Jumbie Journal Eleven: in the psychiatrist's chair
Bill Cotton/Reform
By Bill Cotton
Stabroek News
April 4, 2007
Action. Reaction. Them Chemistry lessons were right. Bill was liming on Dilip's balcony when his day was ruined. My old friend, the conscience of cinema in this country, mentioned Freddie's 'mauling' of me in the Waterfall Paper. I read it. Boy I nearly fell off the balcony I laughed so much. The two day old kitten had scratched me.
Freddie's columns are like those of a teenager who has discovered a word processor and Google. They type a word in. Many others come out but in no order. They try to rearrange them and call it an essay. Cut and paste the thesaurus. No substitute for hard thinking. Freddie saw Bill's excellent piece on Voltaire and Free-dom and typed in Freud-dom.
Hundreds of words of verbiage came tumbling out in no particular order. Guyana's 'intellectual at large' (self appointed) neglected to rearrange or put in any structure into them. Simply sent off the draft [Note: link provided by LOSP website] to the KN.. What a hard read it was.
Bill will give you the brief précis: Dem Western journalists are racist and have a Freudian superiority complex when it comes to the Third World.
First things first. Bill was born in the public hospital Georgetown. I could have citizenship of my mother's land if I so wished. The moniker Cotton comes from a very distinguished former boss of Bill's in the BBC. Not from any imperialist slight. Sorry.
Second, the Gough affair is a pure confection. A mini media storm generated by the Kaieteur News for its own agenda reasons. Martin Gough is a good, sensitive bloke. Meet him, Freddie boy, read his other Guyana blogs. Bill has. Stop the silly monstering of him; it stinks of intellectual fascism.
Many of a different hue who have come to Guyana for the first time have expressed many of the same sentiments to Bill (two very prominent Jamaicans - one Chinese, one black - said exactly the same to me in London just ten days ago...)
Thirdly what has Sigmund Freud to do with any of this?
The sage of Vienna and Hampstead has nothing to say on Guyana or on the Third World. Wrong thinker! Bill pleads guilty to one element of Freudianism - a strong libido! Little else.
Any academic should be ashamed of the piffle which passes for thought in Freddieland. Glen Lall hugged me the other night at Buddy's post match. I did not have time to suggest quality rather than quantity in his paper. Cut Freddie down to three times a week. Cut his 'columns' to half their length. Discuss them with him in advance - too often they come out with half baked ideas. Subject them to the furnace of thesis and anti thesis.
Meanwhile, Bill still has his favourite Freddie moment. Three years ago, we met at the GT club. Freddie lambasted me for saying we had met before. Two minutes later, Mrs Freddie turned up and said 'Hello Mr Cotton haven't seen you since we all met at the Square of the Revolution'.
Did Freud write much about 'senior moments' and senility?
Bill will go look.
Meanwhile, away from this sideshow, on with the main show.
Doctor, I want to talk to you about the national psychosis and cranial trauma…
Pip!pip!