I will tantalize Donald Ramotar, Guyana’s 7th Executive President

AUGUST 22, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

I have written about this many times before, and in doing so each time I was laughing my head off as my finger (singular; I type with one finger) moved on the keyboard. A few years back, when he was General-Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar replied to something he saw in one of my columns, I used the words, “the poetic essence of history.” Ramotar published a letter in the Kaieteur News demanding that I explain what the concept meant. I could remember at that time Ramotar used to write letters to the three daily newspapers (you didn’t have the “Beacon of Truth” at that time, that is the Guyana Times, which is really the beacon of Jagdeo’s money and Bobby’s wealth) using the pseudonym, “Oliver Sam.” I replied to Ramotar and said that I considered it fair exchange if he tells me who Oliver Sam was, and I would elongate on the “poetic essence of history,” One could have gauged since that time that Ramotar was a mediocre politician. Around that time, Ramotar had chalked up about twenty-five years of political activism and was the General-Secretary of the party in government, yet was writing under a pen name. Which leader of a party would publish his polemics, adumbrations and beliefs and use a false name? Over that ten-year period when he first published his question to me, I heard he would occasionally mumble when my name was being mashed upon by PPP tyrants, “what the hell Freddie meant by the poetic essence of history?” My friend told me he said that at the wake of Vic Puran. It did not come as a shock to me that Ramotar didn’t know what was meant by the poetic essence of history. The concept is one found in western philosophy. Cheddi Jagan made sure the little boys and girls that he housed and indoctrinated at Freedom House read only communist theories. Ramotar spent eight years, together with Clement Rohee in Czechoslovakia, working with the monthly journal of the world communist movement, “Marxist Review.” Ramotar would not have been familiar with philosophical concepts of the great minds of western thought. Jagan had deep contempt for western philosophers. It meant then he had deep contempt for some of the genius-minds that civilization gave birth to. For someone to be a leader of a political party and refuse to familiarize him/herself with the genius of Plato, Aristotle, St. Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, is an act of self-contempt. Since that time (that is, the ten years ago) I have referred to the poetic essence of history more than five times. Each time, I never defined the meaning of “the poetic essence of history.” As recent as last month, I had those words in the caption of the column that traced the superb and magnificent career of Professor Clive Thomas, but I didn’t outline its meaning. I will not define it this time. I will tantalize the 7th Executive President of Guyana. I will from time to time make use of that incident born over a decade ago, but I will leave it to the man this newspaper referred to as “De Donald” to research it. The motivation for this column was the news that Ramotar has started to write a book on his life. I was told he doesn’t take part in PPP’s political activities because he wants to spend the time writing. My source told me that David Dabydeen is the advisor to the project. I doubt very much Ramotar will make use of the concept of “the poetic essence of history in his memoirs.” He cannot. He will not. This I will tell Ramotar. The concept was first alluded to by 20th century German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, in one of philosophy’s most fantastic books, “Being and Time.” This is a breath-taking elaboration on the existential meaning of human destiny. Although I know that Ramotar won’t touch the concept, I would suggest he read Heidegger. He will learn a thing or two about the nature of human existence as explained by Heidegger using the term, “authentic existence,” which brings me to the existence of the PPP. Surely, Ramotar can’t be writing the entire day and entire night. He must have time for the banal essence of everyday life, but most of all for the politics of Cheddi Jagan’s party. Oops! Is it still the party of Cheddi Jagan? Cheddi was deeply flawed, but he was deeply clean of the temptations of corruptibility. How about the Beacon of Truth seeking an interview on this question from De Donald?