My brother, Harold Kissoon, Dr. Brotherson and President Jagdeo
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
December 9, 2006
My brother Harold “Lightweight” Kissoon died on October 31. A week before that, so did Dr. Festus Brotherson. Both men were nationally known Guyanese, though I would think that Harold Kissoon was more of a household name because in his entire life he never left Guyana and didn't take up citizenship of another country. He would have served his county longer that Dr. Brotherson.
President Jagdeo is too young to know about the core of the political activities of both men. But he issued an encomium of Dr. Brotherson through GINA on his passing. The President said nothing of Harold Kissoon. Surely, it couldn't be that he didn't know Kissoon had died. There are only two reasons I can think of. Harold Kissoon was a City Councillor for a party other than the PPP therefore he did not deserve the eulogistic sentiments President Jagdeo reserved for Dr. Brotherson. Not that Dr. Brotherson was any fan of the PPP but we will come to that.
The other reason could be that Harold Kissoon is my brother and Jagdeo must have said to himself why is it he is going to lavish praise on Freddie Kissoon's brother when Kissoon doesn't stop criticising his government. I have news for President Jagdeo. I am the last of the Kissoon siblings. Harold married and left the Kissoon household long before my thought patterns could have been formed. I grew up in the Kissoon home without knowing him because he had left to raise a family of his own. Also, I didn't share his politics.
If Jagdeo could find time to embellish the life of Dr. Festus Brotherson then that is the President's business. But this I know; my brother was a deeper contributor to Guyana's development than Brotherson. They say that you must never speak ill of the dead. Personally, I do not share that sentiment. In terms of the meaning of history, I won't accept it. I am a trained historian and I believe the task of the historian is to record history.
One cannot go to a funeral service and accuse the dead of bad things. But a writer has a job to inform the future generation of the truth that has gone by.
When you think of the shape of the political life of Dr. Festus Brotherson, you feel a strange sensation after you have listened to the extraordinary words that came from the pen of Mr. Jagdeo about the value of Dr. Brotherson to Guyana. I know more about the life and politics of Festus Brotherson than Mr. Jagdeo. I remember when I first entered UG, the introductory history lecture by Professor Winston Mc Gowan was a memorable one. He warned us as young historians coming up that if you don't have knowledge about something then shut your mouth. If Jagdeo didn't know about the politics of Brotherson it would have been best for him to shut his mouth.
There is a sentence in Jagdeo's maudlin outpouring that irritates you yet it makes you laugh. But there is also a sad feeling you get when you read that line. Jagdeo wrote of Brotherson as, “One who has always been held in special affection by the Guyanese people.” Let Jagdeo speak for himself and not for the Guyanese people. I lived in this country all my life and I do not know that Dr. Brotherson was affectionately revered by the Guyanese people. Certainly not the people that voted for Jagdeo in 2001 and 2006. Certainly not those members of the Indian Diaspora that contribute to the PPP election coffers every five years.
Jagdeo lost his mental balance and went overboard. He tells us that Brotherson was one of the nation's few treasures. Who are you trying to fool, Mr. President? Your supporters? Jagdeo really was on an emotional trip about Brotherson. He told us Brotherson was a good leader. Brotherson couldn't lead a school of five-year-old kids if he was given the opportunity. In a forthcoming column, I will lecture to President Jagdeo on leadership qualities.
I worked with Festus Brotherson for a short period at UG, and I found him to be an authoritarian personality. He was elitist, self-opinionated and definitely arrogant. He had this air about him that betrayed a belonging to a eugenic line of descendents. He had little respect for ordinary people, if any at all. He was essentially a Burnhamite. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on leadership and featured Burnham as a man endowed with special qualities. In the late eighties, he published an article on leadership in the “Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs” in which Burnham is again assessed as a great leader.
This is the man who called Desmond Hoyte a dictator. Why? Not because of any analytical assessment but because when Brother returned from studies abroad, Burnham was dead, and there was no kingdom waiting for Brotherson. Hoyte was on a maddening rush to de-Burnhamise his government. In the midst of Hoyte's drive of perestroika and glasnost, Brotherson presented Hoyte with a proposal to write the definitive biography of Burnham. He demanded more than ten million as an initial down payment for the project. Hoyte's reaction was that the PNC educated Brotherson from first degree to Ph.D and Brotherson's duty was to come back and serve.
Hoyte then suggested that Brotherson work back his scholarship money by writing the book. Brotherson was livid. He wanted millions. He used UG as a stepping stone to migrate. After three years at UG, he left Guyana permanently. He remained a Burnham loyalist and never penned one single line of accusation against the man himself. Brother would never have done that. He was no nationalist. He never served Guyana in any positive way. Festus Brotherson cannot and should not be compared to Harold “Lightweight” Kissoon.