Dear Editor,
Mr. Randolph Persaud, Advisor to President Irfaan Ali, made a vicious response to Red Thread’s letter that was published in the Stabroek News of March 29, 2023 asking for clarification about whether our concerns about our environment and our country makes us hypocrites. Our letter was expressing a genuine question to our Head of State who seemed to suggest that any Guyanese asking unpopular questions is a hypocrite. Mr. Randolph Persaud’s response takes this a step further with his tirade about who or what Red Thread is. Just to let him know, Red Thread is a small grassroots women’s organization and our goal is to organize with women, beginning with grassroots women, to cross divides and transform our conditions. We provide services to women and children exploited in unequal power relations and simultaneously work to change those relations. We organize around three main priorities which we think are critical to our lives as grassroots women and our families:
1. Against ALL forms of violence
2. For a living income and affordable to access goods
and services
3. For grassroots to gain political visibility and voice.
Mr. Persaud, are you saying that grassroots should only be concerned about scrambling to take care of our families and not be concerned about what is happening in our country and should not have the time to engage in what is affecting us? Mr. Persaud should broaden his horizons to understand that the term grassroots is not restricted to his limited interpretation. As we have said over the past thirty-seven years, we are NOT affiliated to any political party and we are very proud not be a part of any of them. We therefore don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to voice our concerns or opinions. We are a group of women who are not afraid to speak our truths. And we won’t back down from bullies, no matter how many letters they come with behind their name. Mr. Persaud needs to find a more useful occupation than attacking Red Thread.
We were very happy to read about the Presidential outreach to ensure that some basic everyday needs were addressed for the people of Leonora. We want to state clearly that we are not interested in any back-and-forth engagement/argument with Mr. Persaud or anyone else who might believe that they can muzzle us. However, we want to say thank you Mr. Persaud for informing the people in Leonora about the existence of Red Thread. Red Thread will continue to advocate as our resources would allow.
Sincerely,
Wintress White
Halima Khan
Joy Marcus
Shirley Ault
Susan Collymore
Vanessa Ross
Maeve Ramsay
Jonel Perreira
Michelle John