IN our first instalment we ended on the note of the political transformation of one of the founding members of Red Thread, Andaiye. That transition of Andaiye, we said, will have to involve some amount of speculation since there is no body of facts to cite as to why she broke so deeply with the WPA.

I think one shortcoming in the recording of history is that Joan records what she knows of Sunil, but Sita has a different story to tell and history misses it because Sita does not put down on paper what she knows. This is an ongoing problem with history. I will go on a brief digression because it emphasises my point.

Guyanese history has not recorded the absolute class snobbery of members of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC) that entered politics, particularly David DeCaires and Miles Fitzpatrick, because many who saw it were intimidated about criticizing the crème de la crème of Guyanese society. Then there were others who just did not have the status to publish what they knew.

Then there are those who could never see the faults of their friends because their friends never displayed those faults to them. A good example is literary icon, Ian Mc Donald, a very decent Guyanese and decent human. He would not have seen the class snobbery of DeCaires and Fitzpatrick because they had no need to manifest it in front of an iconic McDonald.

So, there are missing links to the stories of many prominent actors, dead and gone, and those still alive. I am glad that Miles Fitzpatrick confessed to Ravi Dev years before he died that he was the one who had ousted me as a columnist at Stabroek News. What I am 1000 per cent absolute about is that he didn’t tell Dev the reason, he couldn’t. He was shocked to the core that some-dark-skinned non-Christian, working-class boy from Wortmanville could have had the temerity of disagreeing with him.

Back to Andaiye. She came to the magistrate’s court when Mark Benschop and I were charged. I thanked her for her show of solidarity and we briefly chatted in private. One of the leading members of the MCC, Dr. Alissa Trotz, has edited a posthumous book on Andaiye – “Selected Writings of Andaiye.” The book lacks completion because it failed to incorporate the thoughts of others to whom Andaiye had opened up.

Finally, we take up where we left off from part 1. Andaiye moved Red Thread away from the WPA for these two reasons, I believe. Firstly, she saw the WPA as having no connection in the 21st century to its glorious past of the 1970s and 1980s. She believed that was not the party she helped to birth and those were not the comrades she knew in the 1970s.

Two devastating moments for Andaiye were the partnership between Ronald Waddell and her personal friend and one of the founders of both the WPA and Red Thread – Bonita Bone. Andaiye found Waddell to be a dangerous throw back to the days of Wismar in the 1960s. The second moment occurred in the office of Christopher Ram. In Andaiye’s presence, Tacuma Ogunseye referred to the anti-Indian Buxton gunmen as freedom fighters. She walked out of the meeting.

The second reason is a spin-off from the first one. Disenchanted with the WPA, especially the WPA’s position on the mayhem in Buxton, and suffering from cancer with chemotherapy taking a toll on her health, Andaiye decided that the rest of her life should be spent on women rights issues.

Lurking beneath the surface of Red Thread were dangerous women whose politics were a million miles away from Andaiye. These women were from the Mulatto/Creole class who had deep hatred for non- Christian Indians and the PPP leadership. These women were forced to suppress their cultural feelings once Andaiye was the de facto head of Red Thread. After her death, Red Thread showed its true colour (no pun intended).

I hope to conclude the series in part 3 when I will analyze the tragic pathway Red Thread took which followed the identical direction of its father body – the WPA.

In part 3, I will reproduce my last words to Andaiye through email that I have kept. Below are my works on Andaiye for those who are interested.
1- September 16, 2017, “An iconic woman and her exit from the WPA.”
2- September 18, 2017, “The WPA: Demise or deterioration or decay or disuse?”
3- May 4, 2019, “Andaiye: A class analysis.”
4 – March 31, 2021, “Clive Thomas, Roopnaraine and Andaiye: The missing link.”
5- April 17, 2021, “What Walter Rodney and Andaiye would have said?”
6- December 24, 2022, “Andaiye’s book and Aubrey Norton’s words.”