…all together and bright
Well, here we are again. As sure as the world turns and day becomes night, it also tilts from side to side, and especially up north, days become shorter and nights become longer. Winter’s on its way, and they’ve turned their clocks back in the States. So, who sez we can’t turn back time?? Remember when Burnham said we’d better “produce or perish”, and turned back the clock to make us work longer?? That didn’t last long, did it?? Anyhow, we’re into the festivals of light: tonight’s the Hindu Divali, Dec 7-15 is the Jewish Hanukkah, and Dec 25 is the Christian Christmas.
The Hindus are gonna light up their diyas; the Jews their Menorahs (this year in Gaza, they’re sure to lob at least double the usual number of flashing missiles); and Christians their Yule Logs.
What? Do you mean to say, dear reader, you can go out and find mistletoe, ice apple, eggnog etc and can’t get Yule Logs?? Anyhow, since last week, we’ve been exposed to Divali Motorcades, National Diya Light Ups, Stage shows, Government offices and schools with their Divali Rangolis; businesses with their Indian costumes staff – and now the biggest of them all, the ONE GUANA DIVALI JALSA!! At last we can say that Christmas – which was made the de facto national festival of Guyana by the Brits – now has a rival!! Your Eyewitness hopes that Masquerade will also become bigger to make Christmas more Guyanese. How can we do without the Mother Sallys and Bull Cows of yore that scared the living daylights of kids back then??
Anyhow, back to tonight’s Divali. Your Eyewitness and his family are gonna be competing with his neighbours to win the (friendly but tense) annual competition on who’s gonna put out the most diyas. When he was a boy and had to help his mother find mud to make the diyas, it was much more fun than nowadays, when everything is now premade and the lights can now be switched on in the plastic diyas. But hey…if you can’t beat ‘em, then you gotta join ‘em! Not to mention the kids refuse to go dig mud, and the wife refuses to get her hands dirty!!
But what hasn’t changed are the sweets (your Eyewitness is affronted that some call them “sweetmeats” when the point is that they gotta be non-meat!!) that are distributed around the neighbourhood. He doesn’t mind that nowadays some of the neighbours buy theirs from shops and caterers. It’s the thought (and calories) that count, innit??
You might be wondering why your Eyewitness hasn’t mentioned Divali and “light over darkness” as yet. It’s just that he hasn’t seen that in action till now!
…wid Desman’ H’yte
Talk about lighting up and Desmond Hoyte’s campaign slogan for the 1997 elections always pop into your Eyewitness’s mind – “light up the light with Desman’ H’yte”!! The PNC was always involved with “lighting up” Guyana – starting with Feb 16, 1962, when they burnt down Water Street!! Anyhow, there was another light up on May 25, 1964, when 220 Indian Guyanese homes were burnt to the ground by PNC supporters at Wismar; and 3000 men, women and children had to flee for their lives!!
The next big political light-up was in 1979, when the PNC Headquarters on Camp Street – which had been merged with the Ministry of National Mobilisation – was burned down. Walter Rodney and Rupert Roopnaraine of the WPA were blamed! Further political light-ups were “outed” as political opponents of the PNC became shaken by the assassination of Rodney in 1980. It wasn’t till Desmond Hoyte lost the aforementioned 1997 elections that he brought out the tried-and-true PNC tactic in launching the explicitly-named “slow fyaah…mo’ fyaah”!!
…with goodwill
But we Guyanese do need a bit of light in our lives – considering that GPL seems determined to take us back to the dark old days of continuous blackouts. Imagine if the PNC hadn’t scuttled 685MW AFHEP!!
