…from bondage??
You never know, do you?? Change can sometimes come from the unlikeliest source!! Take this wretched subject of work – where our bodies are unfortunately involved when we gotta provide our “labour”. From the dawn of time, this has proved to be a challenge, since some fellas with big clubs started bopping others over the heads to get them to provide the labour – while they rested and frolicked with the babes in their caves!! And thence to “nobles” exploiting serfs, and in our neck of the woods, whites exploiting us natives as “slaves” and “Indentured” labourers.
Fast forward to 19th century Europe, when embodied labour was demanded by factories – and a pittance was paid for it – along came a fella named Karl Marx. Before him, there were some who dubbed themselves “socialists”, and said that it wasn’t fair as to how some were living high off the hog while others – the ones providing their labour – were getting the entrails and knuckles!! They proposed that when stuff was produced by labour, there should be instituted this principle of distribution of the spoils: “To each according to his contribution, from each according to his abilities”.
Marx then decided that even if this could be achieved, it still wasn’t fair enough. He proposed the COMMUNIST slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme. Since then, revolutions have broken out all over the world. “Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains!!” – hundreds of millions were killed trying to get those principles in place, even as something called trade union was invented to get a better deal for workers and their labour!! These unions – after great struggles – were able to have employers accept that they could withhold their services – strike – to force them to treat them fairly on wages and working conditions. They probably got their inspiration from the oldest profession, whose slogan was “no money; no love”!!
Well, here in Guyana, one Judge of the High Court – who’re usually quite conservative and are bastions of the status quo – just went one better that even Karl Marx! In the case brought to him by the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) when they went on strike and the MoE didn’t pay them for the time they were off the job, the Judge declared, “If you go on strike for a good cause – here that they wanted more money, like every other worker on Planet Earth!! – then your employer HAS to keep paying you!!”
The rule for hundreds of years – no work, no pay which even Karl agreed with – is abolished!!
Your Eyewitness is striking next week!!
…on pretending
Your Eyewitness remembers his childhood, when he used to “make believe” with his friends about all sorts of things. They used to enjoy pretending to be “cowboys and Indians” – when you had the opportunity to kill off as many Injuns as you could. They were the “bad guys”, according to the movies they lapped up! Anyhow, it would now appear that grownups – in really HIGH places – also like to play at pretending.
Here we have it that – as you figured by recent columns from your normally stoic Eyewitness – he was scared witless by Israel and Iran bombing each other and starting WWIII. Which could’ve spread all the way to Mudland, since both of these countries have nukes!! Even though no one admits that…wink, wink!! But we’re all now seeing that they were just pretending to be attacking each other. Much like your Eyewitness and his friends from a bygone era!!
The only problem is that, while they pretend, over 30,000 Palestinians are dead. For real!!
…in the PNC
In politics, there are all sorts of names for efforts secretly plotted and suddenly executed to overthrow leaders. There’s “palace revolution” and “coups”, but your Eyewitness’s favourite is the German “putsch” — pronounced “pooch”!!
