Before your Eyewitness gets to the “topic de jour”, he would like to vent on one of the most ridiculous idiosyncrasies of Guyanese life: the easy acceptance of folks just giving themselves all sorts of fancy titles to “authorise” their pronouncements. Now, this practice, in and of itself, is normally pretty harmless. Folks have always harboured all sorts of delusions of grandeur. Remember those dishevelled “prophets” who used to walk around with signboards on their chests announcing “the end of the world is nigh”?
Then there were our calypsonians who’d ironically dub themselves “King” (Fighter) or “Lord” (Kitchener) etc. just to poke fun at the arrogance of the self-appointed “royals” who ruled over us. But the world at large understood what was at play and didn’t give the titles any mind. But nowadays, your Eyewitness has noticed, newspapers are giving credence to the grandiose titles arrogated by some attention-seeking nitwits, and publishing their views as if they represent constituencies!!
Take this fella who signs a constant stream of letters to the press as “Mr. Jamil Changlee, Chairman, The Cooperative Republicans of Guyana”. Now, your Eyewitness already has a problem with people who sign as “Mr”. Does anyone introduce themselves to others as “Mr This” or “Mr That” unless they have an inferiority complex? But it’s the group to which he has made himself “Chairman” and on whose behalf he purports to speak that’s even harder to swallow. Has anyone ever seen this group engaged in any sort of activity in Guyana? Does it exist outside the fevered brow of Changlee? Sorta reminds one of Keith Scott and his “National Front Alliance” – which was just a “front” for his “alliance” with himself to get a “national” occupation!!
Anyhow, the Changlee fella – sounding suspiciously like the “Pagalee” Minister – in just the last couple of days, came up with two howlers. First, he said he disagreed with the Roman Catholic Bishop who said that maybe it is time for “sodomy” to be decriminalised. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this – everyone is free to express their opinion on this very topical issue. Even the virulently anti-gay Hungarian official who was recently caught fleeing a gay orgy in just his birthday suit! But what Changlee did – like most of these fellas who protest too much – was to drag in the straw man of same sex couplings with boys – pedophilia.
This isn’t what the good Bishop was talking about – even though the abominable practice has reached epidemic proportions in the Catholic Church. He was talking about sodomy between consenting ADULTS! Children, by definition, can’t consent!
Then Changlee wrote a missive claiming Indian “intellectuals” have protested the word “coolie”.
Really? Why should they complain when the same persons using the word as a slur say, “Coolies own everything”?
…order of petitions
When the PNC started concocting their “anomalies” so as to file their election petitions, your Eyewitness had pointed out that in the interest of due process – and natural justice and all the other canonical foundations of the judicial system – the election petition filed by the PPP following the 2015 elections had to be heard before the PNC’s. Even though the PNC had claimed that 33 was not the majority of 65, surely, the rejection of that mathematical absurdity by the CCJ means that “first” still comes before “second”!
So your Eyewitness was quite taken aback when the Chief Justice (ag) scheduled the Case Management hearings for the ending of October, and matters have been proceeding with the greatest of alacrity. Now, as to whether the PNC petitions ought to be thrown out on the procedural defect of service is of no consequence to your Eyewitness. The PNC has gotten their day in court.
Why didn’t the PPP?
