From on high…
…into politics
When a big storm is brewing, you can tell ahead of time by the cockroaches streaming out of the ground. With what some have dubbed “the mother of all elections” scheduled in three months, the intensity of the coming political storm can be judged by the number of political players coming out of the woodwork. They can’t be called “political parties”, since none of them has shown that they’ve got ANY following on the ground.
All we see are “leaders” gathered in air-conditioned rooms in G/town pontificating on how they’ll solve whatever they feel ails Guyana. In one instance, we had a single “leader”, who chaired the press conference; got up and introduced himself as the leader of his party, and thanked non-existing “members of the head-table”!! Either we have very confident or very delusional citizens in this land! Take your pick.
The latest to throw, if not their hats then their collars, into the rings – and you know dear reader, elections in Guyana are three ring circuses! – is a group of pastors. They announced they represent the “People’s Republic Party” (PRP). Guess they couldn’t call themselves the more obvious “Pastors Political Party”, since the acronym “PPP” is already taken!! That they insisted they’ll be “governed by godly principles” was expected, but your Eyewitness wondered not so idly as to whose “God’s principles” they meant.
Having been subjected to many bible-thumping harangues as a kid, he knew these pastors rejected all other gods as “false” – so there went Allah and the 350 million gods of the Hindus out of the door. But since Christianity’s the major religion in Guyana, one suspects the pastors weren’t risking much if they alienated the latter’s benighted adherents!! But then your Eyewitness read that the pastors weren’t going to be harvesting souls, but pursuing “job creation, economic development, and diversifying the economy”!
Whatever happened, he wondered, to the injunction from sweet Jesus Himself, when asked whether taxes should be paid to the Roman State: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”?? On this the Catholics (Thomist or Gelasian doctrine) were as one with the Protestants’ Lockean way of separation of church and state. Even though the Gelasians did scoff at earthy rulership, which they held to be inferior to ruling in heaven!
But is it possible that this is a radical bunch of pastors who agree with Gandhi’s interpretation of Jesus’s instruction about religion and politics?? The Mahatma claimed that Jesus’s whole preaching and practice point unmistakably to non-cooperation, which necessarily includes non-payment of taxes. Take that, you blood-suckers!!
If this is so, then your Eyewitness says (with raised, clenched fist!) “Right on, pastors!!”
…taken for a chump
Learning that the drone company is a start-up and the drones are “experimental”, your Eyewitness reprises his initial reaction when Ramjattan broached the subject years ago. He assumed Ramjattan was talking about those drones the US deploys from deep under the mountains of Nebraska to take out targets in, say, Afghanistan. Ramjattan did say the drones would fly “hundreds” of miles out and then back! Never in his wildest dreams did he think Ramjattan meant drones that are used by American farmers to check on their crops, or oil pipeline companies to check on their…well…pipelines!!
The longest-range drones from Skyfront fly 60 miles tops…in over five hours max!! Exactly where will Ramjattan situate the soldiers controlling the drones in the bush to get the best use of the range?? But more to the point: how come Ramjattan’s paying US$165,000 for a drone that costs one third of that to customers in the states??
Is he feathering his nest before he’s dumped??
…solving the “gay problem”
The pastors party signalled they won’t be party to the evolving Guyanese consensus on LGBTQ acceptance. They insist marriage is a “union of a biological man and a biological woman”.
And don’t recognise the rights to “gender fluidity”. What’s next?? Bun dem??
