THERE is no question in my mind that I feel more resentment against the top leadership of the WPA than the hierarchy of the PNC.
The reasoning lies in psychology and what will follow is a poor attempt at a psychological description as to why I feel deeply disgusted with the character make-up of those that I once shared a deep camaraderie with, and the overriding characterisation of that bond was the anti-dictatorial struggle for free and fair election.

When your enemy goes to a meeting and votes for the denial of equal pay for men and women, it has no mental effect on you.
First, you expected it from that person. Secondly, it doesn’t bother you in the least because you think your enemy is a congenital fool anyway. Thirdly, you feel no chagrin because you understand that is how human nature works.
Human nature, you understand, has certain pathways and one of those pathways is logical and legitimate expectations from comradely bonding. You expected your comrade to vote with you because the two of you have a history of fighting for equal rights.

What happens next is psychic trauma. Your friend damaged your faith in humans. You accepted in your heart that he/she believed in what both of you fought for.
For decades we didn’t have free elections and a permanent dictator, Forbes Burnham did what he wanted. He denied Walter Rodney a UG job and he could not have been voted out for that repressive conduct.
He introduced compulsory national service at UG and could not have been voted out for that terrible atrocity. He made his party paramount to state institutions and he did not face the electorate subsequently so he could have been voted out.

I don’t need to offer other examples. That is the diabolical nature of permanent power. Thousands joined an anti-dictatorship bandwagon to remove Burnham and ensure Guyana got free and fair elections.
Foremost in the struggle for free and fair election was the PPP with the WPA being a newcomer, but whose anti-dictatorial energies were prodigious. I was part of that bandwagon as a WPA activist and a UG student. I related personally to a huge number of PPP and WPA leaders. Broken bodies and broken spirits were the result of the long decades for free and fair elections.
In those days, I didn’t become a comrade of PNC leaders because PNC leaders were not involved in the struggle for the right to vote. I had no relation with Burnham, Hamilton Green, Robert Corbin and dozens of other high-ranking PNC leaders. I didn’t know them. I didn’t want to know them.

Fast forward the tape to 2020. Nigel Westmaas of the 1970s struggle told me at my request that he cannot write and condemn the assault on the 2020 election. Moses Bhagwan of the 1970s struggle informed me he cannot and will not condemn the rigging. Weeks after I took the book he sent me about his family tree and gave Mike Khan, former CEO of the Georgetown Hospital.
Eusi Kwayana of the 1970s struggle, in a newspaper exchange, told me he does not have information on the rigging and thus cannot make a pronouncement. David Hinds of the 1970s struggle, led the bandwagon of supporting the attempts to influence the outcome of the election. Tacuma Ogunseye of the 1970s struggle was openly supporting the rigging attempts.
Rupert Roopnaraine of the 1970s struggle told journalist, Neil Marks about the thousands of irregularities his party, APNU found in the voting, a fiction only sprouted by the losing contestant.
The wife and son of Walter Rodney remained silent since 1980 on all the atrocities committed by the PNC in power and out of power, and only opened their mouth after decades of silence to talk about Black people but not a word on the 2020 election rigging.

I could go on, but I think my point is made. Now comes the psychological effect. I did not know the PNC people who were doing the rigging in March 2020. But I knew up, close and personal, those in the WPA that I fought with for free and fair elections, who were now involved in denying people their right to vote.
The very people that saw the nightmares inherent in permanent power from 1968 to 1985 were in 2020 ready to accept permanent power. It was one of Guyana’s most diabolical betrayal of the freedoms inherent in liberation philosophy.

The mind does not allow you to forgive those people because they shattered all your hopes about the supposed inherent goodness in humans. The mind cannot process such betrayal of the human spirit. The WPA liberation fighter of the 1970s became the altar boys of permanent power in the 21st century.

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.