Comparing… Eric and Forbes

Your Eyewitness wasn’t really surprised when PNC leader Aubrey Norton took the opportunity at the party’s commemoration of their “Founder Leader” Forbes Burnham’s 103rd birth anniversary – February 22 – to announce they’d be launching a campaign to big-up the man known as “the Kabaka”!! After all, Norton’s PNC was knocked flat on its back at the last election by a three-month-old party led by an indicted and sanctioned gold smuggler!! Clearly Norton decided to hang onto Burnham’s coattails for survival!!
What better place to start the gambit than Burnham’s resting place at Seven Ponds by invoking Brutus’ take on Julius Caesar’s death: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” But Norton went even further in his self-interested rehabilitation project!! He insisted it was actually Burnham’s political enemies – read the PPP!! – who weren’t just making him “evil” but were denying him his massive accomplishments!!
“…The contributions of LFS Burnham to Guyana…cannot be erased, whether they like it or not. HE IS THE GREATEST LEADER WE PRODUCED!!!” Norton thundered to the (handful) of faithful – which included Burnham’s enforcer Hamilton Green!! Now the “contributions” might be arguable – but the greatest leader of all time?? Give your Eyewitness a break!! Norton’s clearly now barmy after his whupping by Sanction Man!!
This week, the PNC sent a message to T&T’s PNM to commemorate the 1981 passing of their founder leader Eric Williams. Now Williams was Burnham’s contemporary in so many regards – and maybe Norton and all those who’d canonise Burnham should do a “compare and contrast” exercise on Caribbean leadership!! Burnham fancied himself intellectually gifted – but he was more of an intellectual dilettante who never had the discipline to produce a sustained work on any of his eclectic interests!!
Williams, on the other hand, produced a seminal work that changed the nature of the study of African slavery with his PhD thesis – published as “Capitalism and Slavery”!! It remains required reading for anyone studying slavery in the West Indies!! Returning to T&T not long before Burnham to British Guiana, he delivered a series of lectures at a park christened “University of Woolford Square” that catapulted him into office in 1956 as the leader of the PNM. Burnham, on the other hand, co-opted into the PPP, plotted to seize its leadership – which led to its split and his backing by the colonial power to rule on their behalf!!
T&T became independent in 1962 – as Guyana was supposed to do but was denied by Burnham’s treachery!
Williams pragmatically made T&T economically prosperous and never rigged elections or precipitated ethnic riots – all unlike Burnham!!
And the rest is history – which Norton would do well to study!

…defensive strategies
From goings-on in the Middle East, the strategy of “contracting out” security ain’t working!! The oil-rich Gulf States and Saudi Arabia played that hand for decades, but from what Iran – their defined “enemy” – is demonstrating, it hasn’t been sitting still but devising countermeasures that have now checkmated the protection umbrella they were assured!!
So here we are, clinging onto the top of South America with neighbours on the east and west both aggressively seeking to hive off massive chunks of our territory which they insist are theirs – and the issue is whether we’re listening!! Well, it seems that we are!! PM Phillips – who’s an ex-Brigadier! – just reiterated that our country’s building a smarter, future-ready security system!!
He was speaking at the launch of our National Defence Institute’s 16-week certificate programme – which he emphasised goes beyond traditional military training and is designed to equip participants with critical thinking skills, strategic insight, and leadership capacity.
With the Government purchasing weapons for all domains, your Eyewitness is looking for new deployment strategies!!

…human identification
The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes used to wander the agora with a lit lantern in daylight, muttering, “I’m looking for an honest man.”
Nowadays, we’ve got internet non-human AI bots asking us to prove we’re human!!