One of the pressures of conducting a newspaper interview reposes is pursuing a line of questioning that elicits responses that allow for the creation of a logical order in which you set down what you are told. The process, depending on the complexity of the subject of the interview can sometimes be tedious. If the outcome is to be an acceptable one, the process requires planning, often, meticulous planning. There are times when, as a journalist, you neglect to plan; you do so at your own risk. Planning includes securing an understanding of both the interviewee and the issues that are likely to arise.
When, however, you come to believe that you are a sufficiently experienced journalist you venture, sometimes, to alter the rules of the game. Sometimes, you underestimate the magnitude of the undertaking, relying on your journalistic ‘smarts’ to hold your own; and when the interviewee is a nineteen year-old student who has only just completed his first semester in College you believe that in a discourse in which you, the interviewer, are ‘in control’ it is safe to be less than thorough.
I agreed to talk with Elson Brown-Low on the recommendation of a friend based on little knowledge of him save and except that he was described to me as ‘a bright young man’ who was attending a prestigious College in the United States. I thought that the interview might make useful reading about the fact that Guyana, despite the deficiencies of an underdeveloped education system, was still producing bright young men and women who might one day bring real change to our country. To me it was a routine and straightforward exchange in which I would always be ‘ahead of the game.’
Even in his condition of apparent distraction, Elson made me pay for the error of not preparing for my exchange with him. Indeed, I venture to suggest the he has as fine a mind as anyone whom I have ever met and that if, as he thinks he would, he returns to Guyana, “eventually,” he says, he can probably be anything he wants to be. I concede too that he kept me on my toes, seemingly even without trying too hard.
There are former Queen’s College students whose CXC results actually better the eleven Grade Ones and one Grade Two which Elson achieved. There are, however – and I am abundantly confident of this – few who are superior thinkers. Elson’s academic qualifications did not matter to me. It was the clarity of his thought, the gripping style of his articulation and, frankly, his sheer wisdom that blew me away.
He is currently reading for a degree in Economics at Amherst College, situated in Amherst, Massachusetts and ranked at number 2 in the 2012 edition of the publication American publication Best Colleges. The former US President Calvin Coolidge is one of the College’s notable alumni. Amherst is known across the United States and in the wider academic community for its rigorous academic climate and Elson studies there on a grant awarded him by the College based on an evaluation of both his social and intellectual pursuits. Amherst is an institution of excellence and Elson is acutely aware of this.
He is mindful of rather than overawed by the rarified academic environment in which he exists, though he says that his preference is for being a “B” rather than an “A” student if the tradeoff is that the lesser academic accomplishment will be compensated for by him becoming the beneficiary of a more complete education which the opportunity of his exposure can provide. He makes the point, for example, of having been involved in at least four extra-curricular travel-related exercises including being part of a mock United Nations General Assembly exercise over the course of just a single semester.
Nor does he appear overly preoccupied with the sole academic return of a degree in economics from his sojourn at Amherst. “I have a fondness for learning,” Elson says and somehow you sense that for him learning goes way beyond a mastery of the laws of supply and demand.
It helps that the academic road map of a Liberal Arts College facilitates an unconfined mind such as his. This past semester he has done courses in Political Leadership, Film, Cosmology and Quantum Physics, none of which are directly related to his substantive field of study. It is the quest for ‘knowing’ that takes him down such a diverse intellectual path.
I ventured a question about his missing right hand only after I had felt sufficiently confident that it might not be an awkward or sensitive subject. I wasn’t in the least surprised that he responded as though the question dealt with a trivial issue. He told me that it was a birth defect even venturing to explain how it had occurred. It was he and not I who dwelt on the issue for a while and somehow I felt that he was making the point to me that his missing right hand had been compensated for by a host of other gifts. I made a mental note of the fact that there was nothing about that missing right hand that made him an object of pity and that even if you were inclined to think that there was, he would be the first to tell you that there were other things upon which you might expend that emotion.
He spoke briefly about his time at Queens College……. about his being the school’s Head Prefect during his final year there, about his winning the 5,000 metres race at the school’s sports during that same year and about the academic competitiveness at the school. He appeared not to have liked the competitiveness not because he couldn’t cope but because he holds the view that the intensity of competition can inhibit the sense of fulfillment that might otherwise be derived from learning. He made another point to me about competitiveness. At Amherst it is different. It’s a school of excellence and the mutual respect that himself and his classmates have for each other’s intellectual abilities tends to suppress the kind of competition which, he believes, might be more easily engendered in an environment of lesser minds.
When I asked Elson about his ambitions he appeared thoughtful for a while. Then he told me that nothing concrete had as yet been fashioned in his mind. His enduring interest in economics had to do with the fact that he felt that there was an essential nexus between an understanding of the discipline and giving real service to a country like Guyana…….which is what he says he wants to do……….be a public servant. It seemed a decidedly modest ambition for one so talented but that appears to be as much of an ambition as he has at the moment and as far as he is concerned it is not an ambition to be underestimated.
The discourse on the subject of ambition led unerringly to the issue of whether or not he would return to Guyana. You tend to think that if we were able to scatter dozens of Elsons across the various regions of the country they would find the keys to unlocking the door to development. He says he wants to return after, perhaps, working in the United States for a while. Personally, I doubted that he would re-migrate eventually…….not because I felt that he was either telling me a lie or simply seeking to say what one might describe as ‘the correct thing.’ The simple truth is that I believe that Elson is destined to become a considerable success at whatever it is that he eventually decides to embrace as a career and that America, or perhaps some other developed country is bound to claim him. I hope not but hope is all that I have.
He applauds his parents for the environment of his upbringing but has other thoughts on his path to maturity. When I asked him whether he gave credit to them for shaping his upbringing he responded that such credit as was due had to do with the fact that they had created the environment in which he could shape his own upbringing. It was an expression of independence that was reflective of an understanding of self that you might not consider likely in one so young. It was the clarity of his understanding of who he is and how he became who he is that made me feel that I was in the company of an outstanding thinker.
I moved to the subject of books. From the very beginning of our discourse I had begun to suspect that he might possess a literary talent. It seemed to ooze – like perspiration from pores – from his clever manipulation of language, and the grammatical precision through which he sought to make himself clear. He has five unpublished novels, is currently working on a book of poetry and has read Martin Carter. His novels are not set to Guyanese themes though he believes that they are readable in Guyana. By the end of the next semester he might publish a novel. It is, however, no more than half a promise. There are myriad other things that Elston says he wants to do.
If a semester away from Guyana does not mean that he has grown away from the country, there is, perhaps, evidence, that he is beginning to outgrow it. Guyana seems, since his return on holiday, “like a small town.” Its home, though for how much longer is a question that I did not bother to venture. I preferred to listen instead to his perspectives on the country’s development. There is, he says, no reason why Guyana should not grow. He wants growth, conditionally. That growth he said must be attended by the warmth and hospitality which he believes is inherently Guyanese. How to get that growth? All of us, particularly our leaders, must apply ourselves more. The missing element, Elson says is in a lack of application, “laziness.” I was surprised at what appeared to be the simplicity of his conclusion but he had told me enough over the hour or so that we spoke to persuade me not to dismiss anything he said as trite.
After I had exhausted my questioning and he rose to leave I thought of Oscar Wilde’s saying about youth being wasted on the young, feeling privileged to have encountered someone who manifested a contradiction of that saying.
Arnon Adams
