Coil : Picturing the divided Unity

by Vidyaratha Kissoon

Nice breezy afternoon. Three passengers in the car. I am about to say I will pay for the extra seat, when the woman next to me said “It look like somebody coming deh”.

The driver said “Ok”.

The woman said ‘Oh lawd, no, she doan gree wid me at all, she aint gun want come and sit down next to me, me an she aint talking’.

I said ‘Okay, let me sit in the middle thing, you tink she gun min’?

The woman said ‘I aint know, leh we see’.

I moved down to make space. The other woman came in the car. She said Good Afternoon in a nice friendly way. We all murmured replies.

Is a nice unity picture, coolie man sitting down between two black women in a car going to the same place.

Guyana Chronicle would not need to photo shop this one. One people, one car, one destination.

Two minutes before the destination, the woman who came in last paid and got out.

The other woman said “See, look she going and walk, she aint gun stay hey wid me fuh both of we come out same time”

This was not Facebook where people vent to whoever , this was real life.

The love and unity message is not filtering down to the masses. The divisions are deep. Kaieteur 

News talked about how their April Fool joke showed the political divide.

I find it difficult sometimes. A week ago, the caller asked “Like yuh gun buss me off now” when I nervously tried to get the conversation moving.

The caller and I had been in this talking/not talking thing for a number of years. Like the women in the car, there were times I had taken great pains to avoid any conflict situations as there were some virtual restraining orders and so.

The caller though , has been responsible for trying to ensure that we try to come off bad terms after we get on bad terms. I am not the only obnoxious person that the caller tries to talk to. I admire the caller for not disconnecting from obnoxious people like me. It is not a easy picture to create.

Unity in Diversity is a very noble aspiration. The Guyana Chronicle team must have thrown their hands up in despair on Easter Monday night when trying hard to show that President Granger interacted with ‘people of all backgrounds’ on Easter Monday despite the official photograph.

The Guyana Chronicle though might have to out the love and unity as they decide who was earnestly trying to fake the unity image to show the President in a good light. One leader seemed to think that the PPP was responsible.

President Granger though, has been ahead of the Guyana Chronicle in terms of dealing with unity across differences.

The night before Phagwah, President Granger hosted a chowtaal session with the members of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangha. The Guyana Chronicle reported that

“.. Meanwhile, Mr. Ravi Dev, also a member of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangha, said that a strong, all-embracing cultural policy is needed to bring together Guyana’s six peoples and move the nation” .

Guyana Chronicle a few weeks ago , reporting on the Local Government Election debate in Georgetown, reported that

“From the responses of members of the audience, many felt that the debate was a healthy engagement, but some noted their reservation with Ravi Dev being a member of the panel representing civil society.

Dev, the leader of a failed political party called Rise, Organise and Rebuild Guyana (ROAR) has on numerous occasions been denounced by a wide cross-section of Guyanese and groups, including the PPP as an Indian racist and supremacist.

Less than two years ago, several influential PPP leaders recognising that his values would be helpful to their agenda, summoned him to perform duties at Guyana Times. “

Did President Granger read the Chronicle and decide to reach out to the “Indian racist and supremacist “ and invite Ravi Dev and his group to State House to sing with them? And in so doing, caused the Chronicle to give respect by changing Ravi Dev to Mr Ravi Dev ?

There was news last week that Vice-President Joe Harmon had done a love and Unity thing with BK Tiwari. People were shocked and angry when they saw the marriage certificate. President Granger ended the relationship. Vice President Joe came home, and promised to tell all of his attempts at creating Unity with this PPP supporter. But he did not do so, and like so many love affairs which had to end all of a sudden, no one will really know what happened, except that it ended.

A woman who was shocked at the whole event said there was a picture somewhere on Facebook too of the Vice-President liming with one of the people accused of corruption and so on at a popular night spot. She did not say if it was a photo shopped picture, and again the Vice President has not told of his attempts at national unity.

It must be confusing for the politicians and the supporters and the media as to how exactly this love and Unity thing is to play out. On the one hand, the other side (PPP/APNU+AFC) is supposed to be the devil, the supporters are not to be trusted. This week an earnest supporter of the PPP was arrested for racist and threatening comments on Facebook . The PPP called on its supporters to not be racist, even though there is news that the PPP will be consolidating its coolie base, Two nice coolie people I know who did not benefit from any PPP largesse have been consolidated.

The APNU leadership also said they were not supporting the man accused of child molesting who they put up for the City Council. However, the party supporters , appeared to be more loyal to the core, no backing down here, and were at City Hall to hug and offer him support. The diverse behaviours of party leaders and party supporters reflect the dilemma perhaps of what is said publicly, and what is preached internally. The internal party Unity in the main political parties has resulted in the Georgetown City Council becoming like the Rights of Child Commission.

The Government has its work cut out – moving from a Party/Coalition of national unity to a Government of national unity seems to be a difficult journey which has to be stopped before the next Election season begins and the unity has to be divided again.

President of all Guyana

This week after the police arrested Bibi Salim for her Facebook comments, the Guyana Chronicle wrote that “ Staying true to his nature of being a President for all of Guyana, the Head of State noted on Thursday during his weekly broadcast of ‘The Public Interest’ that he did not mind meeting Salim once she was unarmed.”

A few PP supporters have responded to the arrest by showing other racist messages from the other side – and it seems a cycle of a unity in purpose of ‘we doing it, because you doing/did it’.

Facebook is like that . A lot of people express their desire for the death of individuals or groups of people. Death to murderers, rapists, child molesters, politicians. The righteous get caught up in the fyah bun fuh batty man and homosexuals.

This week the Guyana Trans United(GTU) had to protest the refusal of Magistrate Dylon Bess to hear a case because the accused , David Twinkle Bissoon and her supporters were dressed in female attire.

Twinkle had the experience of many transgender persons. Charges are made, persons are held for questioning , and then the charges are dropped. The GTU members on the afternoon of Wednesday 30^th March, 2016 stood on the avenue of Main Street Avenue . Instead of bullets and bombs and Facebook messages of hate and hostility to reply to the discrimination of the State, GTU choose to share out free hugs, ‘love not hate’ – love in response to the hate and disgust meted out by the magistrate and police.

According to persons on the avenue event, strangers hugged and shook hands with each other. Some persons passed. The Facebook killers and burners might have passed by, but apparently did not do much.

Guyana Chronicle has its work cut out paint the picture of President Granger’s being President of all Guyana. Maybe a nice picture would be the President meeting the transgender community who were blocked from the Magistrate’s courts this week. Maybe President Granger will sit with Magistrate Bess and Twinkle and the others to show love and unity.

The lesson from the Guyana Chronicle and Georgetown City Hall this week that there will always be a need to fake Unity in Diversity in Guyana as long as people depend on their leaders to define that Unity.

The lesson from Guyana Trans United is that real unity in diversity will not happen as long as there are ties with achieving or maintaining political power for parties who have to divide in reality.

Real unity is possible if there is a sincere desire to connect with others as equally human and in making that connection more important than who wins and loses elections.