Well – as usual – the commemoration days are coming fast and furious!! We’d just finished the “Day of Happiness” on Monday and there we were – contemplating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination!! It was kinda jarring that “happiness” came before “eliminating” racism, since if the latter exists, it’s pretty difficult for those under its thrall to be happy!! The 2023 theme for the Day was “Urgently combatting racism and racial discrimination”. Right away, your Eyewitness worried whether the goal was being diluted. “Combatting” ain’t the same as “eliminating”, is it??
Your Eyewitness suspects the folks in the UN are beginning to realise that “eliminating” racism ain’t gonna be as easy as they might’ve thought. This abomination was germinated more than FOUR HUNDRED years ago…and has persisted even as the massive empires that were founded on its back have come and gone. Where are the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British Empires?? Sadly, your Eyewitness thinks that one of the reasons racism was invented – and it WAS invented, you know – is because grouping people by physical characteristics makes it easy way when you want to discriminate against them!! When Hitler wanted to unleash his genocidal program against Jews – even though he claimed they were another “race” – they had to wear those yellow badges!! By that time, the Jews had spent millennia in Europe – and were practically indistinguishable from the “master race”!!
But that just shows you how difficult it is to eliminate racism, when it can take all sorts of forms right in front of our eyes. Let’s take Anti-Black racism in the US – which has influenced our thoughts on the subject so much. First, they’re explicitly grouping folks by a colour – black – while here in Guyana, we wouldn’t do that openly!! Ironically, they have a ‘one drop of (Black) blood’ rule to call someone Black – which may mean that a “Black” could be as “White” as those blonde, blue-eyed German Nazis!! And we therefore had the phenomenon of “passing” in that country!! While there was that movie, “Imitation of life”, on the theme as far back as the 1950s, just last year, “The passing” stirred quite a few comments on Netflix. Just won’t go away!!
Unlike the US, in most of the rest of the world – especially in the aforementioned European Empires – the “one drop” rule was radically interpreted as “One drop of WHITE blood” making a person White!! Well, not really…but those with the one drop certainly thought so – to the amusement of the Whites!! In Guyana and the West Indies, they were called “Coloureds”.
There are some who believe this “mixing” will eliminate racism – but the experience of societies like Brazil, that went that route, proves otherwise!!
…bullshit
No, dear reader. Your humble Eyewitness hasn’t succumbed to the general foul-mouthedness that’s overtaken our society. “Bullshit” is a term of art – a philosophical term even!! It’s contrasted with “lying” to make a critical distinction that explains much of what’s going down in Guyana today!! You see, when a person tells lies, he actually knows the truth but proclaims otherwise, to convince you of something he’s pushing.
Bullshit, on the other hand, is what we get from all those charlatans who’re riling up people – including the army and Police – to create mayhem in Guyana. The bullshitter doesn’t even care to know the truth; all he’s concerned about is to convince others, and would say whatever he thinks expedient to carry the day!! As such the truth ceases to matter, and pretty soon folks who’d dare not say certain things in public now have no reservation in shovelling all sorts of…ern…bullshit!!
And this is the great danger we face: there’s no common truth to rally around!!
…fowl smuggling
There’ something foul in the state of Guyana. And according to the news, it’s the smuggling of fowls!! Ok…Ok…your Eyewitness couldn’t resist!! But seriously folks, after all the help and protection our fowl farms get, they still can’t compete with outsiders??
