When I was growing up in Guyana in West Dem, we had no electricity in our house, no telephone, and, in the early days, not even a radio. As a result, there were two ways to communicate or to get information: you wrote a letter or, for real emergencies, you could send a telegram. For the folks living next door, you could do as Archie Bunker once said on the US television series ‘All in the Family’, “Just open the window and holler,” but that aside it was a letter or a telegram. In those days, we were in the dark about a host of things, often learning something had happened days, or even weeks, after the event. Today, while one can complain that we’re actually on information overload, we do get to know more daily about our world and the people in it than was previously the case.
In recent days, for instance, after some comments in the media from former President Bharrat Jagdeo about the lifestyle of our late leader Cheddi Jagan, we have witnessed a massive outpouring of information and comment in the uproar that followed. It bubbled up and is still bubbling. All the modern communication media came into play with newspapers, blogs, radio stations, television broadcasts, social media and emails joining in the fray.
It can be argued that much, or at least some, of the chatter was overdone on both sides, but in a country where we have little or no information about our historical figures, we can look back on this Jagdeo/Jagan uproar and recognize that we have consequently learned more nuanced aspects about both of those former presidents.
Particularly fascinating to me was the personal and private side of Dr Jagan that has emerged from this eruption coming from a host of voices, both professional and social, bringing us a range of information we would not otherwise have obtained. Most Guyanese would have had some indication that Cheddi Jagan was not a flamboyant man, or a firebrand speaker. He was not given to public display.
As a youngster here, not paying much attention to politics, even I was aware of that, and I was dimly aware that he lived a rather simple life. But the recent revelations have shown the tenets of his life – the frugal side, the simplicity, his concern for personal integrity – being far more firmly held by Dr Jagan than imagined.
Most of us, I would argue, especially country people such as me, have only now been made aware of how avidly he held to those standards, and how strongly he resisted softening his position on them.
Only now, from the voices of his children, from some of his house staff, from doctors treating him, etc, is this picture emerging of a man of singular character and resolve, holding the highest office in the land, but choosing to live frugally and to inconvenience himself, and even neglect his health, rather than make demands on the public purse.
One could not imagine the President of Guyana putting up with a pan to catch drips from the leaking roof in his home; a letter from a former personal assistant to Janet Jagan now tells us that with President Jagan it was so. Who would have expected our President, on overseas trips, to be choosing less comfortable flights to save government expense? Another letter writer tells us that’s exactly what he did. Writing from abroad, a doctor detailed Cheddi Jagan’s reticence about undertaking expensive heart surgery with government footing the bill. Another wrote about the simple old car he drove, and about his simple manner of dress. In the overall, in recent days, thanks to our modern communication devices, we now have a wider and clearer picture of Dr Jagan than before. A light has been turned on to the man’s life, and we can all see him the more clearly for it.
I encountered Dr Jagan two or three times on my musical trips to Guyana; they were moments of brief hellos at various functions, but on one occasion in the mid-’90s, through Tradewinds’ man in Guyana, Freddie Abdool, I was invited to meet him upstairs at State House.
I had had my shoes shined for the occasion – I mean this was State House – but the President showed up in shirt and pants and slippers and put me at ease at once. We chatted about this and that, and when I told him I was impressed with his energy at his age, he laughed and attributed it all to exercise and “eating right”. Towards the end of our gyaff, as I handed Dr Jagan a Tradewinds recording, it was my turn to laugh as the President offered to pay for it. I didn’t know the details then of Dr Jagan’s frugal nature, but knowing what I now know his reaction was in keeping with the man.
It is one of our deficiencies in Guyana that we treat our historical figures very casually when they are among us and even after they have passed on. In just one example, the definitive literature on Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte, and Cheddi Jagan, is yet to arrive. Except for those who have worked alongside them, most of us know these stalwarts only from afar and only in their public selves.
In recent days, however, through our local media, voices otherwise silent have been raised, and have shed revealing lights on the human side of Cheddi that have taken us to the inside, to the essential character of the man. In the context of the post he occupied, we should take time to reflect on how striking and singular was the humility and integrity that Cheddi displayed in his time. In that context, as well, in this time, it is also sadly worth noting that we are not likely to ever see his kind again.
