Well, today’s gonna be the last Sunday in 2024 – and the last Sunday your Eyewitness will get to throw back before he’s caught up in the whirlpool into which he’s gonna be dragged come New Year’s Eve – on Tuesday night!! He comes from a long tradition of hanging out with his buddies at the street corner – whipping up a pot of cook-up rice and imbibing his native land’s number 1 liquid product, rum!! – to welcome the New Year. It’s not for nothing that the original name for what we now call “rum” was “kill-devil” or “rumbullion” – meaning “a great uproar”! – and by 1667 was shortened to “rum”!! Behaving bad goes with rum drinking!!
His particular preference is the “Kill Devil Guyana 18-Year-Old Single Cask Rum” that was brewed at Uitvlugt Distillery in December 1999 – right before its closure and merger with DDL!! A “large” goes for over US$200 a pop!! Now, to be honest, he ain’t gonna be quaffing this brew come Tuesday night!! The more down-to-earth Eldorado will make the rounds to moisten the throat and lubricate the tongue!! Now, some may say your Eyewitness is literally promoting the Devil’s work!! Mebbe! But he’s also maintaining a long tradition started during slavery – when the Massa would share out some of the Kill Devil at this time of the year to the enslaved. They’d then drink their fill and drown their sorrows into their bottle – or calabash.
So, what will your Eyewitness and his pals sing about this year-end?? Right off the top will be who collected their $100,000, and who didn’t!! Since this fact will figure prominently as to who will cough up what to fund the shindig, it should occupy quite a chunk of discussions – and even raised voices!! The other topic, of course, will be politics – religion being permanently off the board by mutual agreement!! His group being a mixed one – in all the ways that’s known in our Mudland – the gyaaf can become heated.
But this year, he expects matters to simmer down. After all, for three years, the Government’s been plunking down some serious money in his neighbourhood – some ending up in every pocket!! Some Opposition friends will echo those social media extremists who claim “the other side” was getting more!! But your Eyewitness knows when they compare notes from all sides of the spectrum, peace and harmony gonna be returned and reign for the night!!
Now, this doesn’t mean all his Opposition friends will be voting PPP. Voting for “one’s” party goes deep into our pysche and ain’t changed willy-nilly.
But your Eyewitness is encouraged that the temperature won’t rise – as they usually do when election year comes around!!
…British Education
The Brits once ran an empire on which, they boasted, “the sun never sets”!! They did this not only by force, as some claim – but through ‘education” that was tailored – literally cut to fit!! – to make their subjects accept their subordination!! Remember how our freed enslaved people were schooled to accept they must “bear their chafe” and they’ll be rewarded in the “hereafter”?? They, of course, were rewarded right here!!
But a funny thing’s happening now that the empire is gone – the erstwhile “independent” people are paying billions for British Education!! Last year alone, 500,000 people earned British Degrees – led by Bahrain, Dubai, China, and Malaysia!! These countries have also emerged as major hubs for offshore programmes run by British institutions. Collaborative provisions, including franchising, accounted for 43% of transnational education in Britain during the past year!!
Not to be outdone, we, in our supposedly ex-colonial outpost, are clamouring for British education; and those who “get through” snort in derision at those who’re educated locally!! Go figure!!
…Manmohan Singh’s hosannahs
Manmohan Singh – the first non-Hindu PM of India – just died at the ripe age of 92. A Sikh, he was the architect of India’s success; built on removal of the “license raj” and introduction of liberalization of the economy!!
