How dare I – a non-academic, a non-political scientist, a non-professional, qualified analyst or philosophy “logician” – attempt to advise a new government how to entertain or respond to a political/parliamentary Opposition-aggressor, seemingly dedicated to being uncooperative?
Indeed, even I doubt my ability to properly do so. However, a bit of observation-type experience for most of the “PNC 28-years” being subject to the PPP- Cheddi-type Opposition and, like most home-grown, home-based Guyanese, living with the Jagan-Jagan-Jagdeo-Ramotar regimes, all make me feel “comfortable” enough to “advise” the Granger Administration – hierarchy and juniors – about reacting to both formal and political opponents of the PPP variety.
Additionally, for some weird reason of personal burgeoning impatience, I’m becoming upset at the reaction of PNC/APNU/AFC types when revelations and exposes are made about the known and suspected rampant corruption in the Executive Corridors of Power over the past fifteen years. I mean the high-level thievery, corporate silver-collar banditry, seeming cocaine connections, recourse to extra judicial killings by official entities – all these were known by the savvy man-in-the-street. (In “small” Guyana hundreds of citizens are related to government officials; to soldiers and police; to relatives of high-level wrong-doers and to judicial officers.) In the Court of Public Opinion the “average” Guyanese indicts known crooks who the Courts of Law can’t find guilty.
So I’m a wee bit impatient with the daily outpouring of surprise/shock – feigned or real – when revelations of huge wrong-doing are revealed. I suppose for some it’s the actual evidence and extent of the cancer now being uncovered that “shocks” the few. Stand by coolly for much more as the forensic audits and Commissions of Inquiry conclude and publish their work.
But what will be the consequences of all the discoveries? And what does all the foregoing have to do with dealing with today’s PPP Opposition?
Pre-empting,
responding appropriately
Since context is significant in any analysis, any examination and assessment of situations, the current, ongoing revelations will inform the Granger folks and “machinery” as to strategies to deal with the guilty, as charged.
Other aspects of my “advice”: welcome the PPP Parliamentarians but insist on the decorum of the Assembly; balance your insights about the former Ministers with the fact that hundreds of thousands of misguided, tribal-minded supporters actually voted for them; do not respond to accusations relevant to the Cummingsburg Accord, except very internal concerns; pre-empt the next major “controversy” that the PPP boys and girls will manufacture and beat them to explanatory comment; monitor their blogs, Guyana Times and Freedom Radio, but grant them the NCN air-time they denied you; engage them professionally.
The PPP has to be laughably “bold-faced” to blame any shortcomings on a three-month government after their 23-year old legacies, so grin and let your people respond to them, if deemed necessary. (Why, I sometimes envy the PPP current position to dare to lay any blame!)
Truth and reconciliation, inclusionary governance and democracy constitute one element of the Granger promise and administration. But those found guilty of misappropriating the People’s assets must be penalized. To set examples to them and to your very own! More next time.
Emancipation: Background, context
I’ll leave it to the thousands of column inches and minutes that’ll be utilized to expound on the history, consequences and (unfulfilled) realities of Emancipation of the B.G. colony’s African slaves except to continue with excerpts of historian David Granger’s conclusions about how slavery and post-Emancipation, colonial and latter-day, (contemporary) behaviours impacted on the Afro-Guyanese psyche.
As a young teacher, historian Vere T. Daly, back in the mid-sixties, opened my mind with regard to why the slaves here were given their liberty. From missionary, religious humanitarian influences to competing European economic realities of the early 1800’s, the stage was built for Europeans here to grudgingly let the slaves go. (They, the Plantation Masters, even reaped massive compensation for so doing!_
But said David Arthur Granger seventeen years ago: “the history of the African-Guyanese people, their coming, their enslavement for over 200 years; their short wretched lives, cruel treatment and premature deaths; their ceaseless struggle to smash the slave mode of production and to live as free persons; their industry, creativity, thrift and determination to build a new nation on the ruins of the slave system; their founding of the villages and development of local democracy, their creation of the economic, social, cultural and political institutions – from credit unions to trade unions; their promotion of education, art, literature, music; their fight for independence and the outstanding contributions, despite discrimination, of great sons and daughters, is widely known.
However, there seems to be some incongruence between the existence of such a large body of historical knowledge and the presence of a large population of the descendants of the people who made history on the one hand, and the absence of observances to commemorate historical events on the other…”
And then the following: “A Society dominated by the forces of alienation stifles the fulfillment of human potentialities … in such a society, respect for the individual and for the dignity of many cannot be implemented but will remain in the realm of ideas and philosophic pronouncements. Where, as in Guyana, an alienated people constitute nearly forty per cent of the population, the dangers to the social order become self-evident. But we should not lose hope. Alienation is not a permanent condition. It is a product of domination and it can be overcome by overcoming domination, just as our fore-parents overcame the physical domination of slavery. This is what true emancipation means”.
As I suggested last Friday, Afro-centric students of Guyanese history should get hold of the whole Granger presentation of September 1998.
And I wonder: what could President Granger do about Historian Granger’s passionately-held views on that issue?
Emancipation ponderings…
*1) Since Emancipation (1834-1838) caused the Indian Indentured Immigrants to “arrive” here, I suggest that all current Indo-Guyanese organisations be invited to all formal Emancipation events.
*2) How will the PPP-dominated Regions behave during Local Government Elections?
*3) Some Historians I admire(d): Vere T. Daly; P.H. Daly; Hugh “Tommy” Payne – where is Tommy these days? – Professor Winston McGowan, Tota Mangar, James Rose, David Granger – not always when he speaks about Forbes Burnham ((Ho-Ho!)
*4) Anil Nandlall says he was “scared” after the activist’s execution. But not when he threatened Kaieteur News?
*5) Poor people’s lights are ruthlessly routinely disconnected. Now allegations of millions of GPL dollars being mis-used!
*6) Pay the restaurant, hotel, service industry workers correct pay on Sundays and holidays!
Til next week!
(allanafenty@yahoo.com)
