Bharrat Jagdeo’s unsurprising descent into intellectual degeneracy, cultural vagrancy and political immorality

DEAR EDITOR:
Bharrat Jagdeo’s descent into intellectual degeneracy, cultural vagrancy and political immorality does not surprise me anymore. Jagdeo’s most venal legacy is his conversion of political capital gained from the support of the vast majority of Indians in Guyana, into a plutocracy, elitism and oligarchy that benefited a few, majority of whom were Indians. This is Jagdeo’s degenerate legacy, one that vomits all over Cheddi Jagan’s egalitarian legacy.
No leader, I emphasize, no leader in our country’s history has ever so tragically and abominably stratified this nation on economic terms, wealth and class. We have always had racial division, but Burnham, Hoyte, Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan all practiced or sought to implement features of socialist or communist wealth redistribution. Not Jagdeo.
So, when Jagdeo shows up at the funeral of the nation’s most prominent Hindu priest, where his family is openly grieving, and assaults the Hindu religion by disrespecting that religion’s funeral tenets (Antyesti or Antim Sanskar) by abominably raising a deeply offensive, divisive, volatile and inflammatory issue of race, it is Bharrat Jagdeo being Bharrat Jagdeo.
It is miscreant, character-less, undignified and indecent to metastasize such a solemn and vital occasion (critical period of reincarnation) with vile references to the trenchant, provocative, volatile, inflammatory and bitter issue of race. To raise racial issues at this setting is offensive to Hindus, most of whom are Indians. Nothing highlights Jagdeo’s intellectual callousness more than this abject irony.
Even more putrifying is the fact that Jagdeo’s views are rejected by facts, repudiated by truth and challenged by evidence. There is no rising anti-Indian sentiment in Guyana. There is definitely a resurgent anti-PPP sentiment in this nation. This is directed not against those Indians who support the PPP but to those who have hijacked the PPP, a cabal of Indians and other races with Indians in the majority.
There is also a rising anti-corruption passion in Guyana. It is directed against the PPP, because the PPP happens to contain the most corrupt collection of individuals in Guyana and they control the nation’s purse. How does one assert anti-Indian sentiments when we have had two largely peaceful elections? There is a growing Indian presence in the tsunami of voices against the PPP and its venality. A large part of the anti-Indian sentiment are those Indians, like sugar workers, who have been economically deprived and marginalized by a handful of Indian oligarchs living the good life in Pradoville.
This statement is characterized by pathetic failed politicking. The PPP is seriously considering either local government elections or snap national elections. The ethnic temperature will be raised accordingly. This statement just escalated the ethno-political temperature at a time when snap elections are in the air. The old tricks of crying victimization will be used and abused. But the people are no longer living in fear. Indians know anti-PPP feelings are not anti-Indian feelings, because many Indians harbour those same anti-PPP feelings. If one is to characterize the condemnation of the PPP’s economic aggrandizement of a few, mostly Indians, by many Indians themselves as anti-Indian sentiment, one is really telling the masses of Indians to sabotage their own morality and to betray their own decency, and they have no right to condemn the vagabonds who have used their race to commit all manner of abominations. It is tantamount to calling those Indians who are shamed by the PPP’s corrupt antics turncoats and backstabbers for doing the right thing.
Invoking racial imagery will not cause Indians to automatically support a corrupt PPP regime when they are disgusted by that regime. This bunch of PPP usurpers can no longer spin this anti-PPP vibe as anti-Indian. It is a rising tide of anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-injustice and anti-unfairness sentiments we are witnessing, not ‘anti-Indianism’.
I find it laughable that a man who launched a lawsuit alleging racism against a critic before the election and which lawsuit managed, against all odds, to be heard in the middle of election season refuses to take the stand, yet makes these comments out of court. A lawsuit on racism of all things, against the government’s most vociferous critic, remarkably proceeding to trial just before the election, is exactly the kind of political theatre, some believe for their own political gain a nation with a deep-seated race problem that becomes virulent in the heat of election season, needs.
Just in the past few weeks, there have been several letters in the reputable newspapers (Kaieteur News and Stabroek News) criticizing Africans for lack of financial independence and accommodation of PPP’s skulduggery. One could argue there is an anti-African sentiment if one is to read these articles. No African leader has commented thusly. Anti-PPP sentiment is not anti-Indian sentiment.
This bunch in charge of the PPP has morally and culturally betrayed Indians. The victimization mantra is no longer working. Nor is the reverse psychology or attempting to hide egregiousness and atrocities under the shroud of race. The undisputed fact is that there is disproportionate distribution under the PPP of the state’s economic resources to Indians and a handful of Indians at that. This is a problem not only for all other races, but for the staggering majority of Indians who are being economically marginalized by their own PPP government which is giving away their taxes to their friends, cronies and soup-drinkers.
M. Maxwell