I hardly go anywhere. I love being with my dog on the seawall. I love being home with my wife. But I still know what goes on in Guyana. Maybe I would know more if I socialised. But a specific socialisation process I have avoided in my 57 years of activism and 35 years of journalism is the diplomatic cocktail circuit.

For decades now, I have seen how superb Guyanese and wealthy Guyanese would jostle each other to win the familiarity (not friendship because friendship would not be offered) of the Western diplomats in Guyana. It is natural for people in small, low-income countries to suck-up to the diplomats of super-rich countries.
What I cannot understand is why outstanding citizens and people with wealth would do that when they know that such diplomats would never befriend them. What can these diplomats offer them that these Guyanese already have? These diplomats, as a matter of courtesy, would be pleasant, but when they leave Guyana, the familiarity and country are forgotten.
Moses Nagamootoo, as Prime Minister, autographed a copy of his autobiography and gave it to the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in 2019. When the man left Guyana, he gave it away. He would not have done so if the Israeli Ambassador to Guyana had given him his memoir.

I have that autographed copy, which I am using now for my review. The diplomat gave it to a Portuguese businessman who, in a fit of rage over Nagamootoo’s betrayal of Guyana, gave it to me. Titled, “Fragments From Memory,” this memoir is worth reading. But if you are the maudlin kind, you shouldn’t touch it.
When you internalise the positive struggle of Nagamootoo’s fight for Guyana’s freedom and juxtapose it with his reduction as a minimalist footnote in the corridors of power between 2015 and 2020, you will be sad after reading the publication. A juxtaposition of Clement Rohee’s memoir and that of Nagamootoo’s reveals how tragic the political career of Nagamootoo is.

Both men document vibrant and courageous anti-dictatorship activism with disturbing revelations of the oppression that visited them over a long period of time. But Rohee is still there and has not removed himself from the fight for a politically freer Guyana. He is one of the PPP’s GECOM commissioners. Nagamootoo, on the other hand, gave power to the PNC after chaperoning that party to power in 2015 and sat in his hammock until 2020, when the PNC lost power.

I will never forget one incident with Prime Minister Nagamootoo. I was driving out of the Shell gas station on Vlissengen Road and I got this call from him. His tone was frantically urgent. He asked if I knew where Leonard Craig is because he wanted to talk to him. He said that “they” have removed him as head of the Broadcasting Authority. By “they” he meant the PNC government, of which he was the Prime Minister, who was Craig’s boss, and only he as PM could have removed Craig.

“Fragments From Memory” runs smoothly, and the recording of the demonic nature of Forbes Burnham’s excesses is valuable research material. Chapter 9, entitled “Between Life and Death is particularly valuable. The author describes how life hung in the balance for high profile PPP leaders. He relates his experience of being at death’s door when PNC goons viciously beat him up.

The section of the autobiography to which I can personally relate was about how he came to know the lady who would become his wife, his courtship days and the undying love that became harder than a piece of rock from one of the Mazaruni mountains. I relish his description of unbounded love for his wife because, as a political activist, I can relate to the suffering wives go through.

There are two good chapters on the author’s induction and performance as a journalist. His reflections on the murders of Father Bernard Darke and Walter Rodney are interesting, but his take on Vincent Teekak’s murder is mediocre, and that is putting it mildly.

One has to be careful how one judges this memoir. As you turn each page, you are prone to the temptation of judging Nagamootoo based not on the contents of the work but on what he became in life after he achieved the position of Prime Minister. I think most people who read this autobiography, except the academic, is going to dismiss Nagamootoo’s articulations, lamentations, triumphs and revelations because the emotional rage will prevent a dispassionate review.

After all, this was the man who was handed a glorious opportunity to shape a new direction for Guyana and threw it all away to accept the role of a used-car salesman. Moses Nagamootoo will go down in history as a tragic/comedic figure.