GUYANA-BORN Englishman John Mair is best known in Guyana for his pen-name Bill Cotton. Mr. Mair edits the ongoing series titled, Oil Dorado, which is about to release its sixth edition. It is about the oil industry and its importance for Guyana’s future. It can be had from Amazon.com.

In case you don’t know, Moray House is the name of the building that was the home of Stabroek News’ (SN) founder, David DeCaires. The DeCaires family has converted the house into a place to hold symposia on a monthly basis. It is managed by Mr. DeCaires’ daughter Isabelle, an English woman. Mr. Mair has a curiously interesting piece on Moray House’s approach to the oil industry.

It is from the fifth edition and has a leftist appellation that I found amusing because it reminds me of my youthful Marxist/socialist bohemian days in academia; not that I have given up on Marxism and socialism. I never will. I think Marxism is sound philosophical theorizing and socialist economics have tremendous plausibility for bringing about the dissolution of poverty.

The title is The Moray House Mensheviks (TMHM). This is indeed a bitingly relevant caption. But my criticism of TMHM is that though its headline invokes the idea of class analysis, its lack of class analysis constitutes an incomplete study of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC) in Guyana. TMHM is well written with a dispassionate flair and its credibility remains intact because the author is neither pro-government nor anti-government.

TMHM has two sections – the man, DeCaires and his paper and the motives of the MCC cabal that uses Moray House for their own political agenda. If Mr. Mair had applied class analysis to both subjects, then I think Guyana’s current history would have been better served. Nevertheless, I think Mr. Mair did a plausible and credible job in his article.

I will review TMHM using class analysis and just as Mr. Mair cites his experience with DeCaires and Stabroek News to strike some musical chords about both man and paper, I think my experience with both tells a different story. I hope Mr. Mair understands the nuances of class and colour in his relationship with DeCaires. Mr. Mair is White Guyanese and that would explain the ease with which he was facilitated by DeCaires.

Both DeCaires and SN were elitist platforms for the resurrection of the MCC in Guyana. SN was born with that intention. If Mr. Mair accepted that then he would better comprehend what the Mensheviks are doing what they are currently doing in Guyana. Mr. DeCaires along with co-founder of SN, Miles Fitzpatrick, were considered the crème de la crème of British Guiana. They were treated like royalty by all social classes and their leaders.

Cheddi and Janet Jagan differed to both men. Forbes Burnham differed to both men. One of the most loyal comrades of Forbes Burnham, Commissioner of Police Laurie Lewis (deceased) once told me over lunch in a café on High Street that no longer exists (long after Burnham had died) that DeCaires and Fitzpatrick could go on any anti-government bandwagon and Burnham would not have touched them.

I asked why and I will repeat his exact words: “Maybe it was a complex.” A member of the famous Kissoon family of lawyers, but who was not a lawyer but an engineer, Ramesh Kissoon (deceased), who worked in the bauxite industry told me an interesting thing about Burnham.

We were having coffee one night at the Banks DIH outlet where now stands Citizens’ Bank. It was an intense conversation on his relationship with Burnham. Ramesh told me he knew that DeCaires and Fitzpatrick never paid one cent in income tax, even though they were wealthy lawyers and Burnham knew it but just could not be bothered.

I think Burnham’s special perception of DeCaires and Fitzpatrick was bound up with that complex Laurie spoke about. Someone like Ravi Dev would know about this aspect of Burnham’s persona because he said on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show that Burnham was smitten by white skin. So back to TMHM. Mair gave a background to the elitist class upbringing of DeCaires, but he didn’t see that class background in the purpose of the SN. I did.

I think Mair couldn’t see this because he wanted to see DeCaires as a nice liberal man and DeCaires saw Mair as an MCC colleague. Mair wrote of DeCaires: “David was a firm believer in freedom of speech. I know first-hand as I wrote a daily column for him.”
I am sorry Mr. Mair, my experience at SN under DeCaires was different. I think Mair’s colour had something to do with it. To be continued.