Elected dictatorship and East Indians like me

Posted By knews On July 16, 2008 @ 9:01 am In Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon |

Days after the 2006 general elections, I wrote that on the day I saw the breakdown of the election results I was ashamed to be an East Indian. I take back not one single word in that article.

Let me repeat my emotion and mental thought on that day that I saw and heard the results – I was ashamed to be an East Indian.
The statistical outlay for that general election showed that the East Indian pattern remained with the PPP.

Looked at from any angle - moral, philosophical, political, scientific - it was wrong for the great masses of East Indians to have voted back the PPP into office.

There was in 2006 no conceivable reason why the East Indian communities should have returned to power a group of politicians that did not achieve anything for the bulk of the East Indian population but more so constituted and constitutes a cabal that is corrupt, undemocratic and hopelessly incompetent. Whoever said that life is fair?

Maybe there is no meaning to life when you think that politicians millions of miles ahead of what we have in Guyana ruling us could lose elections yet our venal conspiracy marches on here.

Portia Simpson in Jamaica, Keith Mitchell in Grenada, Kenny Anthony in St, Lucia and Owen Arthur in Barbados have lost power even though they are superior administrators to what Guyanese have had to put up with the past sixteen years. Did someone once say “Life is a bitch?”

What tears up someone like me is that I lived in a period where the East Indian population embraced the essence of democracy and fought for it in a multi-racial struggle; and fought for it long and hard.

Yet today none of the egregious violations of democracy brings a word of protest among those whom I saw in the front line against Burnham.

Words cannot describe the phantasmagoria of emotional frustration when I saw what happened to the bail denial of Oliver Hinckson.

There are two issues here that should be carefully separated. Does Mr. Hinckson deserve bail? The answer is yes. Let us leave that out of the present democratic dilemma we are discussing. We need to focus on the circumstances surrounding his bail rejection.

For some strange reason, the officials to receive the money for the bail were not there for the entire morning. Does any honest, decent mind believe that was just a random thing?

Well these things happen. But wait until you hear why Magistrate Robertson-Ogle’s granting of bail to Hinckson was nullified.

While the mysterious disappearance of the court/police personnel was lengthening, the Attorney-General Office was preparing documents to contest the Magistrate’s ruling in the High Court.

Then just before the morning of Monday, July 14, turned into afternoon, the High Court granted the AG Chambers its request.

The AG is Doodnauth Singh. When I was younger I saw Mr. Singh in the line-up in the fight for democracy. He was a protagonist in the Guyana Anti-Discrimination Movement.

This was a human rights group that was formed by lawyers, doctors and professionals from the East Indian community and jointly based at Dr. Prasad Hospital and the now defunct Medical Practitioners Hospital on Carmichael Street. Those were the days when certain people knew what dictatorship was.

I still have images of Doodnauth Singh fighting for Arnold Rampersaud, charged for murder of a policeman when PPP supporters attacked the Corentyne toll gates.

Looking back then, one wondered if Rampersaud was guilty but the fight was not just to save Rampersaud to struggle against dictatorship.

There can be absolutely no question in my mind that if under the Burnham regime Rampersaud was granted bail, then the bail people couldn’t be found, then the Magistrate’s granting of freedom was overturned by a High Court judge, then people like Mr. Singh and his “brilliant democratic fighters” in the Guyana Anti-Discrimination Movement and the countless thousands of East Indians would have cried “down with dictatorship.”

For me as an East Indian who fought unelected dictatorship alongside Mr. Singh and the Guyana Anti-Discrimination Movement, I deeply and at the profoundest level of morality believe Guyana has gone from unelected dictatorship to elected dictatorship. There is a statement by my hero Walter Rodney that I will always remember.

He told a public meeting that he often wondered when dictators open their mouth to speak of freedom if they were not afraid that they would choke to death. What went through the mind of the AG when his Chambers opposed bail for Oliver Hinckson?

Did Mr. Singh think of Arnold Rampersaud? I hope to ask Mr. Singh one day if we meet why the group was named the Guyana Anti-Discrimination Movement. Who was being discriminated against?


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Article printed from Kaieteur News: http://www.kaieteurnews.com

quote:

Elected dictatorship and East Indians like me

Posted By knews On July 16, 2008 @ 9:01 am In Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon |

Days after the 2006 general elections, I wrote that on the day I saw the breakdown of the election results I was ashamed to be an East Indian. I take back not one single word in that article.

Let me repeat my emotion and mental thought on that day that I saw and heard the results – I was ashamed to be an East Indian.
The statistical outlay for that general election showed that the East Indian pattern remained with the PPP.

Looked at from any angle - moral, philosophical, political, scientific - it was wrong for the great masses of East Indians to have voted back the PPP into office

Unfortunately they did not vote for PNC like Freddie. Freddie actually miss the long food lines and absence of cheese and flour because now he is getting too fat.

The man is a SWINE and a disgrace. He should put Black Pot Pun his face and pretend he is someone else. These are people you have to keep far from. NAMAKARAM would be a compliment to such low Lives. What next, he gun sell his family to the highest bidder??????????

Freddie is Indian? Wasn’t he also ashamed when he saw those poor people eating with their hands at an Indian wedding some months ago? Oh the incivility!

Freddie likes to impose his opinion on others and when they respond and slam his “arguments” he seeks out another target but he’s good for some laughs…his is a severe case of delusion of grandeur.

I guess he would feel it's fair when some more East Indians are targets of the fleas.

I say that Guyana today is better, thanks to Jagdeo and the gunmen.

quote:

Originally posted by Gupta:
I say that Guyana today is better, thanks to Jagdeo and the gunmen.

Aren't the same dick, who cussed jagdeo and the PPP everyday. It takes only a freddie Kissoon to belittle Indians before reality steps in..

freddie, not only called all those people, who voted PPP,stupid, but also people of indian decendants.. You would never hear a blackman says."I am ashamed to be black" .

quote:

Originally posted by Nehru:
The man is a SWINE and a disgrace. He should put Black Pot Pun his face and pretend he is someone else. These are people you have to keep far from. NAMAKARAM would be a compliment to such low Lives. What next, he gun sell his family to the highest bidder??????????

Men like Freddie always brings the message to think ahead.

Indians doan think ahead, but they love to live in a progressive country but will never be able to create a progressive society.

If it weren't for the blacks building the infra-structure in BG, indians would never have ventured there.

Wealthy indians treat poorer indians with contempt. Collectively indians lack community skills for development, but as individuals they make great great strides.

So, they will never think of considering black feelings as they(indians)cast their ballots.

That great leadership has to come from a movement outside of politics and the ppl will endorse the individual as their leader.

quote:

Originally posted by seignet:

quote:

Originally posted by Nehru:
The man is a SWINE and a disgrace. He should put Black Pot Pun his face and pretend he is someone else. These are people you have to keep far from. NAMAKARAM would be a compliment to such low Lives. What next, he gun sell his family to the highest bidder??????????

Men like Freddie always brings the message to think ahead.

Indians doan think ahead, but they love to live in a progressive country but will never be able to create a progressive society.

If it weren't for the blacks building the infra-structure in BG, indians would never have ventured there.

Wealthy indians treat poorer indians with contempt. Collectively indians lack community skills for development, but as individuals they make great great strides.

So, they will never think of considering black feelings as they(indians)cast their ballots.

That great leadership has to come from a movement outside of politics and the ppl will endorse the individual as their leader.

Are you speaking for yourself or are you telling it as it is?

Poor Freddi,

He continues to make these stupid statements because he does not have a theory...he does not have a conceptual framework for understanding the persistent low intensity warfare in Guyana. That's why he keep positing conceptually slack ideas. Hence, he blames the Indians for the problem.

Somehow this sub-standard acedemic believes uneducated Indians - suffering under the propagandistic guise of the PPP - will forget the actions of the PNC pre-1992 and post-1997.

Why yu calling the man a sub-standard academic? he might get vex and start cussing down overseas guyanese now

What I don't understand is his argument now that Indians did in fact resist Burnham, yet prevously he wrote that indians were docile and never resisted the LFSB regime.

quote:

Originally posted by seignet:

If it weren't for the blacks building the infra-structure in BG, indians would never have ventured there.

What infrastructure?

Freddie's daily ranting is largely ignored by the public. He is deluding himself into believing that the public is taking him serious. The people of Guyana are ultimately the best judges of the performance of the government and not a "Freddie Kissoon" who complains incessantly.

I wonder why the PPP keep focusing on Freddie almost everyday if they werent taking him seriously. Checkout the fictitious letters they write in the Chronicle.

quote:

Originally posted by Gupta:
I wonder why the PPP keep focusing on Freddie almost everyday if they werent taking him seriously. Checkout the fictitious letters they write in the Chronicle.

Listen brother! I said the public at large does not take him seriously. Freddie is an eccentric character when it comes to politics. He is like the man that goes both ways. He will attack the PPP and PNC today, then launch his harpoon at ROAR and the AFC tomorrow. Some journalists and politicians grab attention by deliberately writing controversial things and controversial things draw attention and condemnation. To my mind, Freddie falls into that category. He blames Janet for Marxist influence in Guyana, but he forgets to explain his own intimacy with Marxism while a student in Canada. From Canada, he traveled to revolutionary Grenada to support the New Jewel Movement instead of trekking across the border to the US. The US, in Freddie's eyes, were the great imperialist of the world that suffocated revolutionary movements around the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry Ishmael:

quote:

Originally posted by seignet:

If it weren't for the blacks building the infra-structure in BG, indians would never have ventured there.

What infrastructure?

Everything indians enjoys today that makes a country.

quote:

Originally posted by seignet:

quote:

Originally posted by Terry Ishmael:

quote:

Originally posted by seignet:

If it weren't for the blacks building the infra-structure in BG, indians would never have ventured there.

What infrastructure?

Everything indians enjoys today that makes a country.

There were no roads, bridges, electricity, telephones.

quote:

Originally posted by Billy Ram Balgobin:
Freddie's daily ranting is largely ignored by the public. He is deluding himself into believing that the public is taking him serious. The people of Guyana are ultimately the best judges of the performance of the government and not a "Freddie Kissoon" who complains incessantly.

Yuh rite. The only ppl in Guyana who are concious of the dangers in the society are blacks.

Indians once dey have food dey happy. I remember, 1992 they were so happy that the selves in stores were filled with goods. Thats about it. Dey get overseas money to eat, so dey doan know how hard it is.

The indian businesses get all the breaks.

The poorer indians who vote the PPP, are happy like pigs in shyte-dey live off remittance.

Yuh think dey give a hoot about the drug lords, the criminals and the VAT. Juss send a lil moh raise.

A country is held at ransome by these fools whilst the highly educated and motivated have to battle a vindictive government.

The diaspora complains about the GOG, but fellas yuh keep feeding the ppl who let them get away it.

What we have in Guyana is too many letter writers and not enough ppl who actually goes to the public domain and seys something-dey like sideline commentators.

Freddie is one of dem chaps.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry Ishmael:
Why yu calling the man a sub-standard academic? he might get vex and start cussing down overseas guyanese now

What I don't understand is his argument now that Indians did in fact resist Burnham, yet prevously he wrote that indians were docile and never resisted the LFSB regime.

classic freddie!

quote:

Originally posted by TK:
Poor Freddi,

He continues to make these stupid statements because he does not have a theory...he does not have a conceptual framework for understanding the persistent low intensity warfare in Guyana. That's why he keep positing conceptually slack ideas. Hence, he blames the Indians for the problem.

Somehow this sub-standard acedemic believes uneducated Indians - suffering under the propagandistic guise of the PPP - will forget the actions of the PNC pre-1992 and post-1997.

TK explain why many Africans joined forces with mnay Indians against an African dictatorship. They did so under the umbrella of the WPA, GUARD and other entities.

Yet Indians, though dissatisfied with the PPP and its emerging elected dictatorship, its incompetence, corruption and unwillingness to deal with crime, cant join forces with others. They cant at a time of declining Indian population which means that no ethnic group in Guyana can foster chnage on their own but need the cooperation of others.

Yet they are unable to join with non Indians to try to do better. They set up ROAR, doomed to fail as it alienated nonIndians rather than soaught their cooperation. What is interesting is at a time of increasing frustration of the PNCs core base with its inepet performance this would seem to be as appropriate a period for multi ethnic coalitions as was the early 1980s, and the early 1990s.

WHY?

This is where accusations of clannishness come from.

Before you wail that blacks voted PNC in 1992 just consider whether the multi ethnic coalitions didnt force Hoyte to have free and fair elections. Its clear that the PPP didnt accomplish this on their own.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Matrix:
Freddy is ashamed to be an Indian. Blacks are rejoicing that Freddy is an Indian….Indians are outraged that Freddy is an Indian.

1. Because we see that at least one Indian is honest.
2. Indians hate him because he refuses to adhere to the usual denials of Indian racism and Indian culpability in our ethnic tensiuons by refusing to stand up to an emerging Indo dictatorship the way that many blacks did towards an Afro dictatorship.

quote:

CaribJ TK explain why many Africans joined forces with mnay Indians against an African dictatorship. They did so under the umbrella of the WPA, GUARD and other entities.

Yet Indians, though dissatisfied with the PPP and its emerging elected dictatorship, its incompetence, corruption and unwillingness to deal with crime.

Yet they are unable to join with non Indians to try to do better.

WHY?

This is where accusations of clannishness come from.

That's a load of nonsense...Errol Arthur had answerd this question very well. I will not waste my time with you.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry Ishmael:
]

What infrastructure?

Whether you wish to admit it or not Burnham built roads and spread electricty and water to mnay rural areas in the 60s and early 70s, and expanded secondary school education. Of course his subsequent decline into dictatorial incompetence meant that all of this was wiped out.