Editorial

“All politics is local,” said former US Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, but a recent excess of rhetoric in Barbados prompted by domestic politicking is making waves across the region.

In September 2003, two years after they began surveillance of a cocaine operation, officers of the United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard swept through some 20-odd residences in various sections of London and made several arrests.

As the United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited China over the weekend for what was intended to be a continuation of a discourse between the two powers on the implications of their statuses as major military powers, the atmosphere between them preceding Gates’s visit has been one of uncertainty and mutual concern about the other’s intentions.

It appears very likely that Mr Robert Corbin will be the first Leader of the People’s National Congress (PNC) not to hold the office of President of Guyana.

If there is one single event last year which signposted neatly all of the failings of the police force it was the hair-raising slaughter in September of five persons – including a child – at Cummings Lodge.

It is too early to know the full context in which the grenade explosion took place in Stabroek Market on Wednesday.

The most famous Dead White Male author since Shakespeare has been in the headlines ever since Oprah Winfrey, host of what is arguably the world’s most influential book club, announced plans for “a date with Dickens” over the Christmas season.

Some would say that President Hugo Chávez took off the gloves in Venezuela a while ago but now his many detractors are suggesting that his democratic mask has been definitively removed.

Mrs Mara Thompson, the widow of the prime minister of Barbados David Thompson, announced last week that she was contesting the January 20, 2011 by-election for the St John parish seat which became vacant on the death of her husband in October last year.

As the second decade of the new century rolls in, it would appear that even the major powers of the world, including the United States of America cannot, with confidence, set a path of movement in international politics and economics which they feel will proceed relatively smoothly.

Towards the end of last year the Commissioner of Police publicly declared that the extent of the attendance at the annual Police Gymkhana could be taken to mean that the Police Force still had many friends among the Guyanese people.

By way of a letter in the SN dated December 30, 2010, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Mr Dindyal Permaul disclosed that veterinarian and Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Dr Steve Surujbally had been appointed as Chairman of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA).

A quick recap of the big news stories from last year shows just how random our impressions of the world have become in an age of nonstop broadcasting.

Tonight at midnight, as we say goodbye to the Old Year and usher in 2011, the strains of ‘Auld lang syne’ will be heard at parties across the country, and many of us will sing or warble a rendition of the traditional ballad.

On Friday December 24, Christmas Eve, Mr Lyndon ‘Jumbie’ Jones, a well-known local actor, stand-up comedian and MC, was invited to the police station by police officers who knew him, and once there he was placed behind bars where he remained until Monday, December 27.

As 2010 recedes, there can be little doubt that much that was hoped for, by way of economic and social performance in most our Caricom countries, has not seen the light of day.

Quite a few thieves, would-be thieves and suspected thieves have been caught and mercilessly beaten by outraged residents of the communities that they have targeted.

Christmas in Guyana is a time when optimism for our possible futures seems most plausible. 

For many Guyanese who followed his career from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, he was the closest thing we had to a non-political national hero.

In three days, the holiday most celebrated universally will have come and gone.