…yet losing in Guyana
Your Eyewitness is always happy on public holidays. Apart from not having to beat his head against his dashboard fighting his way through the traffic to his workplace in Georgetown, he can “throw back” and reflect on the reasons for the public holidays in the first place. This year, his reflections didn’t get the usual lubrication from the old friends who’d drop by and reminisce about “the good old days”.
Zoom, however, has literally opened up whole new vistas for “bussing a gyaaf”. With a click on the keypad, you can hook up with buddies who might be as far away as in Timbuktu or Outer Mongolia. But with most of Guyana ending up in the States or Canada, it was with fellas from what is aptly now known as “Region 11” that your Eyewitness shared his Independence banter.
And, as usual, that banter centred on the fact that the more things change in the world, the more they remain the same for Guyana. Most of them are concerned about what lies ahead with the PNC a nursing its (mostly self-inflicted) wounds, but blaming the PPP and “outside forces”. All of them, after all, were driven abroad by the PNC’s depredations in their “homeland”, and with the benefit of distance, whatever hope they had of that party changing its stripes had evaporated after the former’s elections shenanigans during last year. Stripes, they seemed to’ve concluded, can’t be changed – especially when their presence aren’t even acknowledged.
Take the rigging. One friend from Texas volunteered, “The PNC supporters still won’t concede that rigging elections isn’t the way to build any kind of political consensus inside a divided country. And like they did with Burnham, they’re giving the present leaders a blank cheque for extreme behaviour!” Playing the Devil’s advocate, I suggested that with the oil wealth soon to percolate through the economy, maybe this would make the politics less zero-sum?
That elicited a derisive hoot from Mr. Ft Lauderdale – who used to be an old habitué of Demico House. “My friends, the PNC will never tell its supporters that they’re doing better under the PPP, but will convince them they’re being marginalised and discriminated against! Weren’t they doing better after 1992? Didn’t so many studies show that? But that didn’t stop African Freedom Fighters from launching attacks against the Police and Indians!”
The New Yorker butted in, “Budday!! Yuh na need flambeau fuh see in bright daylight! Da boat done gaan a watah! Yuh na see how dem chaps a stir up trouble frum ova heah every day? Deh sendin’ back big money fuh mek big trouble, bai!!”
And that was how things went down for your Eyewitness on “Independence Day”!
Inspiring, eh?
…in Gaza and Israel
Well, it looks like after 11 days of Israeli-provoked aerial strikes and counter strikes between them and Hamas, the US/Egypt-brokered ceasefire’s holding. So now for the post-mortem about “who won”. With a body count of 248 Palestinians (including dozens of children) killed and 2000+ wounded – versus just 12 Israelis (including 2 children) killed and a similar number wounded, it might appear that Israel won. Especially considering the similarly skewed damage to buildings.
But the Palestinians always knew (ironically?) it was a David and Goliath thing. Consider the US$ billion Israeli Iron Dome that blocked Hamas’s comparatively primitive missiles. But what to do against their people’s systematic expulsion from their homes to make way for Jewish settlers? But through their bravery, Hamas showed that Israel couldn’t stop them from firing their missiles to the very end. And that these misfiles will be inevitably improved.
Most importantly, there was widespread revulsion – even in the US – against the Israeli aggression.
…but not against COVID-19
Sadly, along with our Caricom neighbours Trinidad and Suriname, we seem destined to follow Brazil’s scary trajectory on the COVID-19 death rates.
Has PAHO confirmed the presence of the Brazilian variant in our territories?
