Recognising… our tourist potential

We’ve been pushing “tourism” for some time now – having abandoned Burnham’s aversion to that industry as creating a nation of servants and gigolos!! However, seems we’ve been too bedazzled by the pull of our Caribbean neighbours’ sand and surf – which we could never duplicate no matter how hard we tried at #63 Beach – to appreciate our own unique assets!! Yes…yes…we’ve been talking about our great unspoiled forests and savannahs and mountains – but have we exploited the twist introduced in the novel “The Lost World”??
This was an adventure and science fiction yarn by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – recounting an expedition to a remote plateau in the South America – we could claim it’s Mt Roraima!! Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals still survived, along with a tribe of vicious ape-like creatures that are in conflict with a group of indigenous Indians!! Could you imagine the pull our romancing of this tale could generate in those White Folks up north – who just crave being stimulated to feel alive?? Why else you think they’re so addicted to horror flicks??!!
Anyhow, it appears that the recent decision to hold our 60th Independence Anniversary flag raising ceremony at Fort Island has raised consciousness of the tourism potential of the real-live historic Dutch Fort on the island!! This belated recognition is rather surprising since in all our nearby tourism hotspots – especially on the Dutch ABC islands off Venezuela in the Caribbean (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) – their remnants of old Dutch forts are some of their biggest attractions!! As your Eyewitness wrote a few days ago, back in 1679, Dutch Governor Abraham Beekman had ordered the construction of a fort on the island – to protect their settlements that had started upriver since 1621 – from threats by the Spanish!! Significantly, it was then called FLAG ISLAND to announce Dutch sovereignty over Essequibo!! The wooden fort was largely completed by 1687, and later, in 1743–1744, the Dutch built the brick fortress known as Fort Zeelandia – the ruins of which remain – that became the capital of the Dutch colony of Essequibo.
But your Eyewitness thinks we should “spice up” our marketing based on our local history. And an essential part of our history is that of “The Dutchman” who haunts all of the spots where they’ve left artifacts of their presence – especially graves!! The world knows of “The Flying Dutchman” – that ghostly ship with its full crew of dead 17th century Dutchmen – that crashed off the Cape of Good Hope and still plies the seven seas!! All it would take is one of our writers to revive the spirit of Mittleholzer and write a good ghost story about Fort Island!!
Imagine the money we’d make only from the trinkets!!

…we own
Your Eyewitness is rather miffed that Guyanese Ian Roberts who had worked his way up the ladder to become the Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) superintendent over in the States, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison. We should’ve all been aware of his story by now. His crime wasn’t that he wasn’t qualified for the job! His crime wasn’t that he wasn’t performing his job properly!! His crime wasn’t that he wasn’t liked by the people in the district!!
No!! His crime was that he wasn’t actually a US citizen that he’s claimed to be on his job application!! Now Your Eyewitness isn’t saying that if he did the crime, he must do the time…but we must recognize that what he did was replicated by over half the hundreds of thousands of Guyanese who entered the US via the “back track”!! His is the story of a Guyanese who “did good” – ironically in the glorified Horatio Alger tradition of America!!
Your Eyewitness suggests we have a job waiting for him when he’s deported!!

…the Bar Association
The Bar Association used to be an Old Boy’s Club – with that stiff upper-lip British tradition!! No More!! At its last office-bearers’ elections, if it wasn’t virtual, fists would’ve flown!!