…to the human detritus created
In the old days, folks had “outside” latrines where they’d dump their “dirty”. But after a couple minutes holding their noses, they’d ‘throw-back” – and even read the newspapers! Maybe that’s why latrines are also called “out-houses”! Your Eyewitness was reminded about this proclivity as he observed the nonchalance of the PNC-led coalition – as they traversed the destruction they’ve dumped on the ordinary and not-so ordinary folks of this country.
We can start with the tragedy dumped on the entire West Bank of Demerara, in general, and Wales in particular. At least Minister of Agriculture Holder was honest enough – or too squeamish? – to stand the stench to go among the folks whose lives he’d destroyed. But surely the whiffs from all the putrefying dreams they caused by closing the single largest employment entity must’ve reached their air-conditioned offices in Georgetown? Remember the kid who topped UG a year ago, whose father was a cane cutter? What could he possibly be doing now?
Your Eyewitness is reminded of the poem, “Dreams Deferred” by Langston Hughes, which was written in Harlem in 1951: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up/ Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore—/ And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over—/ like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags/ like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
This was just about the same time Martin Luther King discovered Gandhi’s work of “Satyagraha” or Civil Disobedience and honed it into a potent weapon to launch the Civil Rights struggle for those oppressed Africans. A decade later, the sore did in fact explode, right there in Harlem, when a fella calling himself Malcolm X, decided King’s method was too uncertain. With the slogan, “Burn baby, Burn!”, almost every major American city went up in flames. And they got attention!
The question has to be asked: as the poverty and privations at Wales move from not being able to get three meals a day, to getting NO meals per day, whose message will it be? Martin Luther King’s, whose birthday it is today, or Malcolm X’s?
And it’s not just Wales. Take the vendors of Georgetown. They were the most rabidly partisan supporters of the PNC clique at City Hall in stymieing the efforts of the PPP Town Clerk and the Local Government Minister to improve their lot and the lot of Georgetown. Talk about being willing to wallow in filth “for the cause”! But what did that get them?
Larwah? A common cause must be made for dreams deferred.
…Amaila’s virtues
Another egregious dumping of dirt on the dreams of Guyanese by the PNC-led coalition Government has been their obdurate derailment of the Amaila Falls HydroElectric Project (AFHEP). The endemic “blackouts” of the PNC’s first turn at the helm had driven everyone to the edge of sanity, but had gradually been whittled down by the PPP. But most big businesses had to deploy their own expensive generators to get a reliable supply of electricity. AFHEP could’ve solved both challenges.
But the Government-then-in-Opposition destroyed AFHEP’s viability with their opposition to the project using a number of specious excuses. And we fast-forward to the present. All of their objections – and then some – were addressed by an independent Norwegian consulting firm, which concluded AFHEP was the most viable option for Guyana. And yet the Government not only balked – but did so by completely and deliberately misstating the findings and recommendations of the consultancy!
The recent placatory announcement that this wasn’t a “decision” but an “advisory” isn’t going to change anything,
Dumping on Guyanese is now the Government’s reflex action.
…to judicial propriety
The PNC-led Government’s given only two weeks’ notice for applications for Chancellor and CJ – and then another three weeks to hold “meaningful consultations” with the Opposition Leader.
Oh well…why not another Constitutional crisis?
