ONE evening my wife and I were travelling on the subway in downtown Toronto for a Christmas visit to her brother in North York. Although we were dressed with multiple layers of clothing, the coldness was overbearing. We changed trains and returned home.
It is one of the episodes in living in Canada that I will never forget. Canada is too cold for me. I will not live in a country that is so cold. After the American invasion of Grenada in 1983, I was offered asylum in Sweden but I never thought about the offer for a fleeting moment.

I would not live in any country in Northern Europe. The coldness numbs the mind and freezes the spirit. I was heading home to the Caribbean where the tropical breeze keeps the soul alive.
I write about the coldness of Canada where the editor of “In The Diaspora” (ITD), the weekly column in the Stabroek News (SN), Alissa Trotz lives. When you read Monday’s edition of ITD in the Stabroek News, the thought comes up that in the coldness of Ms. Trotz’s mind, there are the frozen thoughts of the lady that numbs her mind about what takes place in Guyana.

I was eager to read what the ITD would say about the encouraging financial/economic package that President Ali delivered last Thursday to the people of Guyana. Who can hate the PPP government more than David Hinds?
Yet David did not dismiss the $200,000 cash grant calling it “a baby step forward.” Winston Jordan prefers if the money was given to each citizen rather than to household. David did not accept the focus on the individual of Jordan. He prefers the unit of household.
So what did ITD have to say about the presidential package? I opened the SN before the Chronicle, the paper I write for every day, as soon as my paper girl, Minky, stuck them in the gate of my yard because I wanted to see how Ms. Trotz treated the presidential deliveries. There I was, staring at the page of ITD out of disbelief. ITD completely avoided any discussion on the goodies the President promised the nation.

Instead, the content of ITD for last Monday was on lesbianism in Guyana written by an LGBT personality. On seeing the article, my mind went back to the dressing down, the then President of Kenya put on the then President of the USA, Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama was on an official visit to Kenya and at the joint press conference on President Obama’s first day, the American president called for the institutionalisation of gay rights.
In one of the most graphic moments in post-colonial independent thinking, President Kenyatta told Obama that countries have different values and those differences should be respected. He said gay rights were not an issue for the Kenyan people.
He told Obama that other rights in Kenya have priorities such as right to water, education, and health. He went on to add that those rights have been secured in the US so the US can move on to gay rights. He asserted that when Kenya secured those basic facilities for its people, then it will look at gay rights.

So the Guyanese President delivered a series of generous offers from state finance which no doubt comes from our oil revenues and instead of welcoming free education at UG, ITD offers SN readers an article on Lesbian women in Guyana.
So why Ms. Trotz frowned on giving recognition to President Ali’s inviting aid package to the Guyanese people? Here is the answer. The money will come from oil revenues and Ms. Trotz is a frenetic rejectionist of the oil economy of Guyana. She wrote in the SN on December 13, 2022 that Guyana should immediately put a hold on oil production. She did not opt for a gradual cut off but wanted a cut-off right away.

One suspects that once oil money brings development success to Guyana, ITD will not feature any articles on the bright future facing Guyana. She does not want oil production in Guyana because the fossil fuel industry harms the climate. Ms. Trotz is yet to write about the oil industry in Canada.
For academic accuracy, it should be noted that the hatred for the oil industry is not the only reason why Ms. Trotz did not praise the President’s wonderful deliveries. It also has to do with dislike for the PPP government.
We need to remind readers that ITD never wrote a paragraph about the five-month election horrors in 2020 or even a line on the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the election disaster. A cold climate freezes the capacity to think independently.

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.