MY last Sunday piece was titled, “The other side of Guyana’s civilisation.” The point made was that those who hurl constant accusations against the government are not fit to make such judgements. A quote from Sunday is necessary to establish the point of today’s column.
“We hear the incessant criticism of government ministers being vindictive, narrow-minded, unaccountable, incestuous, self-opinionated and narcissist. We never hear about those traits in many figures in many leading organisations. Vindictiveness, narrow-mindedness and self-opinionated traits,

incestuousness are children’s playthings when compared to the deeply embedded instincts of psychological autocracy in many civil society persons, the media and among status- laden players.”
This is a country where right in front of your eyes people will practise double standards and there in front of you would use the most morally inspiring adjectives to condemn the government. I will offer you one example. I am doing now what I should have down in last Sunday’s piece, but right now I know I will not get the paper into libel because those hypocrites are dead.

Here is the example. It is from a living Guyanese named Lincoln Lewis. Mr. Lewis demanded, in July 2020, that the sitting president, David Granger, use his power and cancel the March 2020 elections that the world knew that Mr. Granger had lost. Just go to one, just one letter in the press written by Mr. Lewis and you will see the moral advocacy of Mr. Lewis in which sacred words are used in his denunciation of the Ali Presidency. But every member of the Guyana Government is more redeemable than Mr. Lewis.

Let’s return to the dead, particularly the two founders of the Stabroek News – David DeCaires and Miles Fitzpatrick. These are the people that used a newspaper to criticise Presidents Hoyte, Cheddi and Janet Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo, but were in no way superior morally. A nasty incident told me of how vicious the anti-government bandwagon could be. Mr. De Caires got a young woman who was notably very close to him into UG when she didn’t have the qualifications. I sat on the Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences then. The dean, Dr. Cyril Soloman (deceased) illegally admitted her.
I raised the atrocity with Dr. Soloman who told me she came in through the clause of mature applicant without qualifications –over 26. But the young lady was 23 years. Mr. DeCaires and Mr. Fitzpatrick hounded me down and got the young lady to say I libelled her. But they couldn’t go through with the case because the young lady was 23 years. Mr. Fitzpatrick hated me with intense energy since that time. He was a mean-spirited man

Here is an example from last Sunday’s Stabroek News how petty-minded and narrow-minded and vindictive the other side of Guyana can be. Someone named Chevy Chase wrote a column in which he looked at the improper conduct of police doing random stops of motorists. Today, it is commonsensical to go to Google when you are researching. Even the 14-year-old high school kid uses Goggle to do his/her essays.

So, Mr. Chase did his Google search and came up with two items on random stops. One in 2018 by Christopher Ram, the other in 2021 by the Traffic Chief. For ten years, I stood alone in the campaign against random stops. I did four columns on random stops including two columns based on interviews of the then traffic chiefs. In fact I did a column on the very statement of then Traffic Chief, Ashram, that Chase cited. I personally handed Mr. Ashram in his office a copy of the column.
Don’t take my word for it. Using different combinations of words, go to Google and type my name and random stops, and you will see that Mr. Chase couldn’t miss my work on arbitrary traffic halts. But Mr. Chase deliberately failed to mention me. He saw it fit to cite Mr. Ram.

I don’t need publicity from anyone. Why would I need something that I have had for decades now? I don’t know Mr. Chase and don’t want to know him. But Mr. Chase cannot look anyone in the eyes and tell them when he did his Google search he only came up with the names, Ashram and Ram. I am doing this article here because Mr. Chase’ attitude to me was so timely. I mentioned the hypocritical side of Guyana last Sunday and the very day, Mr. Chase provided evidence in the form of himself about the double standards this country operates with. Guyanese people are not stupid. They know to separate the sharks from the puppies. And with that knowledge they are going to vote the PPP in again on November 2025.

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.