TODAY concludes the series on Red Thread. Many details were left out in documenting the history of this middle class, racially driven, anti-government organisation because of libel. I began this series after I read that Red Thread complained in the press that a businessman and his son threatened to harm them. Red Thread notified the public it was warned by a message sent to its web page by “Guyanese Critic” of a hit man who was paid $10 million.
I have already debunked that exclamation of Red Thread because absolutely no angle of that tale made any sense whatsoever. See my articles: August 4, 2023 “A hit man, $10M and commonsense” and August 8, 2023, “Guyanese Critic to sue Red Tread.”
In part 3, we left off where the point was made that as soon as Andaiye died, the red threads that were interwoven in the veins of this chauvinistic, middle class, elitist entity changed their colour to black.
Andaiye died in May of 2019 and the ink was not dried on the death certificate when Red Thread showed its Freudian colours. Days after, Red Thread hosted an occasion to celebrate the life of Andaiye at the Conference Centre. I assumed from the prominence of their presence on stage, that the event was shaped by Joycelyn Dow and Allisa Trotz, both dye-in-the wool WPA ideologues and quintessential members of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC).
To see what went on in the Conference Centre that day, allowed me to separate the sheep from the goats. On that day, I came to have a deep appreciation for the People’s Progressive Party and its solid physiological attachment to the working classes and rural folks of Guyana.
This was the celebration of the life of a political activist that was one of the founders of the WPA, a radical organisation that promised the working people of Guyana that the WPA was one of their liberators. This was an activist that founded a grassroots movement to alleviate the sufferings of working class women. There were no working class people at that event. I have been to the church service of David DeCaires, someone I regarded as part of the crème de la crème of colonial Guyana and there were ordinary folks in attendance.
When you sat in that audience at the Conference Centre that day then you knew who betrayed the masses in this country. No Indian gave a featured address of which they were about 10. I saw about six Indians in the audience including me and the other five were people I know that were Christians. One of the main speakers was Tacuma Ogunseye who used the occasion to politicise the occasion and attack the PPP.
The Red Thread organisers had to know how Andaiye felt about Ogunseye. If I did through her telling me; why they did not know? They knew. But Andaiye had gone and Red Thread had now taken its place alongside its inventers in the WPA as a reactionary organisation based on class, colour, an anti- Indian mentality and anti-PPP chemistry.
Red Thread’s moment of glory came when its parent body, the WPA came to power in 2015. Soon after, a high-powered delegation from overseas came to negotiate Red Thread’s role in government. The team consisted of deputy head of Red Thread, Dr. Alissa Trotz; secretary of the Overseas Friends of the WPA, Mr. Keith Branch; and Dr. David Hinds. They met at the office of the Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine. Dr. Trotz and Dr. Roopnarine have always been close and she wrote the foreword for his book, “The sky’s Wild Noise.” Don’t read that book. It will make you sad after you read Dr. Roopnarine’s revolutionary experience and juxtapose it with his politics today.
The disgraceful non-recognition of the no-confidence motion by APNU+AFC of 2018 and the five months of election rigging in 2020 were moments that Red Thread showed subtle support for the conspiracies of APNU+AFC. There has never been any public statement from the organisation denouncing these ant-democratic atrocities.
Today, Red Thread is a shell of itself. The loss of power by the WPA has devastated its biology. Its head-office on Princess Street is almost abandoned with broken window panes and creeping vines. The organisation is almost penniless and has no credible membership, a testimony to an era long gone. The question is why did it invent and maximise the non-existent threat from the famous businessman? Why did Red Thread descend to that comical level?
I suspect it had to do with financial survival. If it claims that people want to harm it, then it catapulted into the spotlight and global women groups will rally support and offer funds. That is exactly what happened.