Yes…your Eyewitness won’t ask from where we’ve come, but rather, “where are we going?” If you need to be reminded about the former question then something’s really wrong with you! For the past month – rather than focusing on the third anniversary of democratic change grudgingly accepted by the PNC – we embarked on an orgy of self-flagellation over what happened to us during slavery and indentureship!! Your Eyewitness knows that some of our own were intimately with “slave catching” and bound-coolie “recruiting”. But jeez!! By and large there were mammoth forces that descended on us like Sennacherib on the fold!!
Isn’t there supposed to be “reparations time” against the folks who extracted all our labour free or for a pittance?? The Dutch and the Brits?? After all, we’d launched a movement to get those reparations decades now, haven’t we?? Surely we’ve all read Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” and applied it to Guyana – since we were directly plundered even before Africa!? “Underdeveloped” means that not only they didn’t “develop” us but actually left us worse off compared to countries that weren’t colonized! Think Japan. And then whatever they left was nationalized by Burnham and destroyed??
But then there came the Gladstones wearing sackcloth and ashes to apologise for slavery and indentureship and remind us that we wuz wronged!! All of us!! So finally we’ll move on to what might lie ahead? But hold it!! Isn’t the future to a large extent determined by what came before?? Like the speed of the ball towards the boundary being determined by the force with which it was hit – say by Hetmeyer – before?? Just can’t get away from the past, can we?? One fella who knew what he was talking about pronounced: “the past isn’t dead; it ain’t even past”!! So OK…tell you what: your Eyewitness won’t DWELL on the past but just ALLUDE to it to discern any possible causative factors!!
So let’s cut to the chase and start with what we all know runs everything in Guyana – politics And this one’s easy – we’ve had a long, very hot summer!! And yes, dear reader, we do have “summers” in Guyana. And your Eyewitness ain’t even talking about the hot muggy days we’ve been having!! Haven’t you noticed all the “summer sales” and “summer holidays” and “summer clothes”?? The Emancipation narratives and the Gladstone apology are being used by opposition wild men to preach extremism in the present!
We gotta watch out for meetings at Parade Ground – the scene of African Guyanese being executed and heads stuck on pikes in 1823. This is being analogized to the PPP’s actions in the present. Hyperbole is the stock-in-trade of rabble rousers!!
And then will come the “morning after”!! A city of clerks….?
…with democratic change?
Some very smart fella once pointed out that “democracy ain’t instant coffee”. You gotta be patient!! American launched their democratic revolution since 1776 and they’re still busy straightening out kinks. And it’s not even a matter of what the Yanks are doing – it’s more about whether we want to live in a democracy or not!! If we don’t – like China, for instance – that’s fine especially since they’re doing so well!! But we can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, can we??
So we gotta accept that if we don’t win an election we gotta “take our licks like a man” – as one CariCom PM advised and try again next time. And until then, fix what went wrong and get ready. But it seems that the “wild men” in the Opposition enjoy yapping at the Aubrey’s heels to undermine his credibility.
Meaning, they’re guaranteeing that they might all lose “corn and husk” in 2025!
…from truculence
Opposition Leader Norton’s under pressure to keep his street cred – against extremists who feel they “put him there” because of his old rep.
Trapped by the past…even though he knows the times have changed!! Let’s salute him for just declaring otherwise!!
