…PNC spoilsport
It’s clear there’s gonna be no rest for your Eyewitness from politics this Christmas. Just when he thought a one-day respite was in sight, up comes Hamilton Green with another of his outrageous interventions that can’t be allowed to go unrebutted. He responded to David Granger’s parting shot to the PNC Congress that booted the latter out. The Sanctimonious Gangster had (sanctimoniously) bemoaned those he claimed had left the PNC and WEAKENED it. He included Sydney (Eusi Kwayana) King and Hamilton Green.
David Hinds had quickly “upsed” Granger to point out that King hadn’t “left” in the 60s, but was expelled. Maybe not wanting to be too prolix, he didn’t point out the reason for the expulsion. King vehemently disagreed with Burnham, who’d said that independence for Guyana was paramount, and he’d accept it – even if Jagan won the elections!! King would rather have no independence under Jagan!!
Now up comes Green – whom Granger had honoured with an “Order of Roraima”, and enriched with a $20+million annual pension – to claim HE’d also been EXPELLED!! But what’s most interesting is that this defender of “democracy” had the chutzpah to boast about the reason for his expulsion. He’d insulted the incumbent PNC Leader Desmond Hoyte – in and out of party fora – for being an “uneducated schoolboy” for accepting the banning of overseas voting in 1992!! It was through overseas voting, of course, that elections’ rigging had been introduced in Guyana, when Burnham had horses in England vote in our elections!! In a word, Green wanted the PNC to continue rigging in 1992!
Ditto in 2020 also, when he advised Granger to “put aside the Constitution” – which Granger had taken an oath to uphold! – after the recount had shown another rigging underway!! Green, of course, is placing himself squarely with those who stridently denounced Granger for accepting the verdict of the Caricom-observed recount and agitated for him to be removed!! Their position is that democracy doesn’t really mean achieving power though the ballot box, but seizing it through whatever means necessary!! Green and his ilk see Granger keeping his oath to the Constitution as a weakness!
And it’s for this reason that your Eyewitness is a tad worried when Green expressed pleasure at Aubrey Norton’s accession to the PNC leadership. He said this “gives us hope, and I expect that particularly the young ones would seek and take wise counsel from experience, and those who have been burnished by the heat of the most dangerous period of our history.” God help Guyana if the new leadership of the PNC listens to people like Green who – by his own declaration – consistently supports violating the constitution.
Please cry for democracy, Guyana.
…WPA spoilsport
An expatriate WPA activist weighed in on an ongoing discussion in the press about the roles of Burnham, Jagan and the US in our affairs during the independence era and its aftermath. He discerned a new problem from the writings of some of the Indian-Guyanese critics of Burnham, Jagan, and the latter’s seeming naivety about US Cold War politics – “victim mentality”. Moving from his imputation, he goes on to state categorically, “An exploration of the “victim” mentality of Indians in Guyana holds the key to the understanding of our “perceptions and beliefs” of what Guyana is all about.
Well!! Talk about bootstrapping!! Now, “victim mentality” refers to those who invoke PUTATIVE reasons for their dishevelled conditions – by shifting responsibility to others. Is this fellow saying that Burnham didn’t ACTUALLY inflict hardships specifically on Indian-Guyanese while constructing his dictatorship? That the US has no responsibility for turning a blind eye? That’s like blaming African-Americans for a “victim mentality” when they point out they’re still affected by slavery!
And he’s WPA?
…and pepper-pot
This afternoon, your Eyewitness will be putting his family’s traditional pepper-pot on the slow fyaah – as he’s done for years.
With all this proprietary black pudding talk, he hopes no one will accuse him of “cultural appropriation”!
