…identity
Seems there was a symposium at the Convention Centre to answer the question, “Who are we?” Now this had to’ve been a very high powered session since the five presenters mentioned in one report were all “Doctors”. Not medical doctors since they weren’t discussing “HOW are we”. Most likely doctors in the various “social sciences” – psychology, anthropology, sociology etc… that specialise in matters of identity and such like.
Another clue the symposium was high octane was the newly-installed Vice Chancellor of UG, Ivelaw Griffith vouchsafing that the panellists would be “interrogating old questions”. Now the moment you hear about “interrogating” anything and the words don’t come from the mouth of Police squeezing confessions from unwary suspects, it’s a dead giveaway you’re dealing with heavy intellectual hitters.
The final confirmation of grey matter in abundance was when your trusty Eyewitness couldn’t get a report on what was actually said from the press reports that’re his daily manna. Presumably the reporters from the various media groups are still digesting the nuggets of wisdom – and gold, as we all should know being Guyanese, is a VERY HEAVY metal.
Anyhow, your Eyewitness has already been bombarded for over 50 years – there, you now know! – with a very definitive answer to the question as to “who are we”. Namely the national motto we adopted at independence that allows no ambiguity – we are “One People, One Nation…with one destiny”. That threw out the old notion we used to run around with, that we were “the land of six peoples”. No baby! We were now one people.
It was like one day you’re living in sin – drinking, carousing and generally carrying on – and the next day you’re baptised. You are now saved and the old you has been exorcised forever. And if we’re one people, we have to be one “nation”, don’t we? So what exactly did these eggheads over at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre “interrogate”?
The fact of the matter is this Eyewitness thinks Government should just get the heck out of the business of “interrogating” who we are. The moment Government gets involved is the moment when inevitably someone’s gonna cry “FOUL”!!! Pointing out that one group or another’s getting the inside track to the funding from the Government.
“Who we are?” is a question best answered by “we the people”…and since the Government’s always run by ONE section of the “people”, COMPARISONS WILL INEVITABLY ARISE. That some folks might be better funded and better equipped to influence the answer to the question, must be countered from within the resources of the “others”.
State “help” doesn’t really help – just infantilises.
….digital books
One letter writer took objection to a telephone company exulting in 4G freedom and splashing over some billboard, “Goodbye Library… Hello World!”. Point the company was making, of course, was we can now download books off the internet so fast, we might as well have the world’s library at our fingertips. And we, therefore, don’t need to sidle into stuffy libraries with musty “paper” books.
Evidently, the writer recently chanced into the New York Public Library and found it chock full of all sorts of bibliophiles. And so, ipso facto, the day of paper books isn’t over! If he’d ambled over from the library at 42nd Street over to Central Park at 59th Street, he’d have seen bigger worthies getting into the horse buggies there. But that doesn’t mean the car industry is dead…is it? The bottom line is there’ll always be innovations in every area of life.
And we have to just adapt if it pushes the envelope in a positive direction.
…roadworks
Your Eyewitness wants to know why Carifesta Ave’s being widened and given a median. It certainly can’t be because of the high traffic density…enough vehicles just can’t get to it.
Is it because they’re planning more SOCU high-speed chases?
