LAST Friday, I got several telephone calls urging me to listen to what Nigel London was saying about the Head of Special Branch, Prem Narine.
I went on YouTube and did not bother to listen to the end because it was an irrational condemnation of Mr. Narine, the DPP and the Government of Guyana.
Leonard Craig said on the Freddie Kissoon Show, it wasn’t worth his time listening out the programme.
What I found disturbing were these words coming from London about Mr. Narine; He said: “You have more trouble coming to you. If not today, tomorrow, it shall happen unless you go underground or in the grave.”
Those were strong words to use against one of the country’s most senior police officers. I titled my Tuesday column: “Did Nigel London threaten the National Intelligence Chief?”
I specifically refrained from saying that the words constituted a threat because I am not a lawyer. But lay people are entitled to their opinion. In my opinion, those words can be interpreted in two ways.
One it could be seen as a threat or it could be classified as incitement. When you heard how London carried on about the Azruddin Mohamed incident involving Mr. Narine, some unsound person could do some harm to Mr. Narine without being sent by another person. In my long decades of activism, I have been attacked by people who were not sent by anyone but acted that way based on what they heard about me.
As a reaction to my Chronicle column, London went on a wild rampage about me, the PPP, Kwame McCoy, the Attorney-General and the Government of Guyana. He did not learn from his previous mistake but openly stated that Mr. Narine tried to assassinate Mohamed and he should be charged.
In his reaction, London called me many names including “donkey.” It was a scurrilous attack on me. In some countries, they have criminal libel laws.
When you heard what London said, in many other countries he could face imprisonment for criminal libel. I am not the suing kind because I have been around too long and on countless occasions was visited with the same scatological attacks in the media and social media as what London just mouthed off.
Those verbal attacks have never bothered me. Today it is London, tomorrow it will be another fool like London.
Those things do not affect me and never will. But it is the use of the word baboon which is a species of monkeys by London that has raised my curiosity. In global discourse, you do not describe a dark-skinned person from the Third World as a monkey. Such a description is frowned upon in all countries of the world.
Even white supremacists do not refer to dark-skinned people as monkeys. A citizen stands to lose his job or if he/she is a student, stands to be suspended if they call any dark-skinned human a monkey. Why is the use of the word against me by London so important in Guyana?
The reason is larger than the combined oceans in the world. Let any PPP minister, PPP councilor or anyone associated with the PPP anywhere in Guyana, refer to a dark-skinned anti-government critic as a monkey, and all hell will break loose.
So, Guyana has to wait with rising curiosity to see what the media, civil society and the opposition parties will say.
Would Guyana tolerate someone from the ruling party referring to a dark-complexioned WIN leader, or a dark-brown PNC leader as a monkey?
Every, not most, but every, major anti-government organisation will hunt down that PPP person. Look at the skin complexion of a majority of members, not only leaders of the PNC, WIN, AFC and civil society and they are dark as I am.
In the world, you cannot describe people with such skin colour as monkeys. The world frowns on the use of such a word. But London has done it and the leader of his party, Forward Guyana, Amanza Walton is a Member of Parliament and I am sure Guyanese are anxious to hear her reaction.
London is part of an arrangement with Ms. Walton in which he will represent Forward Guyana in 2029 in Parliament. He also refers to himself as a preacher of God’s word.
Every Guyanese should take a look at those two programmes by London; the one in which he used those words against the Spy Chief and his programme on Wednesday as a reaction to my Tuesday Chronicle column.
They are worth looking at because they show the levels of political poison never seen in this country before. So, do you think the opposition parties, the private media and civil society will condemn London for calling people monkeys?
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.
