ASHTON Chase, an indomitable Guyanese of African descent who inscribed his name in Guyana’s history as a founding member of the nation’s two very first political formations — the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) — died this past week at the ripe and full age of 96.

During his long life, Chase saw race relations play out over decades, from British Guiana (BG) the Co-operative Republic, in a country of people of African and Indian descent who never had any prior problems coexisting with other fellow citizens of Amerindian, Chinese, European, Portuguese or Mixed Races.

Chase had his problems with colleagues on both sides of the national political divide, but never followed those fellow former early members of the PAC and the PPP who crossed the floor to play the race card against the party that gave birth to their not-so-colourful political careers.

Instead, he concentrated on making his contributions in the legal and trade union fields, helping document the travails of the Guyanese working class and trade union movement, instead of joining the small but loud legion of those who made a career of biting the hands that fed their political careers.

Unlike others, Chase never changed his name to look or sound different than who he really was, nor did he ever profess any of the pure personal and political hatred that others looking like him spewed against fellow founders like Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Janet Jagan, who led by matrimonial example in a movement that first attracted them, that brought all races together in one party, for the common struggle to free what the PPP has always considered ‘One Guyana.’

Chase saw it all — and whatever warts may be ascribed to him — to the very end maintained the personal dignity of opting to silently observe instead of being adversely publicly critical of the paths taken in office by the party he founded and lived to be the Last Man Standing (from the political pioneers who formed the PAC and the PPP).

His was a classic example of a citizen who played his part and maintained his dignity to the very end, instead of ever making it appear he had any regrets about the contributions he made alongside the Jagans and others of all races who joined the PAC and the PPP to liberate Guyana from colonialism and build a better future for all Guyanese.

Ashton Chase’s death drew condolences and sorrowful expressions, but all who mourn should also consider that he lived happy enough to die, having seen his early sacrifices alongside others from the tender age of 20, had finally started to bear full fruit with the discovery of oil and gas and its management by a PPP-led administration in the safe hands of technocrats and politicians of all races with the common aim of building a One Guyana For All.

Fortunately, in the new Guyana paradigm since 2020, this will most likely not be the end of the Ashton Chase story, as his example is one most worthy of following at this juncture when losers in politics turn on each other and throw vile insults at former supporters looking like them who choose unity over race and the future before the past.

Ashton Chase has proceeded on his ultimate journey to the land from where no one has ever returned and his memory will be sustained in the history of Guyana and minds of Guyanese today and tomorrow as a quintessentially honest politician who had always essentially put patriotism, people and party before persons and/or profits.