…for the country
The Yanks are the ones who introduced a “constitution”, which set out in writing how their new country – formed by kicking out the Brits – would be run. The Brits, who also began ruling us 25 years later, never bothered with written rules. They relied on their institutions doing the “right thing” – with the Courts adjudicating what that was, as decided by their legislature. The Yanks accepted that, as circumstances changed, the rules would have to be changed, and they included rules on how this was to be done in their constitution itself.
We, of course, got a constitution when we became independent from the Brits – and your Eyewitness has just found out that it was drafted by Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, who was AG in Burnham’s government. He produced a constitution that the Brits found acceptable; still, soon enough, by 1980, when Burnham had rigged every election after independence, to rule with more power that the British Monarchs of yore ever had – the Ramphal constitution was thrown out, and Burnham’s new AG, Mohamed Shahabuddeen, produced one that “legalised” his one-man rule!!
Against this background, we must contextualize the present Opposition – the majority from that same party of Burnham – stamping their feet and screaming “constitutional change or else!!” They complain that the constitution ain’t “democratic enough” – even though they did the same when they lost the 1997 elections and unleashed massive street violence to force massive changes to the constitution – which they had found acceptable while Burnham and Hoyte were ruling!!
And pretty soon we began to see a pattern emerging!! After ever loss at the polls, the demand for constitutional change would rise to a crescendo, and protest marches would be launched, with some condign beatings of PPP supporters thrown in for good measure!!
There was also a pattern in the constitutional changes demanded: they were all geared towards giving the Opposition more power; ending in the present with the demand for the PPP government to explicitly SHARE POWER. Even though they’d also made this promise when they eventually were voted into power in 2015, they had thrown it out the window!!
So, your Eyewitness will bet you dollars to donuts that the only thing coming out of this exercise will be another exercise in déjà vu!! Sure, some well-meaning people are gonna deliver some well-thought-out proposals, most likely based on some institution or other that works in some other country. But, in the end, nothing short of getting their grimy little hands on executive power would satisfy these Opposition wankers!!
Didn’t the fella who wrote the Indian Constitution wisely advise us: “However good a constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad”?!!
…for cricket
If we inherited the rules of governance from the Brits via the Yanks, interestingly, the Brits have sworn that they learnt the rules of “good” behaviour on their cricket fields!! That’s right! Those who broke the unwritten rules would be told, “That’s not cricket, old chap!!”, and they’d be embarrassed to not repeat their transgression. Well, after the eliminator game between Trinidad and Barbados, the Trinis are complaining bitterly that the way they were eliminated wasn’t cricket!! As we – and the world – know, three floodlights for that night game went off with the Trinis’ innings – batting first – incomplete. That was an unprecedented event; one that stained our national reputation!! There were no rules in place to deal with this contingency, so what was there to do?? Very sensibly, in the opinion of your Eyewitness, the officials decided to deal with it the same as they would deal with any other interruption – like, say, for rain. This left a limited time for the Bajans to bat, so they made it into a 5-over game, which the Bajans won!!
Sad, but that’s cricket!!
…on the elderly
It’s a tautology to say this country was built by the elderly. We gotta do better by them. Shouldn’t those Government agencies from which they gotta collect pensions etc deliver it to their homes??
Ow, man!!
