We’ve always taken our cues – political and otherwise – from those who literally lorded over us: first the Brits then the Yanks after they rose to the top of the food chain. So we had our early elites slavishly imitating the Brits in manners and mores – never mind that all that did was to make the latter snicker at our pretentions!! Like men sweating profusely in woolen three-piece suits and women struggling into corsets, crinolines and bustles to attend Sunday Church!!. The corsets moulded the waist; cage crinolines supported voluminous skirts, and bustles projected a dress out from behind!! Never mind OUR women didn’t need NO help on their behinds – seeing as they were born into quite steatogenous ones, thank you!!
In politics – when we were allowed to dabble in that after a couple of hundred years of “tutelage” – we really believed in the formalities We strove mightily to please the Whites who always kept the real power in their blood-stained, grubby hands. That’s why they had to wear gloves!! So our aspiring politicins dazzled the masses when they spoke the “Queen’s/King’s English”; learnt debating rules; made grandiloquent speeches and stuck to the straight and narrow as instructed by the Churchmen. Their performances in Parliament were things to behold – and coming down to the beginning of modern politics, Burnham totally fitted the bill!! He even affected a British accent – a Churchillian one to boot!! – after spending just four years in England!!
So as we came down to the present when Burnham shook up the place with his “revolutionary” changes with Shirtjacks and “comrades”. Your Eyewitness notes, however, he didn’t let go of his accented affectation!! And in parliament all the forms were observed!! But look what’s going on with our models and standards!! Over in the Mother of Parliaments in old Blighty, in 2022 PM Boris Johnson, was forced to resign his premiership. For the first time in the UK’s history a Prime Minister was found by the police to have – (GASP!!) – broken the law! He ‘presided over a culture of casual law-breaking at 10 Downing Street in relation to Covid’, according to former Treasury Minister Jesse Norman and allegedly lied to parliament on many occasions!!
But the changes in mores and manners over in the US under Trump take the cake!!
…democracy bloom
Your Eyewitness believes we’ve gotten quite cynical here in Mudland about matters political. Maybe it’s got something to do with what’s happening with our models up north?? There are some who’re insisting the new party – Assembly for Liberty and Prosperity (ALP) – launched by former PNC Minister Simona Broomes, is just a stalking horse for another (more) ambitious Opposition politician.
But your Eyewitness believes in a democracy – which is what we have in Guyana, right?? – “a thousand flowers must bloom”. That the exhortation was originally made by Comrade Mao – whose “Great Leap Forward” strategy saw over 40 MILLION Chinese perish – doesn’t make the aspiration any less worthy!! So your Eyewitness wishes Ms Broomes’ party all success – even though he acknowledges she ain’t no wallflower!
Now all political parties gotta have a program – but more importantly, must have something to make them STAND OUT from the other parties; all of which have programs!! Ms Broomes displayed a flair for the dramatic on entering politics.
What now?? A die-in??
