Memorial Service - Port
of Spain, Trinidad, September
25, 2013
One
of the most striking features of the assignment that brought me here this
morning was the revelation that tracing the life and career of our late
colleague could not possibly be engaged as a simple linear exercise devoid of
an understanding of both Ric’s life and the times in which he functioned as a
journalist.
As
I set out on this journey, I found that unraveling Ric’s place in the scheme of
things is more like negotiating Wilson Harris’s hinterland excursion of the
Palace of the Peacock than sitting through the 55-minute Caribbean Airlines
flight between Piarco and Timheri.
What
is absolutely clear is that his career spanned a very long time, touched
several shores washed by the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, and never really
enjoyed the luxury of many quiet professional moments, except perhaps for the
latter years leading into what appeared to have been a solitary existence,
during which he no doubt compulsively tuned into the ups and downs of both his
original and adopted Caribbean homelands.
These
homelands included Jamaica in the early 1960s where he worked with the Jamaica
Daily News. He would later report for the Trinidad Guardian, People Magazine
and then the Trinidad Express where he formed part of a formidable journalistic
team.
By
the time I entered the Express picture in 1985, Ric had already left, to
re-emerge not long after as a stoic, state information official, press releases
in hand and at the ready with firm press conference instructions for younger
entrants to a profession he clearly loved and respected. If I ever had to
entrust anyone with a secret - with all my possessions on the line - Ric would
have been among the primary candidates for such a job.
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But
this is not to say that he did not maintain a strong appreciation of the
demands of journalism and was a stuck-up guardian of what some considered to be
proprietary state information. On more than one occasion, I hereby confess on
his behalf, he would answer a probing question with a question of his own
which, when one thought about it carefully, pointed in the approximate
direction of an answer.
This
respect for the practice of journalism came from years of sacrifice at its
hands. In fact, when Ric returned to Guyana from his early stint in Jamaica and
some time in Trinidad, he occupied the office of Sunday editor of the UK-owned
and operated Guyana Telegraph. He was known then for his hard-hitting columns
focusing mainly on the increasingly contentious and often deadly political
environment. Those were the heady days of an administration which came out of
elections in 1973 with a disputed 70% of the vote and a hold on power many
thought would last for a very, very long time, if not forever.
Of
course, such open dissent by journalists of that time was not to be tolerated.
That very year, Ric and his near namesake and lifelong friend, Rickey Singh,
were summarily dismissed by the Telegraph. The newspaper bosses were quick to
declare in the termination letter issued to Ric that he had been fired as
editor of the Sunday Graphic because the paper had apparently “lost its
editorial balance while carrying out a policy of hostility directed against the
government.”
Ric,
the letter said, had not displayed “sufficient tolerance and understanding of
government’s policies.”
Had
he stayed in Trinidad where he remained en route from Jamaica in the late 60s,
he would have probably had to interpret the events surrounding the emergence
and quick decline of an insurgency in 1973. Had he returned to Jamaica, he
would have had to reflect on an economy in rapid decline and the advent of
Michael Manley’s socialist experiment.
As
a correspondent for Caribbean Contact which his fellow colleague-in-exile,
Rickey Singh, led first from Trinidad then from Barbados, Ric helped frame
greater public understanding of the circumstances of a region in transition.
There
was no way at that time, operating as a journalist committed to full editorial
independence, Ric could have escaped the perils of his trade wherever he
considered to be his home, including the land of his birth.
Born
on Wakenaam along the Essequibo and with homes in Jamaica and Trinidad and
Tobago, Ric’s credentials as an island man remain intact. Sadly, not many members of the ACM community
of recent vintage however know the name very well, if at all. Ric’s work, after
all, was not about him.
We
pay tribute to him today as a man of the Caribbean and a man of the world. The
Guyana Press Association has asked that its condolences be extended at this
time and those Guyanese colleagues who remember him at the Graphic recall his
obstinate insistence on ensuring that his work would not be compromised by
political or other reward or penalty.
There
is perhaps a message in the method of his passing that can be of interest to
all of us who talk with crowds and keep our virtue; who walk with kings and
prime ministers and keep the common touch. It is a message of solidarity – a
commitment to simply keep in touch. An injunction to care.
