…in mimicry?
Your Eyewitness has been around the block…and then some, but he’s still startled by our insistence in the Caribbean – Guyana in particular – on being “mimic-men” – a term coined by Naipaul since the sixties! We were mimicking – the Europeans called it “aping” – everything the latter did, save their ability to produce! At Christmas time, we insisted on importing “ice apple” and grapes while our “golden apples” withered on the vine!!
We created “snow” with cotton to grace our “Christmas Trees” that imitated Northern firs, and waited for Santa Claus from the North Pole to bring us gifts on his sleigh drawn by reindeer! And so on and so forth!! At that time we were being granted independence – never you mind all that talk about “fighting” for independence – and you’d think by now we’d have decolonised our behaviour, wouldn’t you? After all, if we weren’t such avid readers, Marley had broken it down in song and asked us to “free our minds from mental slavery”.
Here in Guyana, Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan donned “Shirt Jacks” to remind us that the “suit and tie” might have been de rigueur for “mad dogs and Englishmen” – but was rather silly (not to mention stifling) for us natives! But today, not only are Burnham’s disciples competing to outdo each other in the bespoke suit department – and deportment! – but from a glance in the newspapers, we’ve now added “Thanksgiving” to the list of our mimicry of things “foreign”.
Yes…Thanksgiving from the US of A, complete with Roast Turkey, Pumpkin Pie and Cranberry Sauce!! Now we’ve been imitating the Yanks ever since they descended to save the world for democracy in WWII – and bequeathed us with “Rum and Coke” rather than tossing down our grog neat! But this Thanksgiving thing really shook up your Eyewitness! After all, did we ask what was it the Americans were giving “Thanks” for – and how this related to our circumstances??
The Americans are giving thanks for landing in “the New World” and then spreading over North America because of their “Manifest Destiny”! In doing so, like Columbus, it never struck them that the Indigenous peoples’ claim over that land, due to their occupancy for thousands of years, had any merit. They were, after all, “savages” who dared to resist when the aforesaid lands were being snatched away!! So the Europeans gave thanks, using the bounty of their “new home”!
And here it is, in Guyana, where at least our Indigenous peoples weren’t wiped out in genocides and forced expulsions, we’ve now decided to adopt the American Thanksgiving!!
At a time, when those who seized the land from the Native Americans, are expelling ILLEGAL immigrants!!
…Govt’s food policy?
Your Eyewitness was bemused by the big hoopla the Agriculture Minister gave to launching “apiculture” in our dear land of Guyana! And what is “apiculture”, you ask, dear reader? Beekeeping. Now there’s nothing wrong with beekeeping, and in fact there’s everything right! With all those bees perishing in America we might just be able to carve out a market niche, if we stick to it.
So why the bemusement? Well, simply that when the same Minister shut down Wales estate and threw 1700 into the “roti-lines” he didn’t even show his face for a year, even though he’d promised those poor workers to “diversify” the lands to give them new employment. Aquaculture, agriculture, horticulture, silviculture and such like terms, were tossed around. Even some rice was grown.
But those Wales lands have quickly reverted to “bush” – even the rice cultivation – while the Minister is promoting “apiculture”. What happened to the 6 Ps of plantain, pepper, papaya, pumpkin, passion fruit and pineapples? Goat bite them?
Or did it bite the people of Wales?
…in no-confidence motions
National assemblies in parliamentary democracies like Guyana confirm the legitimacy of the Government in office. This legitimacy can be challenged by a motion of no confidence.
And such motions are always given priority over any other business!
