I MET President Ali very briefly this week on something he wanted my views on in relation to UG. Presidents are very busy people so you have to be careful not to engage them for too long because you make them uncomfortable since they may not want to be impolite and tell you that your time is up.
As we completed the topic he was interested in, I wanted badly to discuss some anti-government critics (not the mainstream opposition) with him and the need to have a school of intellectuals to confront them frontally because they need relentless exposure and when you do that their narratives melt like butter against the sun (I heard my mother said that a million times while growing up) and people see them for what they are.

I don’t have any deep resentment against the propaganda the mainstream opposition says. That is their job. What do you expect PNC, ANUG, and AFC to say about the government? You expect them to shower the ruling party with panegyrics? They will criticise the government vehemently and people just shrug their shoulders and say that the opposition is on a stuck record.

A good example is Kian Jabour from ANUG. Mr. Jabour as the guest on the Freddie Kissoon Show said that the public health is in a mess. The public health system is one of the success stories in Guyana. You do have complaints against the Georgetown Hospital (GH) as in the case when my nephew died there last Friday. It should not have happened. But that does not mean that the GH is not a story of vast, improved delivery from 10 years ago.

The point is the mainstream opposition will knock the government on a daily basis and people will know where they are coming from and the effect on people will not be as strong as when civil society groups open their mouth. What people will look at is the non-party status of these people and perceive them as being more credible. People may listen to them since they do not belong to political parties so people think they do not have a political agenda.

It is in this realm of politics that I wanted to discuss with the President because this sphere of political society does have a political agenda and it is obfuscated by the fact that these people do not belong to political parties. Some names come to mind and the government must shape a response regime to confront, counter, expose these invisible opposition faces.

The latest addition to the list is Dr. Bertrand Ramcharran. I confront the pyrotechnics in his political adumbrations because they have no meaning in the study of politics. I will not elaborate because I have done more than six columns in recent weeks on his writings.
Dr. Ramcharran has a weekly column in which included in his byline is the status he once had as acting UN High Commission for Human Rights. This is where the danger lies because when you read about his status and the fact that he does not belong to a political party, the unsuspecting mind would be inclined to believe him. If not confronted, Ramcharan could get away with political statements that are wild and indefensible.

There is Dr. Percy Hintzen, a member of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC). Dr. Hintzen openly wrote that he is a proud Creole and that he defines himself as such. He is a contributor to the In The Diaspora series edited by fellow MCC colleague, Dr. Alisa Trotz, carried in the MCC newspaper, the Stabroek News.

The lurking danger with Ramcharan is present with Hintzen. Under his byline is his status of being attached to Berkeley University and Florida International University which can deceive you into thinking that Hintzen is an independent thinker without political affiliation when in fact he has a political preference that meshes with the attitude of the MCC towards the PPP.

Hintzen is a member of the anti-oil lobby who left Guyana about fifty years ago. Now, if you think you have seen the manifestations of political absurdities, here is what Hintzen wrote. He noted that in the current economic and political disharmony in Guyana, the MCC organisation, Red Thread, could act as the saviour of Guyana. He left out the glorious role in contemporary Guyana of the working class trade union, GAWU. I wonder if colour and class were the reason for Hintzen’s choice.
Space has run out to deal with the MCC personality, Dr. Nigel Westmaas, who agreed with the bizarre theory that neo-colonial powers shaped the 2020 election to favour the PPP and the imperialists are taking our oil. But Westmaas hides the neocolonial relation Stabroek News has with these very imperialists, a paper he is a monthly columnist with.

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.