Well, here we are again – it’s Mash time again!! Now, don’t you try correcting your Eyewitness that it’s actually “Republic Day”. It might’ve originally started out with Republic Day, but when Burnham decided to make the 1970 wine-down at Linden NATIONAL, who doubted the tail would soon be wagging THAT dawg!! After all, the folks at the bauxite town – who’d up to then been living at Wismar and Mackenzie – had showed their Republican patriotism by changing the names of that community to that of their beloved “Founder Leader” – Linden. As in Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham!!
So why not reward them by acknowledging their “far-sightedness” for creating a jump-up session under a made-up, supposedly “Arawak” festival that calls for “celebration after a hard day’s work”!! No one before or after then has ever been able to find such a word in the nine Amerindian cultures, much less Arawak!! But hey!! The folks at Linden had to be acknowledged, not only for renaming their town, but also for ensuring it was literally a PNC town. They’d burned and chased out all 3000 or so residents – who were assumed to be “PPP” – since they were Indian-Guyanese!! Linden’s remained staunchly PNC since.
But it wasn’t just Mashramani that was made up – the day itself was made up as commemorating Cuffy’s start of the Berbice Rebellion, and Cuffy was made our National Hero. But it was one historian – slavish follower of Burnham, Daly – who’d arbitrarily decided that the start of the Rebellion by Cuffy up the Berbice River was on Feb 23. Poor Cuffy wasn’t even at the Plantation where the Rebellion started – Magdalenenberg – and only joined weeks later!! Not so incidentally, a coin of Cuffy was struck, and he looked awfully like Burnham!! Awfully!!
Now, apart from the name being fake, the content of the Mashramani celebration’s also fake, since it had nothing “Guyanese” about it!! It’s a shameless rip-off of the Trini Carnival those folks had evolved from the French Creoles and their slaves. They’d emigrated from Haiti to Trinidad after they fled the REAL revolution there by Toussaint Louverture!! So we had the PNC Government foisting a totally fake occasion onto the Guyanese people!!
Not springing organically from the lives of the people, the PNC Government had to sponsor most of the floats and parades of Mash until they were thrown out in 1992. It was thought the incoming PPP – which had pointed out the additional phoniness of commemorating the date due to its closeness to Burnham’s birthday on Feb 20!! – would scupper Mash. And Education Minister Dale Bisnauth originally did downplay it. However, PNC supporters cried “Discrimination”!! And back it came – this time by strong-arming business support!
So, this year, we’ll be “Mixing and Mashing” – still led by the Ministries!!
…anti-nationalism
There’s this Guyanese legal practitioner who’s invariably referred to as an “international lawyer”. It invokes this image of the individual jetting off to the World Court, arguing matters affecting the “international system”!! Sadly, the truth’s far more mundane!! All an “international lawyer” does – like this one did – is work for a multinational like Exxon – and represent them in a jurisdiction they’re familiar with!!
Anyhow, the “international lawyer” just received an award by the Commonwealth Law Association for “upholding the rule of law” in Guyana. Wow!! That’s big time!! Knowing that the Commonwealth had firmly condemned the PNC/AFC attempted heist of the 2020 General Elections – the greatest violation of the rule of law against the fundamental rights of the entire Guyanese people to choose their Govt! – your Eyewitness assumed the “international lawyer” had nailed the PNC/AFC for the violation in another jurisdiction!! Sadly, NO!! The award was for fighting to have Guyana keep its oil under the seas – and keep us barefoot and pregnant!!
Talk about “native informants”!!
…our local writers?
Your Eyewitness is still reeling in shock at the “Guyana Prize for Literature” being sneaked back in like a thief in the night!!
And imagine WE funded the world-famous Booker Prize with our sweat!!
