…Marx
Over the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of ink spilled over and around Cheddi Jagan – mainly whether he was a Commie or not. This is a regular feature of the month of March in our dear Mudland – occasioned, to be sure, because the man from Port Mourant was born and died in the month of March. The former on the 22nd and the latter on the 6th. The infamous “Ides of March” – which is supposed to be very unlucky and on which Julius Caesar was assassinated – falls on the 15th of March – and just happens to be today!! All your Eyewitness can say is he hopes that today would be just another regular day in Mudland – meaning that the Opposition or one of its proxies would be out there creating some kind of dissent or another. Resumption of teachers’ strike, anyone??
Anyhow, your Eyewitness wants you to know that Karl Marx – the fella whose theories led our Cheddi into all sorts of bother – also died in March – on the 14th, to be exact. He was also born exactly a hundred years before Cheddi, so maybe their destinies were intertwined?? Maybe you think that Marx was a hard-nosed kinda guy who didn’t have much truck with signs and portents and such stuff. But you would be wrong!! But then, you wouldn’t think that the man who wrote “Das Capital” and “The Communist Manifesto” wrote reams of love poems – but he did!! And this even though he suffered from headaches, eye inflammation, joint pain, insomnia, liver and gallbladder problems, and depression!!
So, here’s one of his poems, titled “To Jenny”! Jenny! Teasingly you may inquire/ Why my songs “To Jenny” I address,/ When for you alone my pulse beats higher,/ When my songs for you alone despair,/ When you only can their heart inspire,/ When your name each syllable must confess,/ When you lend each note melodiousness,/ When no breath would stray from the Goddess?/ ’Tis because so sweet the dear name sounds,/ And its cadence says so much to me,/ And so full, so sonorous it resounds,/ Like to vibrant Spirits in the distance,/ Like the gold-stringed Cithern’s harmony,/ Like some wondrous, magical existence.
See! I could a thousand volumes fill,/ Writing only “Jenny” in each line,/ Still they would a world of thought conceal,/ Deed eternal and unchanging Will,/ Verses sweet that yearning gently still,/ All the glow and all the Aether’s shine,/ Anguished sorrow’s pain and joy divine,/ All of Life and Knowledge that is mine./ I can read it in the stars up yonder,/ From the Zephyr it comes back to me,/ From the being of the wild waves’ thunder./ Truly, I would write it down as a refrain,/ For the coming centuries to see –/ LOVE IS JENNY, JENNY IS LOVE’S NAME.
…Haiti was a star
Black holes are stars that exploded as Supernovas -expelling all lighter elements. The gravitational pull of the remaining mass is so intense that nothing – not even light – can escape. The star then becomes black – total absence of light – and the powerful gravitational field sucks in and crushes everything it encounters. The social replica of this process is Haiti.
Haiti was once a star whose enslaved masses overthrew the French occupiers and became the world’s first black Republic. But it exploded when the French – in conjunction with the new American Republic – imposed a “war debt” that expelled all the hard-earned finance the new republic was able to earn – for a hundred years!! What was left in Haiti remained so pitiful that dictators like Papa Doc and his son Baby Doc ensured that the remaining Haitians remain crushed.
And it’s for this reason that the Int’l community mustn’t just change leaders – but destroy the system!!
…resiliency
So, UG just won a prize for teaching courses in resiliency and security strategy. So, hadn’t the ex-VC, who was an expert in this area, develop a programme to make THE INSTITUTION resilient and self-sufficient?? What happened??
