Recognising Lamming’s appreciation
I’ll restrain myself after today’s offering in this space. Why? Because this is the second successive Friday I’m highlighting a personality when, in truth, I prefer issues.
But hey! Personalities, individuals of influence do create or promote issues, right?
So former PNC Prime Minister; former top PNC politician; former General Secretary of the PNC; former disillusioned PNC man under Hoyte and leader of his own Good and Green Guyana (GGG) party. Former Georgetown Mayor for record years, being one of the world’s longest-serving Mayors; Mister-Comrade Hamilton Green has been utilising his well-paid retirement to write numerous weekly letters to print media. (Pardon that extra-long sentence.)
To me, a former, a one-time “PNC man” who discovered my political epiphany around 1997, being political but professional required understanding that the top PNC Honcho was more openly transparent then enigmatic. After Burnham, even Reid, you soon “discovered” that Hammie was “Mr PNC”. Naturally that made him a symbol of all that the political behemoth – the PNC – stood for. But why have I singled out this ageing self-styled “elder” for extra attention today? Because I feel that our young politically minded Guyanese should be provoked to study those from an earlier generation who can easily impress, influence – or mislead. Comrade Green is one such eminent, actively- retired politician. (You don’t have to accept or believe my assessment. Just investigate, explore.)
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Both profound, partisan and “sweet-talk”
(How does current PNC leader and former Young Turk Norton regard former Party leaders Corbin and Green?)
The above sentence is a throw-away question for the current generations of PNC hopefuls to contemplate. For they might see the “elder” relic Green for what was and is. And that I submit, could be practical “political science” for all interested.
Green is now given to utilising the print media – far and wide – to propagate his own profound “truths” distilled from his profound facts.
You can’t fault his messages in his just-published missive about the three children’s death by fire and the status of the devastated mother. Of course, he advises the government on immediate and long-term steps to take regarding poverty and the plight of poor unmarried mothers. (Today’s oppositionists all can point this government to the utilisation of – unprecedented – oil revenues.)
Frankly speaking Hammie’s credibility as an objective commentator suffers a huge dent when he writes about the political history and racial complexities of the fifties to seventies. It is never easy for PNC historians to accept “more blame” than they apportion to the PPP! For all national travails experienced and lasting schisms created and sustained. There is enough blame to be shared by both parties but don’t expect PNC archivist Hamilton G. to tell this generation about his own party’s original sins and (Burnham’s) reasons for them.
Every time he pens messages I smile knowingly about what he doesn’t say! For he knows that the PPP has schooled its own current generation about his own role alongside Burnham’s autocracy. Would he write about allegations made against him by the infamous House of Israel? About the operational facts just after Walter Rodney’s assassinations? About how 24 years of one-sided electoral thievery engendered the exclusion of a majority group and virtually guaranteed their distrust of anything PNC?
I could go on but more another time but I even actually miss the wisdom of Elders Green and Kwayana if they should cease their influential “truths” and evidential “facts”.
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Again, justice according to law
What’s wrong with me, now long past seventy-five (75) in this land of a Westernised Justice System?
Exactly one week ago murder accused Phillip was “discharged” after the judge found that the prosecution “had failed in establishing his ‘connection’ to the murder” of two elderly ladies. Two of the accused’s alleged conspirators had thrown themselves to the court’s mercy in 2019 and had received life sentences for the slaughter of the old ladies. Not their murder.
But Phillip – “lucky” fellow – was not found guilty of killing anybody after six (6) years in custody. He is one of four accused found not guilty of killing victims recently. Was the police evidence or the Prosecution’s abilities weak? I am always left wondering who then actually murdered those victims. Poor me you can’t convict the “innocent”. Does “not guilty” mean “innocent”? Poor me… is the law always justice? Sigh…
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George Lamming’s appreciation
When George Lamming, from the little powerhouse of an island, Barbados, died last weekend he had long established his international status as literary image-maker and even as journalist. His work influenced and was lauded by a world-wide audience way beyond his “little England” island. My tribute here is obvious.
Am I being naughty when I suggest that one local group of his readership will cherish these, his words? “…those Indian hands – whether in British Guiana or Trinidad – have fed all of us. They are, perhaps, our only jewels of a true native thrift and industry. They have taught us, by example the value of money. For they respect money as only people with a high sense of communal responsibility can.”
What a lofty, provocative issue for debate. Discuss class…
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Guess who…
● 1) which retired active politician advised then Brigadier-President Granger to ignore the findings of courts and recounts?
