…“Dotard” meets “Rocket Man”
If you thought it rather juvenile of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un to be trading schoolyard name-calling, you’ve got to admit they finally ended up meeting in Singapore without actually sticking their tongues out at each other!! Maybe they got their hostilities out of the way with their infantile antics? Jagdeo’s been known for his acerbic assessments of opponents….maybe Granger needs to let his hair down and let ‘er rip over this GECOM business?
Like your Eyewitness said, Kim Jong-Un’s already won the game. As a totalitarian regime of long standing – the last one left standing? – N. Korea craves acceptance by the international community more than anything else. With American sanctions imposed after 2006, it’s pretty much totally dependent on China, and that’s a sad state of affairs for any self-respecting totalitarian state!! After all, being “totalitarian” means never having to kow-tow to anyone – which is pretty tough to do when the party across the table is your solitary lifeline.
If you want to get an idea of where N Korea’s at, think of Guyana under Burnham, and then multiply the repression and controls a hundredfold. Don’t forget Burnham got his idea of becoming an “Executive President” from Kim Jong-Un’s grandfather, who changed N Korea’s Constitution to give himself absolute power. As far as the economy’s concerned, N Korea didn’t just nationalise the “commanding heights,” as Burnham did – they took over the entire kit and kaboodle!! Not surprising to anyone who lived through the Burnhamite dictatorship – like your Eyewitness did – the economy’s in shambles, and life is short, nasty and brutish for most citizens.
Burnham allowed Guyanese to emigrate, as we know – mainly because it was a safety valve that prevented an explosion which even his vastly expanded armed forces wouldn’t have been able to control. In N Korea, keeping the natives in place was made easier with the barbed wire and the guarded demilitarised border with S Korea preventing exit south, and the border with China doing the same north.
Apart from the legitimacy conferred by having the American President flying halfway across the globe to meet him, Kim Jong-Un would be hoping the lifting of sanctions would lead to greater development. After all, next door S Korea – literally family – exemplifies the superiority of the capitalist path versus the socialist one. They have K POP!! And while Kim Jong-Un might be leery about development leading to demands for democracy that would undermine his control, he can be somewhat reassured that S Korea transitioned under a dictatorship!!
So, dear readers, let’s see what tomorrow will bring: a demilitarised N Korea with K POP bands, or just more of the drab conformism that presently prevails?
…acknowledging Naipaul’s truth
At the CariCom all-expenses paid confab last week at the Princess, the high-flying attendees were informed, among other things, that 70% of West Indians with tertiary education have departed for other shores. And why is this so? Simply because the region cannot offer these skilled persons jobs that are commensurate with their qualification. And why can’t they get such jobs that would pay them good money – apart from those at the CariCom Secretariat?
And why aren’t there such jobs here? Well, as Naipaul said in the sixties — and pissed off the elite of the WI — simply because we haven’t invented a single thing that adds such value to such an extent that its manufacture and distribution would absorb our skilled workers! Instead, we pour ALL our energy “wining” and dancing to buttress our “Bongo Man” image that pleases the foreign tourists!!
The mandarins of CariCom didn’t talk about this, however. They focused on CSME’s “free movement of citizens”.
Free movement to Region 11, that is!!
…WI wins one!!
Well, as a cricket fanatic, your Eyewitness got a perk from the WI cricket team taking apart the Sri Lankans so comprehensively!! But he’s not talking about any “turnaround”.
This ain’t happening till Caricom installs a new West Indies Cricket Board!