Dear Editor,
As I peruse the contents of the historical exchanges between one of Guyana’s most enduring patriots Kaieteur News Columnist Frederick Kissoon, and the army of PPP apologists and sycophants in whose side his truths have become annoying and discomfiting thorns, the chorus from the lyrics of Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’ keep filtering through my head. Jackson sang quote “I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways, And no message could have been any clearer, If you wanna make the world a better place, Take a look at yourself and make a change”. The totality of Freddie Kissoon’s commentary can be summarized in the context of that chorus. All he is asking of them is to take a good long look at themselves in the context of their Nation’s political and social history, and to work to end the pattern of “abee time now” political attitudes and behaviours. To them, unfortunately, he has become a veritable Thomas Beckett to their King Henry 11 political collective. And the gist of their deceitful and venomous missives that target Kissoon represent modern day replicas of the frustrated cry attributed to the King in the face of his Archbishop’s obstinacy in facilitating the widening of his powers.
The latest attempt to silence Kissoon by resurrecting a 39 year old episode involving library books would be laughed off the pages of any newspaper in any other Nation but Guyana. There can be no more obvious example of what an intersection between desperation and wickedness will produce. The “powers that be” and those for whom its status continuance represent heady and rapturous inverse proportional satisfaction, are determined that discourse on Guyana’s history and present must be confined in a tunnel of convenient truths. The pattern is to organize facts and truths according to the Gospel of the PPP, and to inundate the various dissemination outlets with these missives. It requires no great or expansive deductive prowess to discern the pattern, or to figure out why the writings of Freddie Kissoon elicit such animosity from those quarters. They represent disequilibrium in the status quo for the Political Scribes and Pharisees, in a manner of speaking of course, for whom objective truths have become burdensome inconveniences. These pundits and opinion shapers seek to impose an information utopia in Guyana in which their political and social constructs become the primary beneficiaries. They crave the privilege of absolute power to determine right and wrong according to how each event affects or impacts upon their hold and association with political power. It has always been universally recognized and accepted that Objective Truths tend to become the first and major casualties in political and social conflicts.
Martin Luther King opined that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”. When that principle is applied to the positions and opinions of many of Freddie Kissoon’s critics they are found to be severely wanting in moral and ethical consistency. During the two plus decades when the PPP’s political status was confined to that of the opposition, a period that can be described as challenging and controversial for them and Kissoon, the current critics of Freddie Kissoon stood toe to toe with him as he filtered his criticism of the establishment power through the prism of ethics, morality, truth and objectivity. Today however, now that the PPP’s political status is that of the establishment power, and Kissoon continues to filter his criticisms through the same prisms, those who once praised and stood toe to toe with him are outraged. Kissoon’s commentary points to, among other things, the monopolization of the state media, the abuse and corruption that litter the landscape in the halls of power, the two tier system of justice and dispensation of resources, unequivocal evidence that the state in Guyana is still one of challenge and controversy. However, to those for whom the serendipitous change in the political status of the Party they support is more important than inconsequentials like principles, like positions and views that are obvious and blatant reflections of unadulterated hypocrisy, it is a time of comfort and convenience. Go figure.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams