THERE is nothing special about those words. They are taken from one of the hit songs, “Too Hot” from one of my favourite groups from the 1970s, “Kool and the Gang.” I recently bought six albums from the group on three CDs from Amazon for a mere $20 America.”
There are more poignant sayings that express how we change as we go through life. But somehow that line from Kool and the Gang has stuck with me. Maybe it is because of memories of Kool and the Gang. The song is about fascination we cling to in early life that decreases and evaporates as we live longer. People change all the time, but what Freudian analysts and political theorists explain is why people change. If public intellectuals are going to educate the nation they write for, those changes have to be elucidated.
This column was motivated by a letter I read in the Kiskadee Watch by attorney Kamal Ramkarran. Mr. Ramkarran, rightfully, and I thank him for that, chastised the bird for condemning the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) for intervening with the then Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton to secure confirmation for Guyana’s Chief Justice and Chancellor.
Here are the words of Mr. Ramkarran: “The country is poorer for the absence of a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice and it is something we should all lament. Indeed, it was lamented on many occasions by the newspaper which Kiskadee Watch says is its predecessor and on whose lineage it trades.”
Now read between the line for Mr. Ramkarran’s perception. Mr. Ramkarran reminds readers that the bird is trading on Stabroek News’s name, for which it is the successor of Stabroek News (SN). Where Mr. Ramkarran got it wrong is that he separates SN from the bird. But all the bird is doing is continuing the degenerative journalism that befell the SN in the last 15 years or so before it went out of existence. The leopard does not change its spots; it cannot.
I could not understand the eulogies of SN by Mr. Ramkarran and his father, and dozens of other people when SN closed. For that reason, I sought to correct those misperceptions by writing a series of iconoclastic columns on the nature of SN on this page. This is where the line from Kool and the Gang comes in.
I don’t doubt that Mr. Kamal Ramkarran is a fine, competent lawyer. I believe he is, but I am not sure of his potential to do class analysis of Guyana’s sociological make-up. His father, Ralph Ramkarran, should be equipped to undertake such analyses because he spent decades with the PPP, where he acquired the knowledge of Marxist perspectives.
Just think of what the bird is doing, and the line of Kool and the Gang should instruct you. People and things change. SN was a project of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC). The paper was formed to resuscitate the diminished presence of the MCC during Burnham’s dictatorship. So, it was always a paper that served class interest and not the sacred pursuits of journalism.
But because of the iconic status its two founders – David DeCaires and Miles Fitzpatrick – enjoyed in Guyana since the 1950s, SN could not have injected crude, politicized journalism under their watch. But the paper served the MCC’s interests in Guyana, and anyone competent in class analysis knew this at the time. I spent five years as a columnist with SN and I saw the world of the MCC that I never saw before and only heard my father speak of it.
It would be academic vulgarity to describe the function of the paper under its two founders as unacceptable. It was not, and its journalism was plausible and acceptable. But we should never lose sight of what it always was. Because of its ontology, SN always had deep suspicion about Indian political power under the PPP. Mr. DeCaires was personal friend of David Granger. One of the best friends of Mr. Fitzparrick was Hugh Chomondoley, the father of Cathy Hughes. Under both founders, the paper was made available to the WPA under Rupert Roopnaraine and GUARD under MCC leadership.
The SN lost its way when Granger lost power in 2020. It psychologically revolted that the PPP was coming back into power. From 2020, the triumvirate at SN – Brendon DeCaires, his sister Isabelle and its editor Anand Persaud let loose the SN on the PPP and the SN behaved like a ravenous dog. All the Kiskadee Watch is doing is to continue to bark identically, the way SN did.
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.
