Yesu Persaud and Glen Lall
Freddie on Monday
Kaieteur News
June 21, 2004
I will always regard Yesu Persaud as a Guyanese hero. Mr. Persaud has to be given a place of pride when the contemporary history of Guyana is written.
In a previous article, I juxtaposed his role in politics with Peter D’Aguiar and I came to the conclusion that the two could never be compared.
With his current struggle with Guysuco to keep his market for molasses going and his battle with the Stabroek News, the Guyana Securities Council and Christopher Ram to protect his international firm, DDL from unjustified attack, it is apt once more to compare D’Aguiar and Persaud again.
Now I want to make it clear that I am not categorising Persaud and Lall as the only embodiment of entrepreneurial vision. Far from it. There is an impressive list: the Beharry family; Deo Singh of Didco; Mohamed Nazar of Mohamed Enterprise; Glen Khan of Larparkan; Sataur Gafoor of Gafson; Dennis Beepat; Courtney Benn; Naim Nasir of Bakewell; Jerry Gouveia; the Mekdeci family, the Mendez family of Dubulay Ranch; and so many others too numerous to mention.
I have left out the traditional family business because as a group, they have not contributed in any meaningful way to Guyana’s development.
Traditional family businesses like the Kissoons (no relation), the Vic Oudits, the Toolsie Persaud, the Rambarrans, have all lacked sustained spirit and enduring vision to bring economic success to Guyana.
Before there was Yesu Persaud, we the younger generation were told of the genius of Peter D’Aguiar. But when you do the research you find that the two men cannot be compared because their characters were different and they brought different perspectives as human beings to their country.
D’Aguiar was not a visionary. He had ideas that at the time went beyond his contemporaries but he wasn’t multi-dimensional in his thinking like Yesu Persaud. D’Aguiar confined himself to beverage production and through the use of class and colour, got protection from the colonial state. Coupled with this was his half-hearted commitment to a democratic Guyana.
When the post-colonial state became authoritarian, D’Aguiar did not accept that he had a responsibility and an obligation to the next generation to defend the jeopardised democratic future of Guyana.
Here is where the comparison with Yesu Persaud breaks down. Persaud sought to go beyond his traditional sphere of invention. He founded the first indigenous, commercial bank and the first private, small loan agency to nurture nascent entrepreneurs. It is called IPED – Institute of Private Enterprise Development.
But Persaud was a democrat at heart, and when the post-colonial state, the very state that scared away D’Aguiar, got more authoritarian, Yesu Persaud risked his company’s billions and his life for democratic resuscitation.
This is where Persaud has taken his place in Caribbean history. He is the only entrepreneur in the history of the Anglo-Saxon Caribbean who cut across class lines and joined the struggle for democracy in Guyana. His legacy today is manifested in his donation of a huge building to UG, an Indian Monument and an Indian Trust Fund, and his DDL has put Guyana on the map. This is indeed a Guyanese hero. He has taken a place of pride in this nation. We come now to someone who, like Yesu Persaud, came from very humble origins.
Glenn Lall, the managing director and publisher of this newspaper, began his entrepreneurial debut as an exporter of fresh greens to the USA in the uncertain times of the Burnham dictatorship. This was coupled with a shoe stall in Stabroek Market. Glenn Lall felt that he had a dream that must take him beyond the smallness of a shoe stall owner. It was a case of a man who felt that he had to surmount his limitation because men with ideas, vision and dreams must fly. And flew he did.
In a remarkable digression, Glenn Lall felt that he should add an intellectual dimension to his life. He wanted to start a newspaper. I remembered that he invited me to his home with his Canadian partner to discuss the shape of his paper. The liquor flowed, I eat my ice cream and a newspaper began to emerge. It was an impossible dream. There was the Stabroek News and big business had backed it. How could a small paper like Kaieteur News compete? But we all know what happened since then.
What is the connection between Yesu Persaud and Glen Lall? It is a connection that all businessmen in this country should reflect on. Persaud merged his business dreams with the yearning for a democratic Guyana. Lall is not content to accumulate wealth and remain niched in his business achievements. He has started a paper and he told me of his vision for the paper, one that can see the newspaper carve out a culture of independent thinking and offer itself as an avenue for social redress.
He requested of me to write for the paper because he said that I was independent in my thoughts and that was what he wanted his newspaper to be.
Since then, he has not sought to tell me what to write on. I have used my pen to expose a large landscape of wrongs in this country. Those columns have helped dissolve some of the chagrin and pain that torment my psychology when I look at how unfair is my country.
And Glenn Lall has willingly provided me with that brush and canvas to do my idyllic and idealistic painting. It had to be that like me, he cares for the triumph of right over wrong.
He has never sought to solicit an opinion of me over the Reeaz Khan affair despite the family connection. I have written three columns in which I voiced my disagreement with the conduct of Khan but he has not spoken to me over what I have written. We have had one huge disagreement after I had penned a critical note on Jacob Rambarran of Channel 11 and the failure of Whitewater Adventure to honour a prize my daughter had won at school.
These two business concerns had expressed annoyance at what I wrote. I stuck to my side because I wrote the truth. I will never compromise on the truth. Glenn Lall told me that he would never do that too and so we continue to work for the goal of a better Kaieteur News.
I have refused large offers of money from him for writing even though he felt I needed it. My ideals are more important than money.