…for whom?
There are plenty of Guyanese in America – especially in New York City, and more so in Brooklyn and Queens. See?? No one’s surprised by those last two names like, say, if your Eyewitness had mentioned Calumet Heights in Chicago. We aren’t surprised, because we ALL have relatives in Brooklyn or Queens, or maybe even visited there. Some of us know places like Flatbush more than we know our very own Albouystown!!
Anyhow, one peculiarity of our Guyanese people in “fareign” – especially the first-generation ones, who may go back all the way to the sixties when bell-bottoms were the rage! – is they have an abiding interest in Guyanese politics. And that ain’t surprising, since their identity was mostly shaped by the political struggle between the PPP and PNC “back home”. You can take the Guyanese from Guyana, but you can’t take their political bent that’s encoded in their DNA. And so it actually is, since our politics is split between Indian Guyanese supporting the PPP and African Guyanese supporting the PNC!! So, a constant in our political mobilization for elections – which is a never-ending process in Mudland! – has been for the politicians to trek up to the “City that never sleeps” to press the flesh. And not so incidentally press out some Yankee dollar bills for the hustings back home!!
For reasons we don’t have to go into right now, the political schism in Guyana ended up in NYC – not just in orientation to the two political behemoths, but geographically. The Indos ended up in the east (Queens) and the Afros in the west (Brooklyn); and as Kipling had noted in another context, never the twain shall meet!! So, we have replicated in NC a kinda segregation that is similar to the one that occurred in our villages during the 1960s.
But of recent – very recent – with the need to court votes from across the divide to win elections (unless you wanna rig!! the politicians have been giving the full-court press to all communities, not only in dear old Mudland, but in Region 11 (NYC!!). But a worrying development’s been US-based PNC activists lobbying for their “homeys” from Guyana.
Are they aware of 18 USC sec 951? “Whoever, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both…. For purposes of this section, the term ‘agent of a foreign government’ means an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official.”
Wouldn’t want orange jumpsuits for the Brooklyn posse!!
…against the tide
Now you, dear readers, would know your Eyewitness has a soft spot for America. He knows that, back in the sixties, they slapped that embargo on Cuba to stop the “demonstrator effect” from influencing other decolonizing states like Guyana. Hey…they were locked in a life-and-death battle with the USSR, weren’t they?? But after they won that war in 1989 – when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down – your Eyewitness was certain the embargo would’ve been lifted. Especially when even radicals like Jagan saw the light.
But here we are: the U.N. General Assembly – for the 31st time!! – has called on the US to end its now 60-year-old trade embargo against Cuba. Jeez, the island’s suffering its worst economic crisis in decades, with shortages of food, fuel and medicine!! The Yanks needed allies against their new challenger China, but didn’t garner any when the resolution was approved by 187 countries!! That only the United States and Israel voted against, and Ukraine abstaining, was damning!!
…for a cause
While we’re hearing a lot about Hamas and Gaza, what do we know about Hamas? Do we even know it’s not really a name, but an acronym?? Yep – HAMAS means “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya “ – the Islamic Resistance Movement!!
