…and leadership
When you think about it, using “debates” to choose leaders of countries is a bit strange, don’t you think?? Since we’ve just finished heralding the top performers of the NGSA, we can appreciate that, as a method of choosing students for the top schools, the test must be predictive to the goal.
So how about presidential debates?? Are their results as predictive of good leadership? As usual, with social innovations of all sorts, it’s from the US, which prides itself as marching to a different drummer in almost every field of human endeavour, and then gets the rest of the world to follow suit because of the power of its media!! The US presidential debate comes out of the “Town Hall” meetings of New England from way back in the 18th century, and received its greatest fillip when Abe Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas in 1858, just before their Civil War.
Now Abe was concededly a very good president by all accounts, but in the 20th century, with the astounding growth of the media and the Public Relations industry, matters took a turn for the worse. Debates became just another way to project the “image” the candidates’ PR crew’s polls had projected as what the people wanted to hear!! The debates were just vehicles for uttering soundbites to get the attention of various “voting blocs”.
Presidential debates, of course, percolated into Guyana…even though there’s never been an actual debate between the big guns. But, for the first time, the “debate” culture seems to’ve infected one of them – the PNC – in the race for the party’s chairmanship. Basil Williams, the incumbent and Attorney General, just threw down the gauntlet to his challengers – Minister of State Joseph Harmon and Minister of Health Volda Lawrence.
Now, to your Eyewitness, this is a very intriguing scenario. The audience for these debates won’t be the general public – but, at the very best, the PNC faithful; or more likely the power elite that usually fixes these things behind the scenes!! While it’s been said — with a great deal of truth — that it doesn’t matter who’s placed as the candidates of the two majors, appearances must also be kept up! So what is it these two constituencies want to hear??
Their interests coincide, of course, in demanding that the PNC reoccupy the seat of power so that the goodies keep on coming! The successful strategy the last time was to get someone who could lull the Indian bozos in the AFC that they’d really get a piece of the action is they joined up.
The question, then, is which of the three can bring in some new bozos to augment the AFC dead meat?!!
…the empire’s role
There’s a growing school of scholars in metropolitian countries pushing the line that imperialism wasn’t as bad as it’s been made out by the Third World intelligentsia and their own Liberal “bleeding heart” compradors. It’s like “The empire writes back”!! So what’s the point they’re making?? Well, simply that while conceding they might’ve done SOME bad things to us natives, if they’d left us to our own devices, we’d done worse!
Now, your Eyewitness thinks this is a load of bollocks of course, but understands why the revisionist scholars from up North are gaining traction. In a nutshell, it’s because of Governments like the PNC’s then and now. Think about this scenario, dear readers, as one of them could write about us in Guyana. When the British GAVE us independence in 1966, they left us with the highest literacy rate in the British Caribbean; one of the lowest crime rates; a decent standard of living; the sugar industry producing 350,000 tonnes annually; the bauxite industry one of the largest in the world etc…etc.
And today?? Don’t ask!!
…Haitians into Barbados
Imagine, after building a special “Guyanese Bench” at Grantley Adams Airport…the Bajans have now declared that Haitians don’t even need a visa to enter their island!!
What does that say about us??
