Jagdeo says, “If they cuss me down, I will cuss them down back.”
December 29, 2010 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
These are the words President Jagdeo used at a public meeting with sugar workers at the Convention Centre last week. Like other abominable utterances from the Head of State, Mr. Jagdeo will get away with an expression of a deep character fault that not even Silvio Berlusconi of Italy would want to demonstrate.
Do Presidents and Prime Ministers say these things about their governorship? The answer is a resounding no. There are things that are lost in life when other things are gained.
A man or woman ditches the low habits they grew up with when social elevation comes. The possession of an education has brought social grace to untold millions around the world and ugly habits die a natural death.
A policeman becomes a senior officer, a labourer becomes a middle manager, a teacher becomes a lawyer, a lawyer becomes a judge, a nurse becomes a doctor, a journalist becomes a Chief Executive Officer and the story of cultivated habits go on. This is life. This is human nature. The story becomes a horrible tale when an ordinary human being becomes the head of his/her country. This is the saga of Bharrat Jagdeo.
We will get back to life’s lessons that Mr. Jagdeo does not know about, but let us analyse why the GAWU head, Mr. Komal Chand, did not attend the President’s meeting with the union members at the Convention Centre.
Mr. Jagdeo was highly annoyed at Chand’s absence. He angrily lamented it. There is one of two reasons why Chand did not put in an appearance. The first explanation is the Ram factor. Chand knows what happened to Christopher Ram. Ram attended a meeting of CLICO policy holders but was refused his legitimate right to speak by the President who claimed it was not a Clico policy holders’ meeting but his meeting.
Chand anticipated that he would be told; “You cannot say that at my meeting.”
The second motive can be called the contempt factor. It never occurred to the President that in avoiding the event, Chand may have said to himself; “I don’t have any respect for him so I will not be in the same room with him.”
Whichever reason we accept (it can be both), Mr. Jagdeo’s exclamation that he will cuss back will further deepen the contempt many Guyanese have of him because of his character make-up. When Mr. Jagdeo was speaking, did he forget the lessons of life? He is no longer a “lil” boy in Unity village up the East Coast. He is no longer an obscure student in Moscow. He is no longer a public servant at the State Planning Secretariat. He is no longer a junior Minister swimming at Castellani House.
He is no longer an ordinary citizen who can come out of a restaurant with his sandwich in his hand.
If the nation thinks Mr. Berlusconi lacks leadership etiquettes then Mr. Jagdeo has made the Italian buffoon look like a saint. I doubt that the Italian Prime Minister would tell a meeting that is being covered by the nation’s major media houses that when his critics cuss him down, he will cuss back.
In all honesty, I say where did Guyana get Mr. Jagdeo from? The name Forbes Burnham comes up. It would be wise for Mr. Jagdeo to study the style of Mr. Burnham. Never, I repeat, never for a moment would President Burnham have shouted Christopher Ram down.
After listening to his question and his commentary, Mr. Burnham would have quoted Latin and a Shakespearean passage then with his biting prose would have let the audience know that Mr. Ram was out of his league. Burnham would have had the audience on their feet laughing.
Sadly, Mr. Jagdeo does not have the intellectual reach of Forbes Burnham. It has been a sad omission of his presidency. But he could have learned. I am not a fan and will never ever be a fan of Clement Rohee who I think does not deserve even a lower place in politics much less ministerial status.
But Rohee has always been a relentless seeker of intellectual status. He reads books and wants to learn, that is why he is presumptuous enough to say that he would like to be President of Guyana. In concluding, I should say that Mr. Jagdeo cusses down persons who never cussed him in the first place.
I never did, yet he called me ugly, a sleaze ball, a fool among other things. I have never written about Mr. Jagdeo in a cuss down style. But then again, I know better.
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Cobra, de Bigot, need more?