…those resolutions
As Rod Steward crooned (or “croaked”!), “Tonight’s the night” – Old Year’s night, that is. Or “New Year’s Eve”, if you will. As to whether “it’s gonna be all right”, the jury’s out on that!! But since folks will be preparing their “New Year’s Resolutions”, maybe your Eyewitness can offer some suggestions to some movers and shakers who might help nudge things in the right direction for the next year at least.
Your Eyewitness will begin with the politicians, since he knows that no matter what some may want to believe, in our dear land of Guyana, politics trumps EVERYTHING! So what resolutions should our young President Ali make? We don’t have to worry about him resolving to ensure our development – which was kidnapped and held hostage by the rapacious PNC. Being head of the PPP slate, you know he’s dead serious about fulfilling their Manifesto Plans – as should be evident to one and all in the five short months he’s been President. Has any other administration EVER in our history done even half as much is such a short time?
What he should resolve to do is to face down the mayhem we all know the PNC gonna be launching as they see the PPP eating into their support base – through their even-handed development programme. As Granger and his cohorts in the PNC are challenged by various factions of the PNC that have sprung up, they’ll all compete with each other in the extremism department. So, on the maxim “forewarned is forearmed”, let’s get those water cannons operational!
As for Granger, he should resolve to follow in the footsteps of an old soldier who was the real deal – General Douglas MacArthur. In his farewell address to an unprecedented joint session of Congress, he quoted from the famous soldier’s ballad: ‘Old soldiers never die -they just fade away,’ saying, “And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away.” Granger should accept he’s no Eisenhower – who transitioned successfully from the army into politics. He was mediocre in the military – just a lapdog to Burnham as the latter used the military to cling on to power. And he was even more mediocre in politics when he threw away his opportunity to consolidate consensual politics.
With the foregoing advice on resolutions to Granger, your Eyewitness moves on to some ambitious young gun from inside the PNC, who may be raring to go. And the resolution is: don’t repeat Granger’s fatal mistake to craft a coalition in order to win an election – then treat the coalition partners like sh’t.
With all groups now minorities, all it’ll take to win elections is maintain good relations!
…an old-fashioned Old Years’ Night
With COVID-19 showing no sign of easing up, your Eyewitness once again takes the opportunity to remind all you dear readers out there that tonight, please stay off the beaten path to your favourite nightspot. While Ramjattan’s curfew never made much sense to your Eyewitness, because who’ll imbibe will imbibe regardless, with that pesky virus lurking to jump into your lungs, it’s like playing Russian Roulette to be among crowds at this time.
And we know that if you’re in that club, come midnight, you and everyone in the joint (that’ll be jumpin’) will be belting out not just “Auld Lang Syne”, but also the aforementioned microscopic critters. So, instead, whip up a good, old-fashioned cook-up, whip up some eggnog, gather the family around, and retell those old stories of how it was “in the bad old days of Burnham”!
It’ll be a cautionary tale that’ll serve them well in the coming year, and will ensure you’ll be there with them.
…the new year
It’s not because your Eyewitness is a “glass-half-full” kinda guy that he believes next year can’t possibly be worse than 2020.
It’s because the Sanctimonious Gangster won’t be around to dole out Cool Aid to his supporters!
