the effects are likely to be more disastrous on Guyana is probably true, and should be something of great concern, but that does not invalidate or make Ashni’s reference irrelevant. Ashni’s reference is not only correct, but it positions our experience within the process by which nations are built, and it helps us understand the problems that we face and how we may resolve them. What Ashni was saying is, “Look, the people of the U.S.A have been working for 238 years at achieving accord in their society, but still experience difficulties. Read in their 238-year history of nation-building- their meetings with the indigenous Indians, their ‘Wild West’ frontiers where, for a time, the various outlaws and saloon-keepers reigned, their civil war, their prohibition period – and you would recognise that they are working always towards a more perfect Union, and you would get a feeling of the process of arriving at where they are today. We in Guyana have been working at it for 48 years- it is not easy, but we must not give up; we must keep on trying.” As much as we would like it to be so, it would be unreasonable to expect that we would be as developed as the U.S.A is, today.
I think that we (Ashni and I) and Freddie differ on what we consider as the starting state, the natural state of us humans, and the relations between us humans. Freddie seems to hold, and start from the view, that us humans start from a position of full accord, equality, law and order, perfect governance- all milk and honey- and that it is bad people, bad leaders, especially bad politicians, who cause humans to fall from such a state of grace.
We (Ashni and I) start from a different position- of human individuals with a myriad of conflicting, contradicting, contesting views, out of which a degree of law and order, some sorts of accord and governance, slowly emerges over time, through a series of events: an evolutionary process in which various persons feature – saints and devils, and persons in between – with good things and persons sometimes bringing good results.
In our model, we can expect, and must work for, ever more perfect accord and governance, and are aware that new circumstances and situations keep arising, which put to test the accord, the governance, previously attained.
It is with this view, quixotic and trivial though it may seem to some, that I keep rejecting the description of us Guyanese as a dividend, even splintered, society. That description suggests that we were one at some time: we were never one! Fate threw our six ancestral groups together here, with all sorts of possibilities before them- the most difficult and challenging of which is the coming together, as one nation, to which we aspire, and which we have undertake. We are a people not divided, but a people coming together from very different starting positions. We have been converging, closing much distance between us, but with some distance still to close!
In a similar way, I bristle on reading reports from multi-laterals and others, and on hearing our people, especially our youth, speaking about what Guyana does not have- as if these things should have just been there, and not things that have to be worked for, and to be built by us: things which we do not yet have, which we have not yet built, and which we are still to build.
Compared with the U.S.A., Guyana is at a much earlier stage of all aspects of social, economic and political development. That we will experience relatively more turbulence than the more mature U.S.A and, at the same time, be much more vulnerable to such turbulence, even to the point of becoming a so-called failed state is troubling, but true.
Living together calls for sacrifices of our individual inclinations to some common order, which itself is established ‘on the run.’ People make the sacrifices, the compromises, appropriate to the danger that they perceive. It is the dangers that we perceived that motivate the level of sacrifices which might yet avoid failure. Freddie states from a different base, one assuming full accord as the point from which we start. I stand with Ashni. Ashni was correct. It is by working through differences over a number of generations that we have a hope of getting ever close to some ideals of accord, democracy, good governance. Freddie was wrong, and wrong to attack Ashni, so! Freddie should retract his words!

SAMUEL A. A. HINDS, O.E., M.P.,
Prime Minister