Dear Editor,
I would like to pen a few notes as a response to a letter by Mr Rakesh Rampertab (‘Guyana needs a new group of thinkers and writers’ SN, July 18). I don’t agree with the general direction of his thinking which borders on unfamiliarity with some essential questions of philosophy. If Mr Rampertab says he belongs to the generation of the eighties, then I didn’t see him around when that generation had joined the world in fighting for democracy. But with due respect to him, I welcome his presence on our political scene and hopes he established an enduring presence.
Mr Rampertab should know that some of the WPA figures he referred to as belonging to the past are responsible for the space that led to the birth of the very newspaper he had his thoughts published in and many other institutions that are free today. Those people are also responsible for the return of free and fair elections and the sacrifices they made are heroic. Both David Hinds and Tacuma Ogunseye were jailed for three years each.
The pain these people endured entitles them to continue their political discourse. This is not to say Mr Rampertab’s theory of the need for new blood is not valid. But Guyana is a strange and backward polity.
What did new blood do for Guyana in the form of Bharrat Jagdeo? He came to power when he was in his mid-thirties. If Mr Rampertab is a product of the eighties as he says, then he should know that Mr Jagdeo makes Mr Burnham look like a boy scout taking lessons on how to tie a knot. Mr Jagdeo, Mr Aubrey Norton, Mr Robert Persaud, Priya Manickchand, just to name a few, are new faces but worse than the older stalwarts that Mr Rampertab wants to see go off the scene
It is not only in the political realm that we see people holding onto their realm for more than thirty years, but the situation may be worse in Guyana’s corporate community. Check the boards of all the major public companies, including banks, insurance companies and if not all, most are people who are in their middle sixties going on to their seventies who have been around since the ’60s. Returning Guyanese could produce prodigious qualifications in business and finance, but once they are young they will not be invited to sit on those boards. I know at least five young men and women who have returned with masters degrees in marketing, finance and business administration.
They are at UG teaching and none ever received an invitation from Guyana’s corporate world to sit on boards. Finally, I don’t read anonymous blogs and anonymous comments on letters in the online editions of the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News but if Mr Rampertab wants to see how tragic this country is, he should go and read the responses to his letter. All, without exception, would be written by people who use asinine nicknames. I hope he sees what I am getting at. Thanks for the viewpoint. I hope he keeps on writing.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
