Reflecting…on Cheddi

Oh, how time flies – and not only when we’re having a good time, as some insist!! To your Eyewitness, seems it was only the other day that Cheddi passed on. As to whether he passed on to another plane, world, or heaven would be a question he woulda scoffed at since he was a committed atheist, in line with the staunch Marxism-Leninism ideology that guided him in every aspect of his life – and presumably in death!! But yes… It’s been 29 years since he was taken to Babu Jaan, near his beloved Port Morant, where he was cremated. Your Eyewitness remembers ex-President Desmond Hoyte snickering that this was a “national BBQ”. You don’t fall much lower than that in commenting at the passing of someone of Cheddi’s stature!! You’d think that the strait-laced and proper Desi would’ve respected the old adage even in its original Latin, “De Mortuis nil nisi bonum” – “Of the dead, [say] nothing but good”.
Pressie and the PPP issued a statement to mark the occasion by noting that Dr Jagan’s legacy continues to inspire their commitment to equality, human rights and the preservation of democratic principles in Guyana. Now you can’t set the bar on these values higher than that, can you??!! Here it is; Cheddi was born on a sugar plantation to parents who both came to the then British Guiana as babies of indentured labourers – and indentureship wasn’t ended until HE was two!! So, if you were to read his account of his early years, you would know he knew first-hand about inequality! You don’t have an institution more hierarchically stratified than a sugar plantation of those years!! The young chairman of Bookers – which owned Port Morant – said the mules had better accommodations than the workers!! The mule pens were electrically illuminated – which the workers didn’t experience till half a century later!!
But he also showed in his own life the grit that it takes to lift oneself up and out of poverty!! He did well in primary and up to fifth-form high school – then came all the way to GT to attend sixth form at Queens. Now you’re talking about a boy from deepest rural Guyana having to live on his own in the city!! Some of the experiences scarred him for life – especially the snobbery of the urban middle class!!
He went on to uni in the States and became a dentist. Quite significantly, he fell in love with a Jewish girl by the name of Janet Rosenberg, who followed him here after he returned in 1943.
Their joint efforts to get the Brits out of British Guiana cannot be denied – and can arguably be dubbed the fathers and mothers of modern Guyana!!

…on LGBT
Your Eyewitness had mentioned Sanction Man’s frantic efforts to extricate his foot from his mouth when in a masjid! – He criticised the leaders for allowing LGBT folks to enter and pray!! Said he was only stating what the official position was!! So why repeat it as a chastisement?? So is he saying he rejects what the sacred texts say??
It shows you how opportunistic this fellow is – but also how he can get himself in another pickle that might be even bigger than the OFAC sanctions he’s moving heaven and earth to evade!! He’s old enough to know – he announced ostentatiously he’s now thirty-nine!! – that Muslims don’t take kindly to folks who call themselves Muslims disputing their Koran!! They call it blasphemy, and the penalty is death – stoning is advised, but any other method is acceptable if necessary.
Apart from issuing fatwas to commit the act – like with Ayatollah Khomeini and Salman Rushdie – body bombs have become very popular, as we’ve seen in Pakistan!!

…on girls
Your Eyewitness is beside himself on this International Day for Women that we still don’t know who got that poor 14-year-old child pregnant – leading to her death. Whoever did the act automatically committed statutory rape – and by now someone should’ve been charged!!