Dear Editor,
President Granger made a controversial call when he decided not to have any young persons in his cabinet. When the news broke that he will not place any youths at the helm of any ministry, there was a huge uproar and outcry. The drumbeat was so loud that at his birthday bash a few weeks later, the President addressed the issue. I was there in Congress Place on the night of his birthday celebrations. I heard him say that he was 69 when he became President and that the young people need to learn to wait their turn.
He was on to something. Look what kind of trouble the young Sherod Duncan is causing the old PNC folks at the Georgetown municipality. It is obvious that the old heads think that they are not answerable to young people, no matter their elected status. In fact, the comment by Councillor Oscar Clarke – an old PNC staple ‒ reflects the collective sentiments of many folks. Ask any old PNCite and they will tell you that the young people need to “know their place.” Mr Clark knows full well that he will lose no stripes among his party stalwarts. He will be greeted at the next PNC function to the popping of champagne and loud cheers and kisses.
Editor, just imagine briefly if the President had put a Sherod-kind of person/s in his cabinet. Imagine the kind of administrative scandal that would have erupted when it was found out that Minister Joe Harmon was in China meeting Baishanlin and that BK’s Mr Tiwarie had gone to China too. All hell would have broken loose. A person with the mindset of Mr Duncan would have wanted all the yet unanswered questions to be answered. Mr Harmon and Mr Granger would have gotten no rest. That person/s would have been a thorn in the President’s side, much like Sherod is a thorn in the side of the Mayor and her selected team.
So for whatever it is worth, like it or not, you would have to admit that the President was very visionary when he left the youthful thinkers out of his cabinet. As unpopular as it was, it was a calculated decision and the President is getting the last laugh.
What these leaders know is that come 2020, all those who are now complaining and fussing; all those who now do not deserve any apologies from their elected officials; all those who have been displaced and disenfranchised by their elected leaders, when the call is made at election time, all of them will don their yellow and green jerseys and bandanas, and flock to the streets in syncopated gyrations in their numbers, and then to the voting booths. And if given a chance they would vote twice. These leaders know that.
For 50 years Guyanese have been a masochistic bunch of people. Just look at our country. We have the largest land mass in Caricom and we are the richest in natural resources. We have the hardest working class, yet we are the poorest, sickest and most humiliated among our Caribbean counterparts. Trinidad and Barbados still have benches where they put Guyanese to sit before deporting them.
Citizens in no other country in the Caribbean are treated as we are. And to think that it is the same two parties that have ruled us for all these 50 years: PPP and PNC. Yet, come 2020 we will run to the voting booths and we will pick one of those two parties, again. Even the youths. So Comrade Oscar Clarke is right; we do not deserve any apology! The beat will go on.
Yours faithfully,
Pastor Wendell Jeffrey
