YESTERDAY was October 5, 1992. It was on that date Guyana returned to legitimate, free and legal elections in which votes were properly counted for parties that they were cast for. I was livid when I read the words of Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, a former PPP icon that Cheddi Jagan and his wife Janet admired and embraced.
Mr. Ramkarran publicly noted that “… the restoration of democracy in 1992… would not have been possible without the Stabroek News.”
The long battle and the protracted war to secure the return of democracy and one person, one vote began moons and moons ago before the Stabroek News (SN) was born. It is a colossal misstatement to utter what Mr. Ramkarran said.
The SN was born in 1987. From 1968, hundreds of organisations (in and out of Guyana) and thousands of brave individuals brought us to 1992. The two leading political parties at the time were the PPP and the Rodneyite WPA. They were crucial to the fight for free and fair elections.
In those two parties, people were murdered through state violence in that long struggle for electoral justice. Not a scratch SN suffered. It is deeply inaccurate to say that a media house born in 1987 was responsible for making free and fair election possible.
It is when you connect the trauma of 1992 with the mental devastation of 2020 that you see how impossible it is to separate the intricacies of the two events separated by 27 years. I am getting on in age. I do not think I can reconcile myself with those who were inside the long days and never-ending nights in a permanent war to have Guyanese vote in a free and wholesome national election yet in 2020 accepted illegal voting.
I cannot maintain a correct relation with old comrades of mine that believe that the PNC, WPA and AFC won the 2020 election and that there were no conspiracies, frauds and illegalities. I have been forgiving with people who when they were in government pursued policies I thought were incorrect or if they behaved in betraying ways. So that was how they handled power. But the embrace of the 2020 electoral fraud is unforgiving.
Deaths and tragedies did not deter us in journeying to October 1992 and we should have looked in our hearts in 2020 and say no more of permanent power because permanent power is a deep manifestation of evil. We saw evil in 1974 when a permanent government arrogated to itself the right to banish from employment one of the world’s most brilliant historians – Walter Rodney.
It is sad for me that I have lost comrades that lived inside those tragic moments from 1968 to 1992. They will depart this life and all I have of them are two-sided memories. All I have of them are oxymoronic memories. I will remember the never-ending days and the sempiternal nights from 1968 on the streets where tomorrow was promised to none of us.
I wish those memories did not have rival moments. But they do. The names are many but it is their age that rivets my soul. I have poetic memories of the sacrifice and spirit of Moses Bhagwan. He is 92 and all I can say when he passes is that I have learnt from him but he shattered my soul in March 2020.
Eusi Kwayana is 101. I have philosophical memories of him but there are competing moments of riveting chagrin. He turned his back on free and fair election and those memories get into the way of the way we were five decades ago. When he passes, there is only one set of memories that will descend onto me – the times when he taught me things I should know.
I remember one of the lessons I will always keep in my memory bank. It was a quiet day in his office and Kwayana told me that the middle class in Guyana and the WPA will never reach out to me. He said the nature of the middle class is that they do not like ordinary people arguing with them. Such people must know their place.
When Eusi passes, I will write about that psychological fact he gave to me. But I wish it began and ended there. But Eusi turned his back on history. We have to let people vote in Guyana who they want to govern. Clive Thomas is 91. The memories, as with Bhagwan and Kwayana, are the same – good, precious times but upended by the betrayal of the Guyanese people in March 2020. Yesterday was October 5. If only there were not poisonous rigging in March 2020, these people would have still remained my collective Don Quixote.
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.
