I CAN’T speak for any other politically minded Guyanese in and out of Guyana. I can only express how I feel. This country stops me from even an ephemeral bout of depression because of its comical nature. When you have been in social activism as long as I have, a huge school of anti-government activists in Guyana makes you laugh and you keep laughing because you know more comical stuff is coming out non-stop.
There is no stopping these wild circuses. They make my day. You examine the landscape of anti-government verbal and vocal outpourings, and they are incredibly comical. You keep laughing and want more. By anti-government, I do not mean the opposition political parties. I am referring to the entire gamut that includes the media, civil society and individuals. Giving you examples will fill volumes, but some episodes are necessary before I go to the headline of this article here. These episodes have to make you laugh and I have no doubt in my mind that you did explode with laughter.
Vishnu Bisram wrote that he has six masters and six doctorates. Lincoln Lewis wrote that we must read the constitution to understand it, and he doesn’t understand it because he never read it. Lewis in July 2020 wanted President Granger to scrap the general election. The constitution doesn’t give Granger that power.
Janet Bulkan noted that the most consequential citizen Guyana produced from the late 20th century to 2026 is the former editor of Stabroek News, Anand Persaud. I would love to hear which footballer, cricketer or singer Bulkan thinks is brilliant. Ronaldo, Messi, Chris Gayle, Tendulkar, Whitney Houston would never make her list. Comics are wild, funny people.
The one I like very much is when an opposition parliamentarian (female) chastised President Ali for mispronouncing the name of the country, Turkiye. She didn’t know Turkey is now Turkiye. How about this one; Kiskadee Watch wrote the President asking for information on the connection to Guyana of one of the ferry commissioners. Now the President had to burst out with laughter.
Then there is a man named Percy Hintzen, a former UG professor who left 50 years ago. He thinks that at this stage in Guyana’s development, Guyana can only be saved by the group in Guyana that goes by the name Red Thread. Hintzen is too far removed from Guyana to know that the red has faded from the thread and the thread has become too brittle to hold.
Let’s come to the two words in the caption of this column. I read an editorial in Kiskadee Watch that opines that Guyana needs a period of healing, but I don’t know healing from what. I think Guyana needs a period of healing and it got that period when a divisive newspaper like Stabroek News went dead only to be reborn under a new mask named Kiskadee Watch.
Guyana certainly needs a period of healing from psychotic minds that used the drowning death of a little girl in Tuscen last year and the drowning deaths of over 100 Guyanese in the ferry disaster last month to inject the toxins of divisions in society. It is sickening, but can’t you ask the question without being criticised that though it is sickening, what these people do are also not comical? People who create divisions with every passing day want healing in Guyana. Man, I tell you that has to be laughable.
Finally, the meaning of the word “independent.” Village Voice, the propaganda outfit of the anti-government bandwagon, responded to the use of the word “independent” when the President announced the formation of an independent commission of inquiry into the ferry tragedy. Village Voice wrote, “But it depends on what you mean by independent.”
Now that is one of the most important questions to have come out of Guyana since colonial days. How do you define “independent” in the context of Guyana’s politics? That anti-government preacher, the Stabroek News, when it was alive, declared that the Private Sector Commission was not independent but pro-government and therefore should not sit on the board of the Natural Resource Fund committee. Stabroek News in the same breath had championed the independent status of the Guyana Human Rights Association, Red Thread and the newspaper itself.
So here is how some people interpret “independent” to mean. You are only independent if you are anti-government. So we have either a linguistic or epistemological or deconstruction vulgarity in Guyana – independent means anti-government. Let’s end on an episode I left out in the examples that I found comical. Some people praised the Stabroek News after it died. For what? Oh, by the way! Am I independent?

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.