Unfortunately, everything boils down to racism

Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Vishnu Bisram‘s letter which was published in the Guyana Times on January 9, 2017, under the caption, “Apata a real Rodneyite not Hinds and Ogunseye”. Generally, I read most of Bisram’s letters and whether or not I agree with his view point, I have refrained from commenting, even when I believe that there are instances when he has raised issues that can lift the consciousness of the masses, if they are engaged by way of debate.
We live in a society where public polemics degenerate into public ‘cuss outs’, lies and deception. This is now the order of the day. Unfortunately, when the letter writers are of different ethnicities, everything boils down to racism. Truth and objectivity are thrown out the window.
Mr Bisram’s letter which I have referred to, is yet another example of this cultural deterioration in public discourse. Frankly, he is being nasty. In his letter he wrote, “…like David Hinds and Tacuma Ogunseye who crawled back to the PNC, supporting its racism for two bits of silver selling out Rodney.” I am ignoring his accusation of selling out Rodney for the moment. However, I note the cultural degeneration reflected in his chosen verb, “crawled”. Let me move on. He sees our working with the PNC as personal decisions and not as a result of the WPA making an informed political decision based on our collective understanding of what is best in the interest of the nation. This line of attack is not surprising since it is not the intention of the writer to be objective. I have never read anywhere where Bisram has accused African political activists who joined the PPP as individuals, and importantly, not as a result of a party decision, of supporting PPP and doing so for two bits of silver. Readers should not be surprised if Bisram, in response to what I have just stated, argues that there is no PPP racism, that it is only the PNC’s, Hinds’ and Ogunseye’s racism the country has to be concerned about.
When I read of the likes of Bisram, who, while purporting to be disciples of Rodney, have allotted to themselves the role of being the authority on who is a “Rodneyite”, I am forced to ask, how hypocritical can one get? These political Judas’ only love for Rodney was because he was actively opposing Burnham and the PNC. Walter Rodney’s conviction that a united working class/working people are essential to their self–liberation and, his opposition to ethnic domination, meant nothing to these opportunists. That is why, now that he is dead and is in no position to prove them wrong, they feel emboldened and rude enough to claim that Rodney, if he was alive during the years of the PPP regime, would not have modified his political approach to the PNC, even after he had experienced the hostile and demoralising racial and political polarisation of the PPP, decades after the end of Burnham/PNC rule.
In politics and life talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than words. In my more than four decades of political activism, I have been deemed a racist by both PNC and PPP supporters, in spite of these accusations, my record would show that I worked with, and also opposed both parties in a principled manner. As a young activist in ASCRIA, in the early 1970s I spoke at public meetings with the PPP at a time when few Africans had the courage to do so. Bisram, was this because I was at the time a recipient of gold and silver bars from the PPP?
Bisram said that Hinds and I joined the PNC to remove Indians from power. It is instructive to note that he did not say the PPP but “Indians”. Given Bisram’s logic when I worked with the PPP in and out of the PCD against PNC, that party is justified in its historic position that I and other Africans activists in the WPA, including Walter Rodney, teamed up with the PPP to remove Africans from power. If this is true, it is therefore only reasonable to assume that in all of the years of my activism I have practiced an enlightened form of racism, and Guyana will be a better country if the majority of its citizens were to emulate my politics.
Let me take this opportunity to assure Bisram and company that I will never be deterred by their ramblings.

Sincerely,
Tacuma Ogunseye