…politics ever change?
Every day, your Eyewitness hears the moaning and groaning about our politicians and politics; and he shakes his head and wonders if folks really understand what politics is all about. The scoop on that primal human activity is that it’s about power over people – in the family, the village, the clan, the country etc; and how to get it, wield it, and keep it!!
In the beginning, you get power by TAKING it through brutish physical strength. And when you look behind all the innovations since we crawled out of caves – where we used to bop folks over their heads with clubs – things ain’t that much different today, are they?? Men still insist they’re the boss in the home, just because they happen to be bigger and stronger than women. Have you noticed all the chopping and killing incidents that take place when women try to assert their own desires and needs? That’s politics, baby!!
But at the national level, once we got rid of the kings – the fellas with the biggest armies – and convinced them with our bigger armies that everyone should have a share of the power to make decisions affecting them, we’ve concocted all sorts of schemes to achieve that nirvana!! And it is a nirvana in that, when you think about it, it’ll never be achieved!!
Take our situation in the here and now. Some wish for voting on issues to take over in Guyana; that is, that political parties would come up with their programmes in regard to how they would use the power we’ll hand to them to implement policies to better our lot. It sounds nice that folks would vote for political parties whose leaders just want to “do the right thing”!! But that ain’t gonna happen ever, will it?!!
If you’re a doubter, just look at all the countries we’ve been imitating politically and otherwise in this voting business. Britain?? Still supporting a soap opera monarchy, and their government officials pandering to vested interests to keep power!!
And ditto for the US, plus extras!! A president’s partisans invading the seat of government to overturn an election; the Supreme Court EXPANDING handgun ownership during mass shootings; and two presidential assassination attempts and counting! Hey!! Their voting patterns increasingly match their cleavages. In this case, they seem to be FOLLOWING us supposedly “backwards”.
So, what to do?? First, we gotta quit being unrealistic. The nature of power is to centralise itself in the hands of a few – the iron LAW of oligarchy. So, we gotta look at the personalities of those to whom we hand over power even more than their policies and promises, so that we pick those who are least megalomaniac.
Cause even then, power’s an aphrodisiac!!
…the bridge built in time?
So, our poor man’s infrastructural wonder: the longest “floating bridge” in the world — made from army surplus used to cross waterways during combat; a bridge that no other country would risk!! — is gonna be replaced come the end of March next year. We’re so assured by Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill – who’s gotta be the most active minister, what with the entire Government’s development strategy based on infrastructural projects. Build, baby; build!!
But your Eyewitness is kinda doubtful that the critical deadline – in time for the kinks to be sorted out before the 2025 elections – might slip by because of the politics being played by the Opposition. They’re encouraging some householders – with the help of their stable of lawyers – to refuse the Government’s most reasonable request to have them relocate from the path on the East Bank side. Even the courts have adjudged that their compensation is more than adequate.
But it’s all about politics, not economics, innit?? Stymie the PPP’s chance to score points!!
…Every daag…
It’s said that “Every daag gat ‘e day, but I gat de nite!!” So, now that LOO Aubrey Norton has stripped upcoming MP Jermaine “Figgy” Figueira of all party positions, will he follow Charrandas, whom he’d elbowed??
