Synopsis
Book2, The Indelible Red Stain, Second edition, with an Addendum, summarising changes up to 2015. Delays, dangers, food shortage and fears of political violence in the country's capital and of the collapse of the country itself dog the team, which finds ways to solve problems and to study factors that promoted cooperation. Multiracial societies – increasing globally – must learn the ways of each culture, not only to live and work in harmony, but to shed biases become enriched and nobler by respecting and even adopting another's core values. The history of India, shortened in this edition, and richness of Indian culture amaze the Africans, schooled to malign things Indian while learning nothing of their own; they agree that multicultural education is essential. Sharp drops in river levels slow the return journey and add dangers, with near-death events requiring quick and unified responses, now aided by knowledge of one another’s values and customs. Back on the coast, the men learn of the recent murder of the team-leader’s brother, a Georgetown detective, by followers of Forbes Burnham, who, with the other Opposition party, joins the CIA and other US agencies in acts to oust Premier Cheddi Jagan, using mobs to riot, loot, murder, set fires and so spread anarchy, heating up the Cold War, to terrorise Indians and destroy their businesses. Despite insistent urgings by sponsors, who had detailed a superior route to self-reliance and true freedom outside the Cold War, Jagan incredibly flaunts communism and Soviet promises of aid and ignores US threats. His weak and humble supporters begin to pay the price with their hopes, their livelihood and their blood, as first injuries, then property seizures and killings force them to flee. The author paints a vivid canvas of the civil strife and race riots that destabilise Guyana, from the unique perspective of a man on the spot; he witnessed the great 1962 fire in Georgetown from so close that his camera shutter jammed, his film bubbled curtailing his record. His friend, a Police Superintendent was killed by a rifleman in a riotous mob earlier that day. A year later, he faced a similar mob, and a rifleman who begged his leader for leave to kill. The author leaves for Britain as unrest increases, sees further Jagan failures there at the critical constitutional conference, with more killings and arson spreading red stains in Guiana that are the marks of Britain’s Empire, McCarthy's USA and the USSR. It is a fearsome and tear-jerking thing to see your community, your family and your beloved country ravaged by fellow citizens, global powers and thugs in the pay of local and foreign enemies. But Mohan Ragbeer tells it well, and brings a much needed perspective on Premier Jagan, one of the villains of the piece, a fake, who has long posed on a hero’s pedestal, like Burnham, whose villainy is shown in this edition’s Addendum. Guyana is a proper biopsy of the world’s dilemmas and struggles; its lessons have universal relevance. This text draws widely on global experiences with analogies, histories, human stories and behaviour, all with universal reach and appeal. The book’s audience is by any measure global and no one stands to lose who studies the actions of those who populate the pages or call themselves leaders. Look around you; they're everywhere. This is a monumental work of the highest quality of writing and scholarship, an eyewitness account by a keen observer. It lights up a dark corner of history, paints new portraits of failed political leaders and the Cold War, the consuming self-interest of global powers and the extent of the perfidy they will unleash on targets, however innocent, and a searing message for today. Never let your country walk this way, if you want a future. The text is enriched with references, personal stories, photos, insightful epigraphs, an Index and Bibliography.
À propos de l'auteur
Dr Mohan Ragbeer is a physician and health planner–with degrees from the University of London and Royal Colleges in the United Kingdom and Canada, a writer, geographer, historian, anthropologist, photographer–a polymath, in fact. He recently retired from the practice of Geriatrics in Hamilton, Canada, following 19 years as a professor and medical educator at McMaster University, Hamilton, and thirteen years at the Medical Faculty, University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica, four as the Faculty’s first full-time Dean. He served international bodies, including the Pan-American Federation of Associations of Medical Schools, which allowed him to learn much about the Americas. He travelled widely, on study and work tours in Asia and Africa, including two years in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has consulted for several Foundations, Governments and educational institutions in three continents, receiving many honours and awards, including his most prized: an Honourary Membership of the Barama Caribs of Guyana, with bow and arrow. He was born in British Guiana (BG) in a farming family, the seventh of eight children. His early post-secondary education prepared him for a diplomatic career, but he switched to Medicine, as his late father had wished. After completing postgraduate training in Surgery, General Medicine and Pathology, he worked for two years with the BG government at the turbulent time whose history and antecedents are the stuff of this book. He had close personal and family associations with key political leaders in BG. He remained friendly with Dr Jagan, the Premier, despite disagreeing with his policy for an independent Guiana and choice of the USSR in the Cold War, preferring the moderate economic and social ideas of his brother-in-law, sister and other far-seeing persons that could have prevented the chaos, which enveloped BG as the Cold War raged and the CIA, fresh from its failures in Cuba, ensured Burnham’s take-over, and his later dictatorship and ruin of independent Guyana. The flight of nearly half the country’s population and the creation of a large Guyanese Diaspora in North America and the United Kingdom followed. Besides writing on medical topics, Dr Ragbeer has published a book on India and for many years a regular op-ed column on current affairs for the IC World paper, Toronto, and other media, and has unpublished work in prose and poetry. He has six children from two marriages.
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