The Coil: Bake, salt fish, journalism and Guyana’s democracy

by Vidyaratha Kissoon
Guyana’s democracy continues to emerge and emerge and emerge as seen during the days after May 11, 2015. The tension was high. And as post colonial history has shown, lurking in the middle of this flat social effervescence (think expired epsom salts with red bull) was the bemused post-colonial subject , the white man taking refuge from the motherland because revolution and rubbish make for better living than rolling countryside and civilisation.
We go back to gaff with William Walker, the man who has found that selling bake and salt fish is a more viable and sustainable way of earning a living than that noble, much maligned profession, journalism.

Coil :  How did you pass the elections? Did you vote? What was the experience like? How much bake and salt fish did you sell?
WW: I am happy to report that we remained open as per normal hours. We are happy that customers came and we offered good quality service. We are open every day and we have an excellent dining service on Friday nights.

Coil :  What were your major concerns about the elections 2015 during the last week?
WW:  Well, like a lot of the people, both local and foreign , I was really tense  this week. When I saw the rains coming, I thought after the dry season  that the place would flood and that we would have had to go out on the road and sell the remaining bake and salt fish.
And I know that many people probably experienced more mosquito bites this week due to the change in weather.

Coil : What did you wish were different about the elections 2015?
WW: I wondered if it were not possible for well, since the elections were going on, at least for Georgetown to have the local government elections at the same time so that City Hall could be immediately sorted out and the drainage and so could also be sorted out.  But that I know is not up to me since I am an outsider.

Coil :  When the results were almost announced finally, people went on the streets with moments of joy dancing, firework sing/gun shooting , freely expressing their love and unity and their hate and disunity while others posted pictures on Facebook of themselves enjoying themselves and others just liked the pictures or hid them from their profiles. I was struck by one picture, posted by a white man from England  with a glass of brown liquid in ice, not sure if it was rum from Guyana or from England, we journalists have to get our facts right.  I was struck by the idea that English people in England were celebrating more than English people in Guyana – and they also had an election recently.
 Do you think that this new coalition of different parties and this spirit of renewal and joy is a beacon of hope  to those who want to flee from Tory austerity measures and other oppressions which we will never never never experience in Guyana because we do not have Tory parties or first past the post electoral systems and we have race based voting for parties who are essentially the same?
WW: Errr, I don’t know, I am sure Guyana will always be a nice place, um, can you repeat the question?

Coil : Never mind, I am sure you do not want to take any political positions in case you are deported to the UK and then deported back to Guyana.   What did you do all the time? I mean, bake and salt fish is supposed to sell out in the morning or it would get stale and could give people belly wuk. Did you go out? Were you glued to the television set, the radio, the internet?
WW:  We note the concern about stale food . We make every effort to ensure that our food is fresh and we have never had any complaints, even from anonymous sources who never came to eat our establishment. We congratulate ourselves on our high standards.

Coil :  Okay, okay so what did you do all day then? I mean , everyone was on edge and so, where were you getting your news? How was the journalism?

WW : I er, read a lot of stuff online. I liked the citizen journalists on social media and so. The online news outfits were up to date and did well. Stabroek News did well by putting the SOP results online. I was fascinated by the rumours, in fact I probably spent more time on the rumours than the non-rumours as these things go. People stated and then updated. I probably spent more time on the journalism this week than on bake and salt fish and I don’t know what I will do from Monday after we sell out the bake and salt fish.

Coil : Way back at the beginning of the 21^st century, there was a William Walker who used to lime in the court room where the Esther Perreira petition was being heard . Do you think you will go back to court and write about the petition if Ms Perreira decides to challenge the results again?
WW : No comment. It all depends on how much bake and salt fish I could sell before I go to court, or if there are enough customers there.  Okay, no comment.  But the material is all there, so if any petition comes up anybody could just cut and paste and edit as the arguments might end up being the same generally, just have to make sure they get the name of the parties correctly.  No comment.

Coil :  I like your recommendation there in case the boring court case comes up again. What preachy whitey advice would you give to practising journalists even though you do not see yourself writing while selling bake and salt fish outside the courtroom ?
WW :  One of my heroes is Izzy Stone, a long dead white man who was in the US and ran a little newspaper for a long time. He did investigative journalism. Nobody might know him because nobody remembers journalists, unlike say they do some presidents. Journalists are needed in a democracy. Izzy Stone had reportedly said (well you can’t trust the Internet) that “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.”  The journalists should always be sceptical. I think it’s really about being iconoclastic

Coil : Thank you for the gaff.  What other words would you like the public to know?
WW : Guyana is a nice place. The locally made salt fish is very good and we expect the quality to improve with the new administration and new opposition.  We are open from Sunday to Saturday.  As with everything else, do not just believe the things you read on Facebook or anywhere else, come and find out for yourself!