SOME years ago, my eldest brother who passed last year under unclarified circumstances, had proposed a business concept that I supported. A company was formed. I had the money at the time and paid the filing fee, and as agreed in principle, received shares. So, not long after, he told me he had investors, and I must meet them, and in so doing, I visited their office. That visit is memorable, though the location of the office is not. A tall Guyanese gentleman at the entrance was the first person I met. I greeted him, extended my hand and introduced myself. He responded by telling me his name and immediately asked, in an authoritative way “Who is your father?” I responded, “My father is not a part of this business, this is just me and my brother.” (Fortunately, I understood from teachings as an adolescent many of the bad values that attached themselves to the otherwise excellence of the achievements of colonial British Guianese.) He seemed confused and offended, and I was glad that we were interrupted by another presence, his colleague. This would seem to be a casual question, but it has other overtones, unlike the question, “You’re a Fraser, from wuh village?” That, in most cases, is based on acquaintances and relationships – “Who’s your father?“ is a question that determines ‘the worthiness of one’s line of descent, from a ‘social-status viewpoint’ and not necessarily from a character assessment. Social status has been reduced to, over the last century, derive from wealth acquired, ‘Office held’ etcetera. It diminishes the individual and imposes inferiority complexes that are instructed by the subjective authority of a fabricated doctrine of class. This was not a concept developed completely by those who crave this practice today. To use a reference that I’ve used before (taken from the text of an 1823 historical book) mentioned in respect to the plight of the new missionaries who came to the colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. “There is not a country on the face of the earth, where classes are more numerous and party spirit more firmly rooted than in this.” In a society with so many divisions and protocols, it would be impossible for the missionaries not to blunder”-Royal Gazette in August 1822.-see ‘Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood’-by Emilla Viotti da Costa. There’s a recent second book on the same subject of the 1823 slave protest -‘WHITE DEBT’ by Thomas Harding.

An Aunt, now passed, who was a businesswoman of her day, in discussion with a visitor while I was present, related as follows about a conversation between then Prime Minister Burnham and a member of a prominent Afro Guyanese family of professionals, who accused the then Prime Minister: “ You are creating a system that is placing the children of my servant in the same schools with my children.” Burnham replied, “ If they are bright enough, yes, you must remember, when we came off the plantations, there were no distinctions between us. Why adopt them now?” I was convinced that as a teenager, my Aunt wanted me to hear this, because when I attempted with ‘good manners’ to rise and leave, she had signalled me to remain seated. In the ancient human world, the leader of the tribe was a combination of the warrior and wise leader that preserved the tribe from annihilation, where in some cultures it was expected that his heirs would follow suit, and were miserable failures, in others. To prevent that, the heir was selected from the most able son of the king’s sisters {matriarchal systems} that was identified on merit by the ‘Elders’ to be the next leader. But that was a time when leadership determined holistic survival. The class, political-status and race selective preferences, rather than on merit, has become endemic across much of the world, is rooted in the custom of practice that is also implied in the question “Who is your father?” only now, the revolution of callous opportunism is even more adamant with personal agendas, to which loyalty is hinged on the common agreement “ to have no permanent enemies or Friends , only common Interests” -paraphrased from- Henry Kissinger” however interpreted, the disconnect of duplicity will prevail, where the concepts of establishing trust, principles and character are deemed mere philosophical, trivial and irrelevant, thus, the precipice of eventuality. As a specie, we have always identified in nature forces that were beyond our comprehension, the Kosmos, forces of nature that affected us, both positive and negatively, the phenomenon of special gifts within our humanity, the acknowledgement of forces beyond our quick understanding, that led to rites of honour, and the identities of deities. But we have reached the stage now that with temerity, class has been reinterpreted, against our admittance, in an even more deceptive mode, merit is subjective, based on ‘personal-common interests’ regardless of the implications.