Right after their breakup in 1970, the Beatles released one of their most poignant and heartbreaking songs ever: “A long and winding road”. By then, their personal relations had been shattered. A far cry from the heady days when they’d clawed themselves out of the grime of Liverpool through their music.
YSM teenager Aubrey Norton might’ve been marching in Burnham’s Mass Games during the Republic Celebrations, but surely, he would’ve heard the soulful lyrics over the radio. McCartney had Ray Charles in mind when he wrote the song. And you can tell!!
So, ever since Hoyte kicked Norton as General Secretary out of the PNC back in 1998 – with the cruel taunt that he, Norton, was his “creature”, the lad from Linden must’ve thought McCartney was channelling his tortured mind. “Many times I’ve been alone/And many times I’ve cried/Any way you’ll never know/The many ways I’ve tried. And still, they lead me back/To the long winding road/You left me standing here/A long long time ago/ Don’t leave me waiting here/ Lead me to your door.”
Norton, of course, would’ve had the PNC as his object of longing – and his “sin” was wanting a leadership change after Hoyte lost two elections!!
He never gave up on the PNC, though. And when Hoyte called out his base into the streets with his “slow fyaah, mo’ fyaah” strategy, Norton was there in the blaze of the sun and the heat of the night, massing the troops. But as far as leadership was concerned, in the years that followed, it seemed he’d remain the bridesmaid and never the bride. And this was even though he was one of the Young Turks who’d forced Hoyte to accept that power sharing was strategically in the PNC’s best interest!!
And why not?? Hadn’t the protests demonstrated that the Police, Army and the Government workers were all in the PNC’s corner? Hadn’t the Police stood by and watched “PPP supporters” being beaten in Georgetown after the 1997 elections? Hadn’t the Civil Service come out on strike in 1999? So, if the PNC were to “share” the executive, wouldn’t they be the REAL power holders?
But Norton just couldn’t move up the leadership ranks; but with him and Corbin having the same claim to fame, that wasn’t surprising!!
He was stymied in the Georgetown PNC elections by Volda in 2009, then by Granger in 2011 for national leadership – all because he didn’t have a PNC godfather. But the long and winding road seemed to have come to an end at the end of 2021 – with the direct input of PNC rank and file.
With Nicolette’s resignation, will he finally be the LOO? Stay tuned!!
…for Russia
Poor Russia. While Europe conquered the world and divvied it up as colonies from which they extracted raw materials and created captive markets, Russia still remained as the poor man of Europe. Never mind that monarchs like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great had tried to pull them over and out of backwardness! Pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps is, unfortunately, a physical impossibility!!
Anyhow, Lenin and his Bolsheviks tried after their October Revolution of 1917, but first Hitler’s fascist Germany and then Truman’s capitalist USA again stymied them. Figuring “if you couldn’t beat ‘em you might as well join ‘em”, Gorbachev and his successor, Yeltsin, tried capitalism, with no noticeable success. So, now we have Putin trying to put a stop to Russia’s miniaturisation.
But can he? His only hope is to play Europe against the US by convincing the latter that, in the evolving multipolar world, the former can finally stop playing second fiddle!!
Will Putin be able to literally and figuratively “gaslight” them?!!
…to decolonise
A firestorm has erupted over the Government’s issuing of some new “Pacific Readers” for the nursery and primary schools. Seems that, rather than freeing THEIR minds from mental slavery, the NCERD team wants to perpetuate that condition!!
