Your Eyewitness must confess that Phagua – or Holi, as it’s also called – is right up there on top of his hit parades of festivals. What could be better? Here it is, all Guyana was exhorted to express our joy on evil being defeated! And how? By going around our neighbourhoods dousing all and sundry with water, and then, in the afternoon, following it up with powders of all colours and abrack, then for good measure, sharing out all those wonderful, delectable sweets!!
The thing your Eyewitness noticed, however, was that the “evil being defeated” part of Phagua was generally forgotten. As such, Holi’s gradually becoming another West Indian “jump-up”!! This is very unfortunate, since, in Guyana, we don’t have to go back to that ancient story of a kid bringing down his father – with the help of Divine Intervention – because he oppressed the people. Right here we had Granger and his PNC trying to drag us back into the dark ages of Burnham’s rigged elections!
And they were defeated through brave Guyanese of all persuasions and ages standing firm as “Defenders of Democracy”, to repel the obscene and evil act that is elections’ rigging! All Guyanese know that when Burnham did his thing, he didn’t give a damn, because he knew the international community that police the international order would balk. He was their “lesser of two evils”, compared with Cheddi and the PPP, and he “could do wha he waan wid we”!! But those days are gone, and the international community added their moral suasion to the equation – and evil was defeated!!
Your Eyewitness thinks that it might be a good idea for us Guyanese to make these explicit connections – if for no other reason than to remind folks that evil wasn’t only done back in the mists of history. It lurks in the here and now, always ready to pounce – through persons with evil minds and intentions. How else could you explain what happened back in the elections of March 2020?? You had everyone agreeing to the rules of the (political) game: that the Government would be chosen by the votes of the people.
But when the PNC saw the majority of the people hadn’t chosen them, they decided to “cock the work”!! What kind of people does that? Evil people, that’s who. So yes, their defeat should be celebrated with joyous abandon by all Guyanese. It doesn’t matter if it was “our” party. Evil is evil, and must be defeated.
Or else it’ll bring us all down. Like Burnham did during his time!! Remember the starvation, homelessness and nakedness that was the result of his “feed, clothe and house the nation” programme?
Be ready to defeat evil at all times!
…war plague
With Russian ground forces getting bogged down in their Ukraine campaign, some think it’s because some soldiers don’t have the belly to mow down folks who might be relatives and all that. Well, that theory will soon be tested. Word is that, in a quid pro quo arrangement, Syria’s recruiting 40,000 troops that’s gonna be deployed to back Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia and Putin, of course, had backed Assad to the hilt against his enemies of all stripes – including the US – and it’s now payback time.
These Syrian troops are battle-hardened men who haven’t been able to get jobs in post-war Syria, or are working for peanuts. The pay on the Ukraine front is twenty times as much. Like with those Colombians in Haiti, there’s a lot of battle-hardened mercenaries for hire around. It’s now that the war is going to get real nasty.
Is there any hope of a peace settlement soon? Not when others are doing the killing for both sides!!
…refugees
What’s with the Venezuelan refugees being shunted from region to region? In dealing with refugees, these matters must be coordinated by the authorities, who have to think strategically.
While helping, we must watch out for Maduro’s infiltrators.
