Well, well, well…who woulda thought??! The British Conservative Party has certainly raised some eyebrows AFTER Liz Truss handily defeated “Dishy” Rishi Sunak for the leadership to replace Boris Johnson. That election, of course, didn’t surprise anyone since – even though the leadership , represented by the MPs in the Houses of Commons and Lords picked Sunak overwhelmingly – the ultimate decision was gonna be made by the rank and file!! Truss was, after all, White!! Your Eyewitness ain’t mincing no words!!
The raised eyebrows arose after Truss paid the obligatory visit to her Queen – having to go up to Balmoral in Scotland where the Monarch was ensconced and not Buckingham Palace in London – when she appointed three non-Whites to the Cabinet!! As one news-agency pointed out, it was the first time in British History the top FOUR spots didn’t go to WHITE MALES!! In case you forgot, Truss is White but NOT male!!
So we have Kwasi Kwarteng – of Ghanaian descent – succeeding Indian-origin Rishi Sunak in the finance job as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Isn’t this poetic justice – that after Britain built its industrial revolution by squeezing the wealth out of India and Africa and the West Indies – they’ve put an Indian and now an African in charge of the money?? What next?? A West Indian?? But that’s not the real irony…that’s from the Chancellor’s job description: he’s supposed to do whatever it takes to save and then boost the British economy!!
And in this Kwarteng will presumably be helped by another other non-White Cabinet biggie – James Cleverly. He’ll be the first Black foreign minister of UK – since, even though his father’s white, his mother’s from Sierra Leone. Yes, Dear Reader, it was the Brits who invented the now famous “one drop of black blood makes you black” rule!! Cleverly will cleverly (couldn’t resist that!!) convince foreigners – mostly from the old empire on which the sun did actually set and are now in the Commonwealth – to save Old Blighty for Auld Lang Syne!!
But with Sunak out, this doesn’t mean that the Raj was forgotten – no siree Bob!! Indian-origin barrister Suella Braverman has succeeded Priti Patel to become the second ethnic minority home secretary, where she’ll be responsible for police and immigration. So can we expect that minorities – especially Blacks – won’t be profiled anymore by the Police and hassled?? Don’t hold your breath!! And that’s the scoop on the new government writ large as far as anything changing fundamentally for minorities in Britain.
If Barack Obama – as US PRESIDENT – couldn’t change a whit in the US, you think some Ministers gonna do so in the country that INVENTED racism??
Nah…they’ll be just more suave about it!!
…in Literature??
Here we go again!! Just when your Eyewitness thought we’d learnt some lessons from our “Local Content” debacle in the Oil Industry, we resuscitated a prime example from the colonial thinking that created the problem in the first place!! Under the Brits, PREMIER schools like Queen’s and Bishops insisted in teaching subjects like Latin, French, Literature, etc – which siphoned off our best and brightest. Scorning subjects like technology and applied sciences that could’ve helped us industrialise.
They left that to the Apprentice Schools that were derided as servicing those who couldn’t “make it”. So in the midst of trying to catch up on and encourage – the technical training that’ll finally get us in the pole position to reap the greatest rewards from our oil wealth, we just revived the “Guyana Literature Prize” – and made it annual rather than biennial!!Your Eyewitness likes reading as much as the other fella.
But shouldn’t we leave the Literature Prize biennial and institute a “Guyana Technology Prize”??
…and reality
Your Eyewitness is very pleased that the Breakfast Program will now be extended to ALL sixth graders. Can’t stigmatise some as needy. But the MoE must insist the meals are nutritionally balanced.
And none of those sugared drinks!!
