I remember long ago saying to that warm and intelligent human being, Winnie Gaskin, that I wasn’t really interested in politics, that I grew bored by its complexities, that I loathed its sour and unbrotherly antagonisms, that I had better things to do than get mixed up in all the unsavoury maneuverings that went into lusting after political power. She was a good friend and I could tell her these things, but when I said them she lost her temper a bit with me. She said I could not be more wrong. Politics was everything in life, especially in a country like Guyana. She said if I opted out of politics I was opting out of the mainstream of life and work and achievement. She said she was disappointed in me, that such an apparently intelligent man could be so unaware of reality. I think she even used the scornful phrase, “mere dilettante” to describe me, though she was too warm-hearted a person to be scornful for very long and we remained firm friends despite my lukewarm political nature.
