…the PNC world
In trying to make sense of living in a nightmarish world (to him) of being a German Jew living in Czechoslovakia, Franz Kafka begins his novella of alienation, “The Metamorphosis”, with this famous line: “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” Yup!! How do you deal with the reality of being a bug in a world you think you know so well?!!
And this is the absurdist feeling your Eyewitness was overcome with as he tried to grapple with the goings-on at GECOM on Friday 13 – the day after the Court had issued its order on how the Region 4 RO ought to conduct the count of the SOPs. If those folks – who were blithely going on announcing the numbers on the SOPs at the speed of a rocket approaching escape velocity from earth – were Guyanese, what was he?? Was he even the same species as them since he just couldn’t grasp what the heck they were doing vis a vis the Court orders??
As a Guyanese, he expected them to use the arithmetic they’d all learnt in Lil ABC to share out marbles and then add up what each would get! Jeez, the teacher Miss Marks had even brought marbles to school, to let him and his buddies in the backbench get the idea. Your Eyewitness felt a little better when he heard the attendant stakeholders who been grudgingly allowed in object to the flitting numbers rushing past them!! And when the ABCE Ambassadors all got up and walked out of the pappy show, he realised that it wasn’t he who had metamorphosed into a “monstrous verminous bug”; it was those GECOM officials!!
And all of Kafka’s questions about identity rose to the fore. Who were these people who could bring such disgrace to our country? Your Eyewitness understands “party loyalty” and all that. But isn’t there a line where the country comes first?? Even if patriotism hadn’t been inculcated, weren’t they and their children going to be affected when sanctions were slapped on the country they’ll be living in? Since their visas would be revoked??
Your Eyewitness realised that these folks who were manipulating the SOPs in front of the entire world for the APNU/AFC had become automatons (Kafka’s equivalent in his time was “bugs”) for the “cause”. They HAD no independent identity as “Guyanese”; they simply jumped to the commands of Brigadier Granger!! It was, of course, the quintessence of the fascist view of identity.
All for the glorious world of the PNC. Hadn’t Burnham preached it once before??
But automatons don’t remember, do they??
…anarchy set loose
Even though he knew what was coming, your Eyewitness followed the GECOM riggers over to the old GECOM HQ. They’d assured those who still believed the SOP count could be salvaged they would “do the right thing”. Some folks still believe in the tooth fairy!! The SOPs were going to be “projected “ onto a screen and all would then “see” them. Problem was – and of course, there was a problem – the RO chose to project a COPY and not the original SOP’s. And of course, these were doctored and led to a walkout!!
All your Eyewitness could think was Yeats dire observation:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
A new PNC dictatorship, of course!!
…the bullies
At the final SOP dictation – and that’s what it always was!! – the PNC sicced their pit bull from Region 5 on the Opposition parties who wanted the court order obeyed.
Finally, it became too much for the mild-mannered ANUG rep. And he’s charged for assault!!
