For (self) and country

PPP congress
The PPP announced it will be holding its congress this August in the Ancient County. This is good news. There have been all sorts of badmouthing of the party by some that have jumped ship. Charges about “anti-democratic” practices and so on. They forgot that the party had been around for quite some time and has a quite sound ‘institutional memory’. The boys knew what the erstwhile ‘comrades’ were up to before they even opened their mouths to scream, “Shut yuh so- and- so mouths”.
The old heads remembered Burnham and his manoeuvres to oust Dr Jagan to get his hands on power. Imagine these present-day lusters for power hadn’t realised that their ploy to stack the delegates with their own supporters at Diamond was as visible as a pregnant Hippo! Anyhow they showed their cards when, like Burnham, they decamped to oppose the party they’d worked in for so long.
How come suddenly after 50 years (some of these political grasshoppers are really long in the tooth!) the very things they stood for and fought for are now anathema? I’ll tell you why: it’s all because, like Burnham, all they really wanted from the party was personal power. But at least Burnham was honest.
He’d announced, “Those who say they don’t want power is either a fool or a scoundrel!” We now know where all the scoundrels are.
By now, all those who were taken in by the BS shovelled out by the power-lusters have had the scales removed from their eyes. They saw the naked opportunism that played out in Linden and Agricola by these snakeoil salesmen. It’s poetic justice that Berbice has been chosen for this crucial congress. Being away from the centre, they’ve felt alienated from the party.
At Tagore Memorial, the party should be inspired by the original Tagore who was fired by patriotism and the urge to liberate his fellow countrymen. “Where the head is held high….” The party must acknowledge that mistakes must have been made for its traditional supporters to have strayed. The party must show that they have absorbed the message.
The party must return to its traditional focus on building cadres at the grassroots. The party must listen to its supporters. The party cannot be apologetic about its leftist credentials: Latin America has bucked the tide and is riding high today because of its adherence to those principles. A luta continua!!!
Don’t cry for me, Guyana…
It was announced that, in commemorating the 100th anniversary of the shooting and killing of 15 (plus the wounding of 42 others) at Rose Hall, Canje, flowers will be planted at their grave site. We say that while we have no problems with flowers, the gesture is not sufficient.
Those workers were among our bravest freedom fighters. In 1913 sugar was still king and when Bookers (the owners of Rose Hall estate) spoke, the governor had to listen. And listen good. To take on Bookers was to take on the British Colonial Office and the workers of Rose Hall had no compunction to do so.
Cheddi Jagan was born only five years after that massacre and as a boy, it must have loomed very large in his imagination. His father had been a canecutter as well as his older brother Oudit. Cheddi’s fire in the belly for sugar workers did not begin at Enmore in 1948: it merely erupted because of the blatant disregard for the lives of sugar workers 35 years after Rose Hall.
In addition to flowers, sugar workers must be given a bonus this year.
The lamb and the lion
After the opposition scuttled the firearms bill introduced by Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee, the government voted for the opposition’s Bill to help clean up the city’s mess. Haven’t the PPP been doing this since 1994?