Your Eyewitness believes we’ve reached an inflexion point in our history. After 300 years of colonialism’s slavery and indentureship and fifty-odd years (VERY odd!!) of “independence” under the PNC and PPP, we finally have the wherewithal to make our dreams come true. Yeah, we know the oil and gas money ain’t gonna last forever – but surely in the next three decades we can use it to create a platform for sustainable prosperity. Can’t we??
The problem is, we’ve been a house divided so long, we don’t know how to move out of that zero-sum mindset and transition to the win-win world that beckons. For the rest of this week, our politicians will most likely continue to show that meanness of spirit that’s held them in thrall since the infamous split of the PPP in 1955. Can’t they accept that oil isn’t a fairy godmother and not everything that ails us gonna be fixed with the wave of a wand. Oodles of oil money still mean that we gotta take time.
Your Eyewitness is reminded of an old ballad by the Nobel Prize-winning singer-poet Bob Dylan released as America plunged into its tumultuous sixties that changed them forever: The Times They Are A-Changin’:
Come gather ’round people/ Wherever you roam/ And admit that the waters/ Around you have grown/ And accept it that soon/ You’ll be drenched to the bone/ If your time to you is worth savin’/ And you better start swimmin’/ Or you’ll sink like a stone/ For the times they are a-changin’ Come writers and critics/ Who prophesize with your pen/ And keep your eyes wide/ The chance won’t come again/ And don’t speak too soon/ For the wheel’s still in spin/ And there’s no tellin’ who/ That it’s namin’/ For the loser now/ Will be later to win/ For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen/ Please heed the call/ Don’t stand in the doorway/ Don’t block up the hall/ For he that gets hurt/ Will be he who has stalled/ The battle outside ragin’/ Will soon shake your windows/ And rattle your walls/ For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers/ Throughout the land/ And don’t criticize/ What you can’t understand/ Your sons and your daughters/ Are beyond your command/ Your old road is rapidly agin’/ Please get out of the new one/ If you can’t lend your hand/ For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn/ The curse it is cast/ The slow one now/ Will later be fast/ As the present now/ Will later be past/ The order is rapidly fadin’/ And the first one now/ Will later be last/ For the times they are a-changin’.
For Guyana.
…are interesting
There’s the seemingly innocuous Chinese wish, “May you live in interesting times.” Turns out it’s actually a curse!! “Interesting times” means uncertainty and danger!! We need our times to be quite predictable and know what’s ahead so we can prepare for it!! Well, for us in Guyana, there are several possible developments that may make our lives “interesting”. Your Eyewitness has been highlighting the US’s seeming pivot to Venezuela on a number of fronts. No matter what anyone says, Venezuela’s not our friend.
Another potentially troublesome development is the US taking on Russia through their Ukrainian and European allies – and simultaneously declaring they intend to curtail China’s influence in our neck of the woods – LA and the Caribbean. And then there’s the not-unrelated inflationary pressures that’re driven by the war in Ukraine – which looks likely to stretch out. The confluence of these factors – all externally driven – means that there’s only so much we can do about it!
Our political leadership gotta dance between the raindrops!!
…for a new language?
Into these changin’ times comes the suggestion that Hindi should be introduced into our schools. Your Eyewitness thought it was already in the schools’ curriculum – and was just not taught for lack of interest.
But now that India’s rising…?
