THE trouble with people’s attitude toward Azruddin Mohamed is that they do not know a damn thing about him. His name became popular for two reasons: PPP leaders began to mention him excessively and in my opinion that was politically unwise. Secondly, he came into the public eye because he is running for president.

Rewind the tape one year, two years, or three years ago, and he was completely unknown because he did not make public waves. He lived a playboy life, spending his father’s billions recklessly and showing off with his father’s money. I knew his father and counted him as a friend. But Shell Mohamed failed Guyana when he took billions of his money and put it into his son’s hands only for his son to use it in ostentatiously indecent ways that not even Western playboys do.

The difference between Western billionaires and Guyana’s Shell Mohamed is that Western billionaires are far more responsible people, and I mean very far more serious and responsible people than Shell Mohamed. I have known Shell for “donkey years” and couldn’t believe that he would tolerate the aberration that his son became.

Anyone who followed the news the past 60 years about extraordinarily wealthy men in Western societies would know that they do not allow their children to behave the way Shell allowed his son to conduct himself. Rich Americans ensure that their children work in the business, where they are tied down by hard work after they graduate from university.

The parents will allow for wealth-splashing, as in the purchase of expensive cars but that goes with the territory. What goes with the territory also are long hours working in their parents’ business. Azruddin Mohamed, as is normal for playboys, bought a fleet of expensive cars but he missed two criteria that rich parents impose on their children—they have to educate themselves and they have to contribute to the ongoing success of the business.

Surely, they have playboys who did not go to college and refuse to toil in the family business but research will show they continue their playboy lifestyle without liberal funding from their parents. Rich parents in any country will allow their children to buy mansions and futuristic cars but they will not fund that lifestyle as a matter of policy. This is where Shell Mohamed went wrong and terribly so.

Azruddin Mohamed just did nothing as the years went by but spend his father’s money and he drifted into grey areas that the playboy children would never go. The Main Street incident was a descent into the unthinkable that rich parents would not condone in their children; also, such behavior will bring the law upon you.

My long-held theory of small countries with small populations, since I was a UG student in the seventies and a position I still hold and will always embrace, is that while small nations are saved from the psychic destruction that resides in large industrial nations with huge populations, in thinly populated nations there is the danger, almost inherent in society, that rich people penetrate the police.

It has been widely reported in this country that a businessman gave a senior police officer ten million dollars as a wedding gift. Herein lies the horror show of countries with sparse populations. A tiny elite with money penetrates the police force and that elite becomes a school of untouchables.

I seriously hold to the belief that Azruddin Mohamed has been a beneficiary of the sociological structure of small societies whereby their tiny populations allow those wealthy folks to become immune from the reach of the law. I know about the Main Street incident for which the police force should seek international help for a renewed investigation.
A holistic analysis of Azruddin Mohamed’s life would reveal that he was not made of any substance and was just a spoilt, rich kid that had access to billions of dollars. This is how the society should view Mohamed. In terms of psychological fibre, Mohamed is a quintessential banality and social non-entity.

It is a sad reflection on Guyanese society and maybe the 21st-century world that Guyanese would see political value in someone like Mohamed. Has Guyanese society deteriorated so badly in its collective psyche that it would see political value in Mohamed and vote for him?

I don’t believe so. I do not have unlimited optimism about the human condition. In fact, my optimism about people has always been sparse, but I believe Homo sapiens is redeemable (unlike one of my favourite thinkers, Arthur Koestler) and because of that potential of redemption, Guyanese will not vote for Mohamed.
The guy has a fascination with expensive cars.

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.