Dear Editor,
Please allow me to respond to Dr. Randy Persaud’s letter that was published in the Kaieteur News on May 15, 2025, and titled ‘Misuse of Paul Raskin’s work’. Firstly, I have spent over 20 years in public relations, communications, etc., doing the work that Dr. Persaud is now doing, so I understand that he is trying to defend his employers. Secondly, Dr. Randy Persaud is writing from the inside of the PPP/C’s ‘Fortress World’ while I am writing from the outside, so he has to attempt to justify what is happening on the inside.
Thirdly, I would like to inform Dr. Persaud that I read Dr. Paul Raskin’s book Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times of the Times Ahead’ from cover to cover in 2006, when I was doing a postgraduate masters-level programmme at the University of Cambridge. It was one of the recommended readings.
However, in my analysis of the system of governance, development and economic models of the PPP/C government from 2020, I was reflecting on the work Dr. Raskin on future scenarios and the scenario envisioned in the book on ‘Barbarisation’ which focused on ‘Fortress World’ and ‘Breakdown’. Albert Einstein said that ‘science is but a refinement of everyday living’. I took the science outline in the work of Dr. Paul Raskin on ‘Great Transition’ and applied it to our everyday living in Guyana.
I know that Dr. Persaud is aware that my perspectives in the letter are neither pretentious nor dangerous, but rather a factual analysis of the current politics, governance and development approach of the PPP/C government from 2020. The politics is divisive, governance is undemocratic, they are practicing ethnic chauvinism, fosters a racialised society, and would not hesitate to enable violence to maintain the ‘Fortress World’.
Dr Persaud stated, “Think for instance, how outrageous it is that Thomas uses Raskin’s work to level criticisms against Gerry Gouveia and Brian Tiwari. I wonder if she knows that these men employ more than a thousand Guyanese in high paying jobs. I know that Dr. Randy Persaud is smarter than this. He knows that there is a difference between criticism and citing examples.
I mentioned Gerry Gouveia and Brian Tiwari as examples. The number of employees they have and the demographics of those employees, is irrelevance in this context, since I was referring to what Gerry Gouveia, and more recently, Brian Tiwari have to do in the current Guyana context to keep those thousands of employees; their businesses are more secured if they are in the PPP/C’s ‘Fortress World’.
Further, Dr. Persaud wrote ‘This is no place to engage the complex work of Raskin…It is not only about leadership at the top. In Guyana, there are social forces that are intensely ideological in terms of racial eschatology’. Here are some more examples for my conclusion that the PPP/C has developed a ‘Fortress World’ from 2020. Why is the acting Chancellor and acting Chief Justice not confirmed even after seven years? Why from 2020, the speaker of the National Assembly has not entertained not one motion or bill that the Opposition brought before that body?
The Opposition Parliamentarians are representing almost half of the population of Guyana or over 200,000 voters and that should matter. Why is the PPP/C government not meaningfully engaging the Leader of the Opposition on matters which the government is constitutionally required to consult on? Why does the current government not appoint members of the Opposition on state boards? Why did the government take away the subvention from IDPADA-G and the Critchlow Labour College?
Why did the government treat the people at Mocha in such an inhumane manner by breaking down their homes and burying their animals alive? Why is the government using the Ethnic Relations Commission to persecute its opponents in such reckless ways? Why is the government using the Director of Public Prosecutions and the police to criminalize, mostly African Guyanese since 2020? The terrorism charges are an example. Those people who break the law in those incidents should be charged based on criminal offences they committed, it is an abuse and misuse of the ‘Terrorism Act’, but those persons are not a part of the PPP/Cs ‘Fortress World’.
On the Adrianna Younge’s death, let me be very clear Dr. Randy Persaud, that child was killed and put in that pool, and the government and the Guyana Police Force need to solve this crime, full stop! Dr. Persaud further noted that ‘finally, Raskin did his undergraduate degree at UC, Berkeley. I wonder if Ms. Thomas knows that President Mohamed Irfaan Ali just received Berkeley’s Global Leadership Award for Open Innovation – 2024’. When it comes to academics and awards Dr. Persaud, President Ali does not impress me.
It is alleged that President Ali got his first degree from a non-existent university in Uitvlugt on the West Coast of Demerara. It is further alleged that the person, a former tutor at the University of Guyana who wrote his doctoral thesis, now works in a high-profile job with a government finance agency and the supervisor of his thesis now heads a government educational programme.
President Ali recently wrote a book on food security in the Caribbean and most of his citizens cannot afford to buy bananas and fruits. One pear cost $1,000 Guyana dollars and four pears for US$20. Any award President Ali gets is based on the value placed on his presidency for an oil producing country that is the fastest growing economy in the world, but not for some special personal intellect, expertise or achievement.
Guyana is at the crossroads, and this is an excellent opportunity for the next government to develop an approach to governance that is inclusive, equitable and advances the motto: One People One Nation One Destiny.
Yours truly,
Citizen Audreyanna Thomas
