I HAVE been in social/political activism for over 55 years and in journalism for over 35 years. I have faced a torrent of abuse from people in that long, long, long period. The insults and scandalised abuse have been both comical and bizarre. I haven’t sued as yet and will not sue. I really think in the arena of politics, suing people is nonsense.

So far, the derogation about me that is missing in the oceans and mountains of condemnations over the decades that I have encountered is that no one has accused me of financial impropriety. I guess the reason being that I have lived a working-class existence my whole life.
Unlike Charles Ceres and Eric Phillips, I belong to no political party or any kind of organisation. I never was involved with any entity that had an ethnic appellation. I have no interest in any Indian organisation. I am genetically Indian but it begins and ends there. So people have attacked me, but the hilarity in their outpourings makes them look comical.

Let’s start with an engineer in Guyana named Charles Ceres. Ceres’ parents knew my parents and elder sister. So I mentioned that in a response to some political and ethnic nonsense Ceres wrote. In his reply, Ceres threatened libel for saying that his parents knew my parents because that was not true? Can any human in the world believe that?
Now, in the very letter that he asserted he will sue, he described me as being a despondent person for failing to have a post-graduate degree. I could have sued him, but I didn’t and didn’t consider him a Guyanese of importance. I informed him by way of column that I did my master’s degree and went on to the doctoral level at two universities whose entrance requirements Ceres would not meet.

Enter Eric Phillips, who comes across as identically comical as Ceres. Annoyed at my exposure of his convenient power sharing advocacy (it only happens when the PPP is in power) in my Saturday column, Phillips ignored all my points, all my arguments and simply did a Ceres on me – get personal.
So he wrote (last Monday) that he should have sued me way back in 2008 when I allegedly referred to him as a little Hitler. I cannot remember describing Phillips as such and I would have recalled that label I used even way back in 2008 if I had assigned it to someone of importance in Guyana. The fact that I cannot jog my memory means at a Freudian level, I attached no value to someone named Eric Philips in Guyana.
I am described as a “pathological liar” and I suffer from “normalized schizophrenic idiocy.” Doesn’t he come across like Ceres? Ceres wanted to sue for me simply saying that his parents knew my parents. Phillips wanted to sue, but look at the libellous thing he wrote about me – that I am mentally ill. Of course, I won’t resort to libel writs; that is not in my DNA.

But I find it amusing that Phillips has now become a psychoanalyst. I doubt Phillips could understand even one book written by the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. He could start by reading my favourite Freud’s work – “Civilization and its Discontents.” If he is going to avoid the label of pseudo psychoanalyst, he needs to start reading Freud.
Let me switch roles and become the psychoanalyst. I think I am more qualified for that role than Phillips because I did Freud extensively in my post-graduate work, a status that Ceres has denied me. Now here goes. In his letters in the newspapers, Phillips uses the word, “White House Fellow” below his name.

I don’t know what that means, I don’t care to know, and so I think are the Guyanese people. But why put that designation after your name? The psychoanalyst would say the motive lies in the search by the person for identity and importance. The person is searching for relevance and recognition. In fact, if you ask a first year psychology student why someone would want to claim status in society, the student would tell you the person aspires to be known. They aspire to be part of a socialite society.

Instead of psychoanalyzing me, Phillips should explain something he never put into writing or spoke about. Why he had to leave SARA where he was specialist assistant to SARA director, Professor Clive Thomas? For those interested in what Professor Thomas had to say about Phillips, please Google it and you will find that every mainstream newspaper and online Guyanese newspapers in July 2019 carried Phillips’ exodus from SARA. I wonder why Philips didn’t sue all those media houses.
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.