RAS Kafra represents the Rastafari community on the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC). Last Wednesday, I was parked outside the ERC when he drove up. I went over to him. I explained that Friday was Emancipation Day, and I would like him to be the guest on the Freddie Kissoon Show. He asked to discuss what.
I told him anything of his choice, including the world of Rastafari and African Guyanese in general. What he said to me was slightly objectionable but read on. He told me he didn’t want to come because he doesn’t know what to expect from Freddie Kissoon.
As we walked toward the ERC, he made it plain that he would not come on the programme because I am not the Freddie Kissoon that we (his pronoun) knew, and I am a changed Freddie Kissoon. I don’t want him to reply and accuse me of not disclosing my reaction to him.
I intoned that he was a fake leader. I stand by that assertion. How can someone represent the great religion of Rastafari through the constitutional office of the ERC and refuse to be interviewed because the interviewer is someone who, in his eyes, has changed his politics? What my changed politics has to do with an ERC commissioner explaining to Guyana what the Rastafari religion is and what an African Guyanese is.
Since the Freddie Kissoon Show started three years ago, several Rastafari adherents and more than a dozen prominent African Guyanese have done their duty to their constituencies by explaining on the show what the essence of those constituencies is. Ras Kafra was not interested in addressing the meaning of Rastafari but in the politics of Frederick Kissoon.
So, I have disappointed Ras Kafra because I have changed. If he weren’t an ignorant man, he would know that change in humans is basic to civilisation and when humans change for good or bad, there is a context that must be understood, even though the context may not be accepted. Before we explain how and why people change, let’s look at the politics of a very good friend of mine who is the deputy chairman of the Alliance For Change, Michael Carrington.
I have known Michael for over 40 years and have featured him in this column. In one of my columns, I recommended him to the PPP government in 2021. Michael uttered something that got me angry.
When asked on the Freddie Kissoon Show by Leonard Craig how he would explain the movement of African Guyanese to the PPP, he became banal and exceedingly ordinary by saying they gravitate to where they can get something.
I was livid and quickly condemned his remark as insulting to the African race of this land. He quickly apologised on the show and I hope he responds to this column by enlarging that apology. Michael, Ras Kafra and people in general need to know that humans may have legitimate reasons for ideological and philosophical transformation.
I will spend the rest of this column briefly explaining why I have changed. I have spent a lot of column space analysing my transformation and will continue to do so because it is an important political nuance that needs to be added to our understanding of Guyana’s politics. Then I will elaborate on why African Guyanese are heading in the direction of the PPP.
I changed after 2020 because I found out that Kaieteur News, Stabroek News, the AFC, WPA, APNU, most civil society groups and many former political friends of mine wore masks for all the decades I have known them. They were fake democrats and closet racists. I was too idealistically insane to see their true colours. The masks fell off in 2020 and I became a different human.
I find Irfaan Ali to be a better human than every one of the people I struggled with decades ago and I unreservedly and unapologetically will help him to get re-elected. As for African Guyanese gravitating to the President, it is normal psychology for people to want to be part of the future of their country if that country has wealth and that wealth is being shared.
I am under no illusion that oil wealth will make all of Guyana equal. There will be very wealthy folks who will get rich off of Guyana’s petro-dollars. But African Guyanese see their country as going up the ladder of economic elevation. They see a future. They see a president who is patriotic. They want to be part of that future. It is normal psychology for them to want to be part of their expansion and they should not be insulted for feeling this way.
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.