We bitch and moan constantly about our dysfunctional politics – which has kept us at each other’s throats for over six decades. The politicians and political pundits keep on coming up with all sorts of panaceas to resolve the situation. But these mostly focus on changing the rules of the game – institutions – like the electoral and governance systems. So we hear about keep on changing the “pure” PR system of voting the British used to get rid of the PPP in the 60s towards a more mixed system of constituencies (now 40) with the PR used for a “top up” of 25 more seats in a bacterized sorta FPTP.
And on the governance front, the PNC and AFC Opposition have kept up a constant whine on the need for “shared governance”. What’s noteworthy, however, is when they slipped into government from 2015 to 2020 – and the shoe was on the other foot –shared governance slipped their mind as they shared the public treasury!! Clearly whatever merits these institutional changes may or may not have, the Opposition’s just sing them opportunistically as a “virtue signaling” trope!!
But this cynicism goes much deeper into the psyches of our politicians from the Opposition benches. Your Eyewitness believes we need to look closer at HOW they conduct their politics based on this cynicism – since this may be the root of our dilemma!! And all the tinkering with the political institutions may just be a case of pi55ing in the wind!! It’ll simply blow back at you and leave a bad smell – and even a bad taste in the mouth!!
Basically, the PNC’s modus operandi in political mobilization is to use the “politics of fear” – which goes back all the way to their founder leader Burnham who cut his political teeth at the feet of Machiavelli!! This kinda politics starts off by identifying a fear in their targeted constituency and using very emotional language stir it up. Burnham identified the Colored/African Guyanese fear of Indian Guyanese being locked out of governing Guyana in a democratic system of governance because of the latter’s majority. That the Indian Guyanese were also economically more aggressive only added to the fear.
The second move is to convince the constituency they can easily do something about the fear – just support his rigging and use of violence to take power!! It worked for 28 years – and during the counting of the votes in the 2020 elections, we saw Burnham’s protégé – the Sanctimonious Gangster Granger, using the politics of fear for his power grab!!
So trying to change the political system to solve our political impasse is akin to lowering the river and not raising the bridge to deal with a flood. It’s an exercise in futility!!
…mistakes
Imagine all these years – over 500!! – Italians in the US have been celebrating “Columbus Day” and joining the “Knights of Columbus” because it was thought Columbus was Italian. Well, it’s just been proven that the explorer was actually a Spanish Jew whose community had been driven out from Spain – if they didn’t convert to Christianity!! Their sin? They were too economically successful!! Some, including Columbus forbears left and must’ve ended up in the Italian city of Genoa.
Others are scattered all around the Middle East and are known as Sephardic Jews – from the Jewish word for Spain – Sefarad. So it was rather ironic that Columbus offered his services to the King and Queen of Spain to find that sea rote to the riches of India and China – to beat out the Portuguese who were pushing the envelope around Africa!!
Your Eyewitness is rather intrigued as to how modern day Italians will take this bit of news – since there’s no love lost between these two communities in NY!!
…Spanish language?
It’s clear some folks confuse Venezuelans with Cubans – because they speak Spanish. There was this news-item in one of the dailies about a murder-suicide insisting the deceased were Venezuelans – while the others correctly identified them as Cubans.
