Politics, they say, is a dirty game. It’s also said that politics is a continuation of war by other means. Now, this isn’t meant to be descriptive of what politics OUGHT to be, but what politics IS in our ‘dog eat dog’ world. And that’s the crux of the matter, innit?? The problem with our politics comes out of the broader enveloping world we live in – with its values all about looking out for Number 1. If that’s the logic of our politics, can we be surprised that we live like – to use a colloquial term – crabs in a barrel??
But if we agreed with Hobbes — that we formed governments to create societies in which life isn’t “nasty, short and brutish” — then something gotta be seriously wrong if that’s still the description of our lives!! Well, in Guyana, we’re proud to say we practise “democratic” politics. Mostly, we mean that we go to the polls every five years to cast our votes for the political party we think would form the government to deliver a better life for us. But, sadly, because the “we” in our country means OUR ethnic group, our history shows some are willing to “bruk up” the place to prevent the other side from getting in – or remaining in, government!!
That history shows the PNC and UF were weaned into “bruking up politics” by the colonial countries who wanted to control even after they gave us “independence”. We all should know about Black Friday of 1962, when half of downtown Georgetown was burnt to the ground by those two parties. They continued with their burning ways during the virtual civil war of the sixties, and this simmered with “choke-and-rob”, then “kick-down-the-door” banditry into the 1980s. When free and fair elections ejected them from office, they returned to their burning ways with the added fillip of armed gangs creating mayhem across the country!! They were willing to “bruk up” the place to prevent the PPP from governing.
And this brings us to our present politics, when some thought there would be a “kinder, gentler” PNC under Granger. But to hold onto power, he was as willing as Burnham to rig the elections – and just as insidiously to wreak havoc on the lives of our people. Guyanese should never forget that it was the Sanctimonious Gangster who threw gasoline into our combustible politics when he insisted that the murders of those two Henry boys in West Berbice were racially motivated!!
He and his right-hand man — and the GHRA — didn’t give a hoot that the almost certain ensuing racial conflagration could bring down the entire country. It was all about keeping power, and the Devil take the hindmost!!
…morality
In general, the political violence unleashed by the PNC – described above – was confined to our coastlanders. While the two major parties courted the Indigenous Peoples in our hinterland, those peoples were spared being dragged into the internecine warfare. But times change, and the changing tides of politics also change!! Neither of the two evenly-matched dominant groups on the coast command a clear majority on their own, and so the 10% Indigenous Peoples now tilt the scale one way or the other. The stakes are that much higher to secure their votes!!
So, we see the Opposition now dragging them into the coastland violent politics that veers. We have two instances in front of us right now!! In one, a 37-year-old Indigenous Toshao – about to be best graduating student in the Nursing Assistant programme – was stabbed 19 times after he brought an individual back to his hotel room.
Imagine, a PNC MP blamed the Govt for what was clearly a crime of passion! The perpetrator, however, soon confessed!!
…kindness
The second instance concerns a group of fifty Warraus from Reg 2 claiming Pres Ali personally invited them to GT – and then abandoned them!!
Shouldn’t Pressie be given the benefit of the doubt and the incident investigated?
