…flag-raising
Your Eyewitness was intrigued by the change in the locale for the flag-raising ceremony this year. He figured, why not? Year after year they’ve been doing it in Georgetown. All over Georgetown. Granger even built a BILLION-DOLLAR stadium to raise the Golden Arrowhead on the Jubilee Independence Gala! This was a special hundred-foot one, so folks wondered whether it’d flutter in the wind. Had to be SOME wind!! But fly and flutter it did. Can’t say the same about the stadium, though!! Made of some cheap-a55 raw wood, it’s fast collapsing around the ears of the vagrants who’ve found a home!!
At these occasions, it’s become obligatory to invoke Burnham and Cheddi hugging just before the Union Jack was lowered at our National Park on May 26, 1966. It seemed Cheddi was willing to forget his slogan of “cheated, not defeated” after he was ousted in a prolonged, bloody coup that took the lives of almost 200 Guyanese. Well, it was going to be the first of many “cheatings” he was gonna be experiencing in the next 26 years!! But he still showed up, year after year, to salute the Golden Arrowhead. Whether it was the Public Buildings, the National Cultural Centre, or back to the National Park, he showed up to sing that Four Tops tune, “I’ll be there”!! Patriotic?
And this was even after he railed about the so-called “independence”, FOR WHICH Burnham had betrayed the nationalist movement JUST TO GET HIS GRUBBY PAWS ON POWER – and divide the country seemingly forever. But here we are, exactly thirty years after Jagan’s party simply OUTLASTED Burnham’s PNC’s reign over “independent” Guyana – having to wait till the world changed!! There is something to be said for longevity in politics – if you’re willing to swallow all sorts of humiliations!!
Anyhow, at long last the country stands a good chance of becoming REALLY independent – with all that oil money coming down the pipelines! Hopefully, this present lot of PPP leaders understands that whatever Jagan may’ve been carrying on about the inevitability of the “working class” taking over, it’s money that makes the world go round!! So, your Eyewitness is pleased that money’s being spent to create the conditions for business startups that’ll be employing folks to earn the money to live the good life!!
And this brings him to the flag being raised by Pres Ali in the “Cinderella County”. Hopefully, the move recognises that the label wasn’t symbolic, but aptly describes the state of Essequibo – then and now!! And that President Ali’s gonna be unfurling plans immediately to drag Essequibo out of its miseries!! But since he’s making his promises in front of Damon’s statue, hope he remembers what’ll happen if he doesn’t deliver immediately!!
Uprising!!
…the DHB
Your Eyewitness could only nod approvingly when he saw the latest “artist’s impression” of the new Demerara Harbour Bridge”. Quite pretty elegant and graceful. Hopefully it’ll also do the job it’s meant to do to justify the more-than- quarter-billion the Government’s springing for its construction. Which is to move 10,000 vehicles back and forth across the river within two-hour windows, so businesses don’t have to lose the millions of man-hours they’re losing right now because of traffic bottlenecks!
The bridge is just a wee bit upriver, and surely it couldn’t be creating any environmental effect different from what the old Bridge did. If it’s deposition of silt, wouldn’t all those pontoons have a greater precipitating effect that half the number of posts a fraction of their size? So he wonders what the environmentalists are up to. Didn’t they hear that you can’t make an omelette without cracking some shells?
And from what he sees, the environmentalists sure like their omelette!!
…the meeting place
Your Eyewitness notices that the Opposition Leader has a beef about the President’s arrangements for the second meeting. Says he’s being dissed?
Maybe they should break the ice at Cigars and Cognac?
