Dear Editor,
Francis Carryl’s response in his letter captioned “Rickey Singh was not exiled from Guyana” (07.02.07) to my letter on the subject of GINA’s personal attack on Rickey Singh and the Guyana Govt’s attack on press freedom boils down to the meaning of my use of the word `exile’ as in “Rickey Singh was exiled from his homeland”.
The American Heritage High School dictionary (3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin) lists the following meanings for the word “exile”: noun (1.a) enforced removal from one’s native country; (1.b) self imposed absence from one’s country; (2) The condition or a period of living away from one’s native country; (3) One who lives in exile, whether forced or voluntary; verb (4) To send into exile, banish.
The above listed meanings allow for the nuances (subtle or slight degrees of meanings) of the word `exile’.
Lord Rama (Ramayana) went into exile in the forest for 14 years (voluntary exile) because of convictions of what a vow (oath) means.
Solzhenitzyn was exiled from his homeland at the point of a bayonet (forced exile, banishment).
Rickey Singh was exiled from Guyana – well, not quite at the point of a bayonet, but at the point of `serious consequences’ if he did not go into exile.
Tens of thousands of people in Guyana and the Caribbean know the circumstances of Rickey Singh’s involuntary exile from Guyana. Singh had worked at the Guyana Graphic as a journalist until the early 1970’s when the Burnham Govern-ment. began cracking down on the free press. Singh’s job as political affairs reporter brought him into a head-on confrontation with the government. Conditions deteriorated to a point where his life was threatened. Burnham’s secret police delivered these threats. And, Singh packed up and went into involuntary exile in Barbados. It was a wise decision. Bernard Darke, a journalist for the Catholic Standard was stabbed and killed by Burnham’s paramilitary thugs while covering an anti-govt. demonstration in March 1979.
I cannot comprehend Francis Carryl’s attempt to reproach me for the use of the word `exile’ as in Rickey Singh was (involuntarily) exiled from his homeland.
. The circumstances of Singh’s involuntary exile bear no resemblance to the circumstances in which I, and a hundred thousand of my compatriots, chose to settle in this Guyanese village in Queens, New York.
Francis Carryl chides me for “distorting the truth” and accuses me of making it difficult to obtain a “dispensation of the truth”. So what is the truth? Do you call this the Stabroek News ads fiasco or is it an attack on press freedom?
Why not call a spade a spade? When you choose to shade and conceal the truth you are playing games with the truth. And, this mislabeling of the reality comes straight out of Prem Misir’s playbook. He has repeatedly called this “the SN ads fiasco”, which it is not. It is an attack on Press Freedom.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
New York
