…and traditionalists
One wonders if Clement Rohee understood the irony of transmuting the Stabber’s use of the word “hip” to “hipster” to describe the unnamed PPP leader – who evidently didn’t agree with his (Rohee’s) description of the protesters to the parking meters in Georgetown – as “middle class”. In his letter taking them on, we’re sure he didn’t intend to big-up SN’s compliment! But what he also inadvertently let slip was how out of touch he is with today’s jargon – as much the ideological shifts in the modern world that SN identified.
But your Eyewitness notes how quickly the Stabber veered from a discussion of ideological protestations to the concrete instance of the “meter protest”. The latter is safer, but how long can they avoid ideology? The PPP’s already began the process internally through a debate in the letters’ pages between two members of the Central Committee – Hydar and irfaan Ali. Rohee aligns himself with Hydar Ali and professes that Marxism’s alive and well – if not kicking! – in the PPP. Where, if he’s to be believed, a thousand flowers are blooming!
But he should know among flowers, not all are appropriate for every occasion. A rose sends its own message, after all. The question he should address is of what relevance is Marxism today in Guyana? How relevant is its message? In the rest of the world, the question has been pitched at an even higher level of generality – of what relevance is the “left” – much less its extreme Marxist wing. What history has demonstrated in a resounding voice is not all who cry, “the poor! the poor” will get the support of the poor. Can’t blame them. They’ve seen every other group but them inheriting the earth a hundred years after the promise of the October Revolution.
Right here in Guyana, if Rohee is to be taken at his word, the Marxists “dominated the leadership of the PPP” for the longest while. But were they able to take the poor to the Promised Land under the banner of “class interests”? “The Big Question is why”? Rohee rather approvingly cited one of Henry Jeffrey’s old rejections of the “one love”, “unity government” spiel that’s been offered as one way out of our political mess. But shouldn’t he have proposed his alternative? The coalition Government, after all, claims they’ve achieved “racial unity” after the Afro-dominated APNU picked up Moses Nagamootoo’s 11 per cent Indians.
Is this Rohee’s vision also? He mentioned the arch-Marxist Jagan’s proposal for a unity government – but in addition to panning Jeffrey’s critique, maybe – as a self-processed Marxist – he could answer the question Burnham posed to Jagan on racial interests.
“What is the class content of race?” And if not race or class, what then?
…and irony
The Public Security Minister really must answer why the Police Force hasn’t been able to nab the “Cultural Advisor to the Ministry of Education” who threatened to burn down the Sanata Complex. Which houses – as the Advisor took pains to point out – the Guyana Times, the Evening News and RGI.
In any other jurisdiction, the Minister would’ve defended his charges being made out to be bungling buffoons, who’re incapable of locating “a big man in a small room”! But this is Guyana, and for some it’s “one for the money”! Your Eyewitness understands the fellow’s defence – when the Police do catch up with him – is he was being “ironic”!
Being a composer of doggerel (according to one eminent critic), maybe the fella can explain what kind of irony – situational, dramatic or verbal – covers his explicit “go break down all the parking meters and then proceed to torch the Sanata complex.”
Isn’t this “slow fyaah; mo fyaah” redux!!
…in retirement
The original Guyanese hipsters were fellas who might’ve been middle class but were “hip” to sounds like jazz and the boogie-woogie – when it was new.
Clive Thomas?!
