In a forthcoming column, I will expand on an accusation, PNC London-based activist, Norman Browne made against me in an interview last year. I will never resist giving an interview because I have nothing to hide and not afraid of the interviewer embarrassing me. If the interviewer goes after me, I can adequately deal with that eventuality.
This situation occurred with the Browne interview. After my departure from Kaieteur News last year over my disagreement with Mr. Glen Lall on the existence of apartheid, I gave several interviews in which I was critical of everything about Mr. Lall and his paper. Browne interviewed me and saturated himself with aridity and mediocrity by shouting out that I am criticizing Lall only because I left the newspaper.
He was right. He was perfectly right. But he did not wait for me to explain why I did not leave Kaieteur News (KN) before 2023 despite all the things I was saying about Mr. Lall and his paper now that I had left. If Browne was not trying to score cheap political points against Frederick Kissoon, he would have learnt a few things about philosophy.
People have their reasons, and those reasons may have their flaws but they can also contain a grain of philosophical reasoning that is acceptable in the world of complex thoughts and complex human action. The reason I stayed at KN could lead people to accuse me of hypocrisy because for over 55 years, I claimed to be a man crusading against wrongs and fighting for rights yet I lived a hypocritical life at KN. I acknowledge that reality and will explain very shortly.
But the reason why I endured at KN is part of the reason for this very particular column today. The motive for staying at KN can be found in this very article here. I want people to see things that they should know, want to know but there is no one doing that task for them. And when you show them invisible things that become visible to them, they learn. The role of an academic is to interpret things for people.
Here are things that happened in our country in 2023 that people may not know and should know. Do you know only the Guyana Chronicle, Guyana Times and Kaieteur News carried commentaries and letters denouncing what the Israeli did last year in Gaza? What they did was to commit the worst forms of genocide since the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.
What happened in Rwanda was genocide but it was not state-sponsored genocide. State-sponsored genocide is taking place in Gaza as I write this analysis here by politicians and military generals who are the reincarnation of the Nazi era in Germany. The genocide began in October 2023 and to date the Stabroek News (SN) have not done an editorial or carried letters on the evil display in Gaza. Former President Donald Ramotar asked the question last Thursday in this newspaper: “What kind of people are we?” He was referring to our attitude worldwide to genocide in Gaza right at this minute.
I see my task as interpreting social occurrences in the country I live. Here is my explanation why the SN has avoided discussion on Gaza. This newspaper is very close to the ABC-EU missions in Guyana. Last year, the EU Embassy here gave its human rights award to the Editor-in-Chief of the Stabroek News, Mr. Anand Persaud.
The SN knows that the ABC-EU countries (except Ireland and Scotland although Scotland is not a country but part of the UK) openly support Israel.
It is safe to assume that the newspaper knows that it cannot write an editorial condemning Gaza because it will offend the ABC-EU missions here. I am making this interpretation so Guyanese could know this fact. They should know it because wrongs are things Guyanese should understand. I hope I have opened your eyes in this situation
There were interesting happenings in 2023 in this country that should be told. Here is what Gordon Moseley said as reported in the Chronicle at the trial in which he sued Dr. Leslie Ramsammy over allegations that Dr. Ramsammy accused Moseley of complicity in election rigging in 2020: “Based on all that we have seen, I accept that there was an attempt to rig the elections.”
This is a solid supporter of opposition politics in Guyana’s journalism openly stating that there were attempts to rig the 2020 poll. Dr. Desmond Thomas, certainly not a PPP supporter and a critic of the PPP government publicly said for the first time last year, on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show that there were attempts to rig the March 2020 election. Journalists should ask the PNC for its reaction to these two revelations in 2023.