FOR over 10 years now, there is a weekly column in the Stabroek News titled, “In The Diaspora”(ITD) edited by long standing executive member of an organisation named Overseas Friends of the WPA, Dr. Alissa Trotz, one of the most active members of Guyana’s enduring Mulatto/Creole class.

The strapline for ITD reads as follows: “This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean.” Here is what Dr. Trotz does. Working closely with co-owner of the Stabroek News, Isabelle DeCaires, they select persons from the diaspora to write the weekly column.

For the past four years, it is incredible to know that not one column has been written by someone who has political sympathies for the Ali Government. Incredible to know that not one column has contained contents that put the Ali presidency in a positive light.

It is said that there are a million Guyanese in the diaspora. It is a monumental fact that among those one million folks, are countless scholars spread all over the diaspora that write analyses in favour of the Guyana Government. Some of them have splendid texts on Guyana’s political economy. Yet to date, not one of them has been asked by Trotz and DeCaires to pen a commentary for ITD.

All of ITD pieces have been anti-government. Remember John Mair (Bill Cotton) said that he examined 16 discussions on oil hosted by Moray House headed by Isabelle DeCaires and only one featured a pro-government actor- Minister Charles Ramson.
This columnist is an admirer of President Ali and writes favourably of him. Yet on my programme, the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show, I feature opposition leaders, the latest being the former mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine.

It is the decent thing to do – give other folks with differing viewpoint the opportunity to be heard. You can disagree with them and offer your interpretation but let a hundred flowers bloom as Mao Tse Tung, the former great leader of China, once remarked.

President Ali announced last year that the Guyana Government would not allow exclusive housing areas for Western employees of the oil company. No former colonial country would want to see that site in their nation. It symbolises the ugliness of colonial rule. At one time, there was uproar in Barbados when part of the public beach was off-limit to locals.

A calypsonian composed a song about it and it became an instant hit all over the Caribbean.
A hundred per cent of this nation’s population would reject special housing reserves for the expatriate staff of the oil company and related companies. It is simply a non-negotiated issue in Guyana and the CARICOM countries.

Today, such people live all over Region Four inside compounds that Guyanese live. Where I live there are several White oil company executives, so I pass their houses while walking my two dogs and no security rank comes up to me to tell me I cannot walk there.

You would have thought that such a politically inspiring, anti-colonial policy of President Ali would have been met with an ITD column but it did not happen. You would have thought the usual suspects (TUS) would have at least published a letter in the paper they always write for – Stabroek News – congratulating the President on his excellent direction. But it did not happen. Why?

The Mulatto/Creole class (MCC) and TUS are not opposed, at the ideological level to exclusive housing areas for the White foreigners. I have lived all my life in this country and have spent all my life studying it. You know who would get exclusive invitations to the parties of those oil bosses in those exclusive compounds – folks from the TUS and MCC. They would not miss a single party.

They say a picture tells you so much about life. The BBC HARDtalk programme visited Guyana. Now I say to you just put some analysis on what you saw. The host, Stephen Sackur interviewed a number of people whom he visited at their worksites and at the oil conference. He interviewed well known civil social activist and member of the Mulatto/Creole class, Ms. Vanda Radzik.

Ms. Radzik is sitting on the Fort Groyne jetty with shoes off and her left leg sprawled out on the jetty, almost touching Mr. Sackur. Why was that ambience accepted by Mr. Sackur? It is a serious documentary and the format should have been an interview with Ms. Radzik-Veira in her office. How come they were on the seawall? Why the woman had her shoes off and leg resting on the wall and why Sackur approved of such an ambience?

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.