…on food
There’s been a lot of talk about food recently in Guyana. Could it be because hunger stalks the land? People talk about what they don’t get, don’t they? We don’t talk about the air here, do we? But we would if we had the pollution of, say, Mexico City!! So back to the food talk. Or is it because of Diwali? Your Eyewitness just learnt Diwali began an autumn post-harvest festival!! Food!
Pressie went up to Linden and preached a new message: “Food it is; not bauxite and gold”. He was, of course, referring to the traditional economic mainstay of Region 10, which earned them the appellation of “Mining town”. This he was advising had to go – and food production was the way forward! Now, in and of itself, this wasn’t bad advice. Mining extracts stuff from the ground, and once it’s gone, it stays gone! At best, all the natives are left with are big holes in the ground.
Young folks forget the glory days of bauxite, when workers there were the nobility of the working class both in their rates of pay and living standards. Then there was nothing…zero…zilch. Lewis can blame the PPP all he wants, but both the PNC and PPP could do nothing in the end. And this is what’ll happen with gold in a while – and eventually oil.
So it seems Pressie has glimpsed this truth and is suggesting the good folks of Linden turn towards the production of food.
Your Eyewitness will pass over his refusal to make the spiel to the sugar belt, where thousands and thousands of acres of drained and irrigated land are being allowed to revert to “bush” (Wales) or sold as house lots (EBD). He wants to know how Pressie will get those Lindeners — who’ve been used to free electricity since the 1960s — to get their toes in the mud. Like they say, once they’ve seen the bright lights, how do you get them back on the farms? Especially when there weren’t any farms to begin with!
Then there’s a letter from a well-meaning returnee to Buxton about returning Guyana to the “breadbasket of the Caribbean”. He was bigging-up farming on the coast and reminding us about the Herculean efforts of the freed slaves in creating the Village Movement. But, in his enthusiasm, he missed the central point: why those heroic folks failed in the end. they didn’t develop a commercial export crop like bananas or arrowroot etc.
But the Government can change all of that at Wales, where there are African and Indian farmers and sugar workers who can do just that.
Why has the Government left them “on their own”?
…development fence
Your Eyewitness has finally figured out why Guyana economy’s shrinking faster than a star collapsing into a black hole. The PNC-led APNU/AFC government hasn’t the slightest clue as to what is “development”. And you don’t need the IDB’s scathing analytical conclusion that the lack of vision goes all the way to the top. Just look at that humungous article in the Chronic about the PNC going ga-ga over their massive “development” in Region 3 — a fence in front of their party headquarters!!
Can you believe this? Reflecting on the fence, a top PNC official complained that they’ve been “fixing a broken State,” which was inherited from the PPP. The PPP broke their fence? He continued, “This is a party of transformation, this party is on the move, it is one to be proud of!” A fence? The report concluded: “Amna Ally (Chairman of the PNC) indicated that the erection of the fence is testimony to the kind of leadership which the PNC has.”
It certainly does!!
…Rodney’s indomitable spirit
Celebrating their heroes, Jamaicans remembered Dr Walter Rodney and the invaluable role he played while teaching at UWI, Mona. He raised their consciousness to reject the neo-colonial Shearer government.
They asserted that “Rodney’s indomitable spirit lives on”. Maybe in Jamaica, but certainly not in Guyana!!
