Frederick Kissoon and Ideological Racism in Guyana!

Dear Editor, I refer to the story in the Stabroek News Kissoon Cites Stats to Support Position on Jagdeo Presidency (SN 29 1 13), and would appreciate the opportunity to comment. Guyana appears now to be awakening to a reality of stupendous proportions. This is good for the national conscience, and we used the words of Professor Davies on page 1 of the online article Greed, Genocide and now Green: Corruption and Underdevelopment in Guyana (http://www.scribd.com/doc/17958657/Greed-Genocide-and-now-Green-Corruptionand-Underdevelopment-in-Guyana ) to illustrate that these issues must be confronted, not hidden or avoided. Racism in every form must be condemned ... or else we are all living a lie! We are all safe in a social-policy space delineated by a respect for fact, truth, detail and evidence! It is in anticipation of the slew of hate-mail against Kissoon that will now appear in the local press that this comment is offered. It is also paradoxical, and a testimony to this stupor-like "awakening", that it is the words and work of Frederick Kissoon ... and not, say, Lincoln Lewis' graphic outline of "economic genocide", or Ronald Austin's tragic essay on the killing of young Blacks in "Genocide", or Dr. Kean Gibsons Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana ... that has now captured the public eye as the issue of ideological racism is contemplated. Even more paradoxical is the fact that it is now happening in court! We remember too the many attestations of the then Guyana Public Service Union (for example, GPSU Press Statement April 19th 2002) that what Frederick Kissoon is now detailing was indeed happening in post-1992 Guyana ... and the studied and callous silence that accompanied the witness of national and regional observers. Nowhere was this silence and callousness more obvious than in the hallways and dungeons of the Guyana's own Ethnic Relations Commission ... which somehow over time managed to produce many "studies" saying that all was well ... even in issues like scholarship allocation. As the national conscience kicks in, the authors of those "studies" may yet be less "cooperative" than the prosecution expects, and illustrate just how the results were determined within the walls of the ERC. In that not-too-distant and cataclysmic event-paradox, Bharat Jagdeo's efforts to ruin Frederick Kissoon become the instrument of his own exposure! Former President Bharat Jagdeo may well rue the day that he forgot that Satya Meva Jayate ("Truth Alone Triumphs") and that even the most hardcore of the "jati" in Guyana would one day come to the inescapable position that the level of overt and covert racism heaped upon AfroGuyanese post 1992 was unsustainable and ... wrong! Kean Gibson started an honest debate on this issue in "The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana" ... and Frederick Kissoon has obviously (and to his credit) been "transformed" since (see The Case for Scholarship in Kean Gibsons Book, an initial outline of the more comprehensive submission made to the ERC as the IAC tried to have the book banned). While he is delicately trying to side-step the core sociological/cultural premises of the racism Gibson graphically outlines by characterizing the (same) racism as "ideological", one senses that there is now no significant distance between their analyses and conclusions.

What he mentions in this short Stabroek-News story ... and in the similar story in the Kaieteur News (http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2013/01/29/kissoon-continues-to-detail-reasons-forcalling-jagdeo-ideological-racist/ ) is already summarized in brutal frankness in Dr. Gibson's small book and its sequel "Sacred Duty: Hinduism and Violence in Guyana" The article in David Granger's Guyana Review of June 1999 "30,012 Gun Licences" illustrates that the rot preceded Jagdeo. What is mysteriously absent from Kissoons presentation thus far is the reality of the unprecedented killings of hundreds of Black youths in post-1992 Guyana, a tragedy that informs the eloquent and painful essay Genocide by former Guyana Ambassador Ronald Austin. Kissoon's detractors will be hard-pressed to find another instance in Guyana's history when killings on this scale occurred ... or deny that such killings speak to the "ideological racism" that Kissoon is articulating. It is an equally compelling tragedy that this article by Austin is being systematically removed by persons unknown from every online berth, and Mr. Austin should publish it again. The same is also being attempted for 30,012 Gun Licences; Guyana Review June 1999 Kissoon's unanswerable expose', like the events outlined in part in the online article "Greed, Genocide ... and now "Green": Corruption and Underdevelopment in Guyana" ( http://www.scribd.com/doc/17958657/Greed-Genocide-and-now-Green-Corruption-andUnderdevelopment-in-Guyana ) illustrate that this terrible convergence of overt and covert social-policy degeneracy is unprecedented in Guyana's history ... and a slap in the face of all those who cherish the words and intent of the National Motto: "One People, One Nation, One Destiny". There is still time for us to forgive each other, and live out the true meaning of that creed! The Elders of Bethel are fond of asking their congregation How shall we therefore live? We always found no greater direction or motivation than Jesus leadership, and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us remember or forget! As Professor Ali Mazrui once said, it is fortunate indeed that for a sizeable portion of Guyana's population, their memory of hate is not great! Yours faithfully Roger Williams February 1, 2013
Additional Resources: 1. The Marginalization of Persons of African Origin in Guyana September 2005 (http://rogerwilli.blogspot.com/2009/07/marginalization-of-persons-of-african.html ) 2. The Case for Scholarship in Kean Gibsons Book 2003-2004 (http://www.landofsixpeoples.com/news402/ns4042114.htm ). 3. See Errol Harrys 2013 reminder of Rickford Burkes 2010 submission on Ethnocracy: (http://guyaneseonline.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/kissoon-details-why-he-called-former-presidentideological-racist/#comment-21568 )

4. In her stark documentation of the national dialogue accompanying the national distress per, Dr Kean Gibson in 2003 referred to the issue of good tiefin (good stealing) and bad tiefin (bad stealing) being used as a racial/racist lithmus in the post-1992 Guyana context to justify the pillage of Guyanas national coffers. She also coins the phrase corruption that is ruinous to the state to show the consequences of the inevitable overspill, however unintended. Fast forward to 2013, and see M. Maxwells letter in the Kaieteur News 2/5/13 captioned A 20-Year Cycle of Completely Valueless Spending and a Recurring Gravy Train (http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2013/02/02/a-20-year-cycle-of-completely-valueless-spendingand-a-recurring-gravy-train/ ), and thereafter compare it to the letter by Lall Kumar Ramsingh on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 captioned If So Much Money Has Been Spent on Drainage, Why Is It Not Working (http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/opinion/letters/01/07/if-so-much-money-has-beenspent-on-drainage-why-is-it-not-working/ ). Kissoon and his lawyers will not run out of material soon. In pointing to/out the bias, and addressing the complete non-prosecution of certain persons responsible for this horrendous state of affairs, Frederick Kissoon (and Kean Gibson) are helping ALL ethnicities, and contributing to making real the national promise of One People, One Nation, One Destiny.