…for togetherness
While the move might’ve been forced by circumstances, the end result of combining the Ministry of Social Cohesion with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport is rather serendipitous. Or maybe somebody up there is reading your humble Eyewitness. After all, just last week, he looked at the total togetherness of the Guyanese people – especially the youths – at the Warriors’ matches at Providence and suggested that the Ministry of Social Cohesion might learn a thing or two about its mission from Cricket Culture!!
And now – as they say, lo and behold!! – Social Cohesion’s been merged with Youth, Sport and Culture!! And the fella at the helm’s the perfect man for the job…low-keyed; focused; and, not insignificantly, neither of Indian or African descent! One of the intractable impediments in Guyana’s progress – in any area of national life – is incumbent Ministers are supposed to have a more sympathetic ear to their “own” constituency. And in Guyana that’s always a zero-sum proposition, since each of the two major constituencies wants to always have it “their way”!
With Norton at the helm of Culture, and Amerindian Heritage Month nigh upon us, maybe at long last there will be some real focus on the Culture of the Indigenous peoples of this land. And maybe we’ll be able to cheer not just the Warriors at Providence Stadium, but the Original Warriors of Guyana, and forget our interminable squabble on the coast between African and Indian Guyanese.
Right off the bat, with global warming getting just the boost it needs for tipping us over into an era of raised sea levels by Donald Trump, it’s past high time (not to mention high tide) for us moving our capital from its rather precarious present perch six feet below the sea. Rupununi anyone? Hey, why not? The effort to construct a new capital should really make us “cohere” as a nation to service burgeoning Brazil. With the Georgetown-Lethem Highway, getting to our new capital should be no problem from the “Deep Water Harbour” that Georgetown will become!
Then there are the cultural aspects. Slavery and indentureship ruined our Afro and Indo citizens by forcing them to become mere automatons in the Western capitalist drive to extract profits from our land. They live by the clock after all those lashes by drivers and overseers, and are made to feel guilty when they aren’t “producing”. Under the more laid-back culture of our original peoples, it’ll be “Hakuna Matata” all day!! No worries; no fear!! Live in communion with Mother Nature; use just what we need to live, and just be happy!!
Your Eyewitness just hopes Minister Norton seizes the opportunity presented!!
…on natural catastrophes
Your Eyewitness has become transfixed with the unfolding tragedy in Houston, Texas, pounded by Hurricane Harvey. Such floods! Such destruction! Such drama!! Point of the matter is: Texas isn’t the only place inundated by record breaking floods. Earlier in the month, there were even more massive deluges in Nepal and Northern India, with hundreds dying and entire villages being washed away. Did we see them in such granular detail like we’re seeing the Texans, so we can empathise at a human level?
Not in this life!! Hundreds die in India and Nepalese floods and that’s a statistic…eight die in Texas, and that’s a tragedy inscribed on the conscience of the world. Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong…even one death is to be mourned from a possible climate-related disaster. But we have to wake up to our own responses, which are manipulated by those who control the media of the world.
Can we hope that President Trump might now wake up to the reality of global warming and its effects?
Not in this life!!
…for our Warriors
By the time you read this, dear reader, you’ll know the outcome of what was now “last night’s” game between our Warriors and the Tridents.
Victorious Warriors over Bent Tridents!!
