I KNOW no other instinct than to speak my mind. I grew up in dirt poverty in Wortmanville, South Georgetown, and you had to fight to survive and in that struggle you lost your very existence if you embraced cowardice. The reality of poverty forced you to fight to preserve your existence. Speaking up for yourself then was the criterion for survival.

When I became a public intellectual, I carried over what I learnt from hard days in Wortmanvlle. But speaking up took a different route. You spoke up because in doing so you want others to learn. You want others to have knowledge that they can use to make themselves better humans. That journey of mine will never end until my end comes. You have to use your voice and pen to liberate others from ignorance and stupidity.
Long ago, I was about 12, and on D’Urban Street in Wortmanville outside my house, I learnt something that I will never forget. There was commotion on the street in which a young girl was wronged by a young man, and people gathered around, including me.

While people were trying to give justice to the girl, this man with a bullying attitude rode up and tried to stamp his authority on the situation and he began to talk a lot of nonsense. So an equally loud-mouthed, big bodied gentleman went into his face and said to him: “I hope you aint gat children cause if yuh gat, God help de world.”

I was just 12, but I knew what the man meant and here is what the man meant. If you can think so barefacedly stupidly, then you will pass on that attitude to your children. I have used that phrase in my life since that incident on D’Urban Street. This world has great people. This world has peaceful people. This world has talented people. This world has selfless people. But this world has its quota of ignorant, bestial and also stupid people.

I have studied all the great philosophers. I have read about all the great leaders that have changed the world, but no one of them can change my mind about the death penalty. This world has produced some sick, violent minds that society should not allow them to continue to live, given the levels of killings they have inflicted on innocent humans. I support the death penalty in certain circumstances where sadistic, evil minds kill humans without even an ounce of humanness in them.

In the same vein, I think society should call out people whose stupidity modern life should not tolerate. Humans hold all types of weird opinions. But stupidity is not an esoteric thing that you cannot detect. I will now offer an example of stupidity and if you believe the stupid thing, this man said and wrote, then I think you are a danger to your children.

Norman Brown wrote that he was told that when President Ali meets with and shakes the hand of African Guyanese, afterwards he washes his hand with a special detergent. I have over 55 years of political activism and in the zero-sum politics between adversaries that I have witnessed over those long years, I never experienced such an extraordinarily stupid thing like that.
I ask you in all earnestness, as a parent, do you believe what Brown mouthed off? I am saying with emotional boldness, if as a parent you believe that then you are a danger to your children and society. In life, there are

politicians in our country and in other countries that we do not like, but there are some lines that we do not cross because they are a vexation to the soul and an assault on civilisation.
Are there people in Guyana who believe what Brown said? I know my country and there are some ignorant people in this country. I have encountered displays of ignorance and stupidity in my life as a known social activist, and I still do. Two weeks ago, Charrandass Persaud and I encountered it while we were buying fruits at Stabroek Market

Listen to and look at the fourteen minutes video of the family doctor of the Adriana Younge’s family and the ignorant and stupid accusations he said he faced. Leonard Craig told me about the ignorant and stupid accusations

on Facebook said about Attorney Darren Wade. Could a Guyanese utter such stupid things? The answer is yes and Norman Brown is a living example. To think that the people who believe what Brown wrote have children is a frightening thought. Guyana is a good country with good people and Guyana has a sound future. But stupidity will always be with the world.