Comrades from different worlds

Khan's Chronicles
Guyana Chronicle
November 28, 1999


GEORGETOWN - I have had a long love-hate relationship with this word comrade and it still stirs different emotions in me.

It was a word revered in my school days when I was growing up in the romanticism and idealism of terms like comrades-in-arms and the `one for all and all for one' vow of the heroes in Alexandre Dumas' `Three Musketeers' tales.

We believed and revelled so much in the adventures and escapades of d'artagnan and his fellow heroes, that we stole `wallaba' wood staves from fences to fashion our own flashing swords which we used, with all the finesse and expertise of the Musketeers, as we too fought endless battles in defence of king and country and hapless beautiful maidens in our magic world of growing up.

It's been far away and long ago - those idyllic days of boys growing up and swearing to defend each other (comrades all) against all the evils in the world. I never imagined in those days that a word as full of deep meaning as comrade would have itself become associated with evil, enough to leave one puking at its mere mention.

Comrades from different worlds.

I loved the word once but for years came to hate it with such a vengeance that I was infuriated if anyone dared address me as a `comrade'.

Its descent to dirt for me began in the 1970s when the all powerful and mighty in the previous government woke up from a fitful sleep (nightmare?) one night (day?) and decreed that comrade was from then on the official form of address for all - no more Mr, Mrs, Miss, Sir, Madam, Esq, Messrs.

Overnight, all in the land became comrades - young and old, strong and feeble, male and female and the `in-between' and the `other-side'. All were wrapped in the blanket and baptised in the cover of comrade in the land of comrades.

So my neighbours became `Comrade neighbour"; my friends were transformed into `Comrade friend'; my brothers and sisters metamorphosed into `Comrade brother and Comrade sister'; workmates became comrades and in the all-encompassing comradely sweep, my foes were my comrades.

Policemen and Policewomen, soldiers, firemen, prison officials, garbage collectors, maids, office assistants, postmen and postwomen - all nodded and greeted each other as comrades.

I can't remember if the comrade decree extended to animals and pets and whether they had to be called `Comrade dog' or `Comrade horse'.

But I wouldn't doubt it. Anything was possible in the land of the comrades.

I suppose too that good comrades would have been `Comrade boyfriend' or `Comrade girlfriend' to each other.

It's amazing what went on under the comrade cover.

Officialdom was enveloped in comradeism and speeches began with `Comrades' - not friends, Guyanese and countrymen and countrywomen.

Employers and employees were comrades to each other - not boss and worker; comrade was the great leveller and equaliser and the excuse for everything under the sun.

If you were a comrade in good standing, you could have gone to work whenever you felt like because good comrades did nothing wrong.

Applications for jobs had to be addressed to a comrade and signed comrade and you became a comrade if you got the job.

On the job, all official documents were addressed to comrade this or comrade that and signed comrade this or comrade that.

A comrade here, a comrade there, a comrade everywhere.

As a reporter at the Chronicle in those days, I found all kinds of devices to avoid using the word comrade before the names of officials involved in stories I was doing. I just couldn't stomach writing for example `Cde. (this) today threatened to fire Cde. (that) because Cde. (this) failed to call Cde. (that) a Cde.'

I eventually couldn't stand what was happening under all this kind of comradeism and left.

Now those sham comrades wear jacket and tie and are Mr, Ms or what have you.

These reflections on comrades in different worlds came back to me in a letter in the Chronicle yesterday by Reggie Bhagwandin deliberately welcoming "Comrade Geoff Da Silva on his appointment as Minister of Trade, Tourism and Industry" because he believes Mr Da Silva "is one of the last in a dying breed of persons who symbolise the true meaning of that noble salutation."

I share Reggie's (Comrade Reggie?) sentiments on the symbolism and meaning of the real comrade - the comradeship I grew up revering.

And I strongly believe we all should be aware of the shysters, the sham and the fraud of the comradeism that was once perpetrated on this nation.

There's so much we can learn about what to do right from what went so wrong in all those years.

Right, comrades?


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