…where fools thread
Now that the Government has come out with a proposal to address the demand that the word “negro” be banned from the vocabulary of officialdom, does anyone out there believe this matter has been settled? Your Eyewitness certainly doesn’t think so!! And yes, he knows this is a subject in which “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”!! But it gotta be faced! Let’s take the actual demand: it was that the folks whom the GPF and the medical fraternity dubbed “negroes” be called “African Guyanese”. And what was the Government’s response? They are called “Guyanese of African descent”!!
Now, you may say that they both amount to the same thing, innit? They’re Guyanese who happen to be of African descent. But your Eyewitness is taking bets – he’ll give out the odds later! – that the Government’s formulation ain’t gonna go down with the proponents of “African Guyanese”!! Why? you ask, dear reader. Well, as ole Forbes Burnham used to say, the call was “the occasion for the war, not the CAUSE of the war”!!
And the cause is that the PPP must go – by any means necessary!! Which, of course, was what brought about the whole rigmarole, to begin with!! On that particular social media platform, hardly a day goes by without one or the other caller not announcing the quick and dirty way to get rid of the “illegally installed PPP regime”! The one that got the Government’s notice just happened to be very graphic. However, when yuh dead yuh dead – it doesn’t matter how yuh get dead, right??
So, the first response coming – your Eyewitness believes – is that those who were making the demand weren’t consulted in the answer to the demand. And even though it was the UN that came up with the description “People of African Descent”, the demanders will say they didn’t ask for THAT!! Then will come an alliance with those who’ll object to being designated “People of Amerindian Descent”!! Wasn’t it Columbus who was so arrogant that he announced he DISCOVERED a place where people were already living?!!
And called them “Indians”, even though he was 15,000 miles from that country!! And to rub salt into their wounds, when the mistake was discovered, rather than designating them by what they called themselves, settled on AMER-Indians – to distinguish them from those folks who ran around with turbans!! They may demand they be called Loconos – which is what they called themselves.
Anyhow, now that the subject has been raised and the Government has acknowledged the call, the floodgates are open. One suggestion is: maybe the Government can fight fire with fire. Announce that they won’t respond until they’re addressed as the “Legally Elected Government”!!
…into politics
Folks aren’t corrupt only in business, are they?? There’s a lot of hypocrisy about corruption by only focusing from that angle. What about corruption in rigging elections from 1968 to 1985?? To accomplish that feat, didn’t the PNC corrupt thousands – and generations – of Guyanese to steal the votes of their fellow citizens?? Didn’t this corruption become a way of life?? Does anyone think the corruption could be compartmentalized so it didn’t spill over into every other aspect of life??
Wasn’t it corruption when all those policemen seized “banned” goods and only returned them for “services” from women?? What about the bribes for every service by the Public Service (!!), like getting birth certificates!??! Isn’t that when petty corruption joined with corruption at the top, so that corruption became power, and absolute corruption became absolute power??
We all had to become complicit, since we knew the dictator was corrupt. The dictator knew he was corrupt, but we stayed quiet – lest he be assassinated like poor Walter.
…corruption
Since corruption is endemic to the human condition, the best we can do is to keep it from overwhelming us. If those in charge wanna protect their own interest, they’ll ensure there’s some milk left for the calf!!
