It is with deep sorrow this column notes the passing of a giant among us, David de Caires.
A lot of people assume they know what he believed in or stood for. They don’t. Above all else he believed that Liverpool could win the league and cup double this season if Steven Gerrard stays fit.
Political philosophies, Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism…he did not have much time for. He was in fact for much of his life a card carrying Underdoggist. As a sports fanatic, it was not his choice to back the favourite horse or the star studded team.
He lived for the goal snatched in injury time by a team from the fourth division, the birdie chip on the last hole, the unlikely win from two sets down at Centre Court, the 8 to 1 by a nose.
And that underdoggism transcended sports because its central philosophy is about creating the upset, raising up the little man, overturning the status quo; and David de Caires was a man hell bent on change.
As a young lawyer, he was renowned for his fiery rhetoric and as a newspaper publisher he would get infuriated by abuses of power, or corruption.
His was an indignation perhaps born from a belief that it was one thing to legitimately win office, it was a much more important duty to remain accountable to a people.
But while he would not tolerate political nonsense he had an almost infinite patience for the more verbose letter writers.
In back and forths over such topics as VS Naipaul, Creationism vs Darwinism and the bombing of the MV Sun Chapman it was if, like some boxing referee, he preferred to see the combatants fully exhausted rather than call the fight too soon. Perhaps it was because he realised the importance of allowing the common man the power to speak. The letter writer who could not sleep because of loud music, the driver who was asked for a bribe, the housewife living days without water, the pensioner denied his NIS benefits. On pages six and seven the individual got equal space with the politician.
In the end he had some doubts which more reflected how seriously he took his vocation than anything else. In an interview this year with the UK Caribbean newspaper, the Voice, he said “I used to, perhaps naively, think that if you let everyone have their say, somehow or other some kind of consensus view would emerge or an approximation of the truth. I don’t believe that any longer.
I believe that is a very difficult topic and it is naive to feel it is as simple as that. A lot of views are under-informed or biased and you end up more readily with a tower of Babel than with the emergence of truth.”
But he also concluded “it is absolutely vital that people should have the power to express their views and that within limits, their views should be taken seriously.”
David de Caires was a man who did not hold a grudge and had extraordinary composure when needed. We recall at one media workshop he had invited then Opposition Leader Desmond Hoyte. Before the event started, Hoyte had torn into him for something in the paper – of course an issue now quite forgotten. Five minutes later David de Caires addressed the gathering heaping praise on Hoyte with not one hint of what had just happened.
This year, he gave President Jagdeo a tour of the Theatre Guild, even as this administration had pulled government ads in what was clearly a political attack. That is the measure of the man.
We know that in his role as Editor in Chief at Stabroek News, he was an inspiration whose every word reporters hung on for advice and praise.
A positive remark about a story would leave us walking on air for days. His influence, his example will always be with us.
He was also young at heart. His posture was always to look forward. Yes, he did want to set the record straight on what had happened in the country’s history, but it was not his first priority; that was to look to the future and to practical solutions. Sometimes we wondered how he could get so excited about small projects or other ideas that left us cold. At those times his enthusiasm could make us feel old.
And despite all the elections that ended in burnt out buildings, the numerous political accords breached, the grand projects never made a reality, he may have become weary but he was never cynical.
It was as if his optimism could not be dimmed for long. As if he was always hopeful that this country would one day live up to its true potential.
As for his humour, he was as everyone knows a brilliant wit with a generous laugh for almost any kind of joke from the subtle to the absurd. He was simply someone you wanted to be around.
His death is not just the passing of one man, but it is for us the death of a kind of decency which you don’t see too much of nowadays. He was the ballast in a ship that has long been listing.
The last time we spoke, he lamented how he had been unable to go out much lately and joked he had been listening to the jazz standard “Old Rockin’ Chair’s Got Me” by Louis Armstrong when it had suddenly struck him the song was about him. He had then changed the lyrics to make it suitably Guyanese:
“Old Berbice chair’s got me, my cane by
my side
Fetch me that gin, son, ‘fore I tan your hide
Can’t get from this cabin, goin’ nowhere
Just set me here grabbin’ at the flies round
this Berbice chair”
He managed even then to find some humour in his ailing health.
When we heard of his death this Saturday, it was a great shock.
It is as if you expect some people never to die, can never imagine them not being here. But he has gone. He has gone. So all we can say is Rock on, David de Caires, rock on.
