Dear Editor,
It is with great sadness that I read of the passing of your founder and longtime Editor-in-Chief David de Caires.
His friend Martin Carter once wrote words to the effect that “the more we are men of our time, the more our time is.”
Mr de Caires lent much to the tenor of our time, and so when the history of our time is written, his work will be remarked and remembered.
We can say without fear of contradiction that he is unrivalled in the contribution, through the Stabroek News, he has made to public discourse in Guyana. From his days as publisher of the New World group’s journal Mr de Caires set high standards, and, with SN held to the philosophy that “a newspaper should be a nation having a conversation with itself.”
At a time when many, restrained by their own limitations and fears, wished to confine that conversation to political spin, bluff, and the usual parade of falsities to which the press here had accustomed us, and itself, Mr de Caires, like his friend the late Lloyd Best in Trinidad, would change the content. And extend the conversation to the social commentators and often contentious intellectuals that sprouted from our soil.
On a personal note, he was one of the few newspaper editors I know who would permit the often long pieces I would submit for publication in the letters column.
Evidently a scholarly man himself, the paper was a joy to read, appealing to every kind of taste and range of interest. It became an institution of which Guyanese could be proud and he himself a child of the land of whom we may all be proud for the positive way in which he marked our time.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
