Getting Serious

It was reported that the government will be placing the issues of the abolition of the death penalty; ditto for corporal punishment and the decriminalisation of adult same sex activities to the National Assembly before our parliamentarians take off on their two-month holiday-August 10 to October 10. And you thought only schoolchildren go off on “summer” recess.
Anyhow that’s some heavy stuff that’s being laid before them: those issues raise some intense emotions in our people. But we don’t expect a much calmer consideration of the issues by our opposition parliamentarians-especially if we go by their shenanigans during the last seven months.
Imagine these wankers were willing to slash the spending on our path-breaking LCDS! Can’t get more serious than that, can you? So you can imagine the political mileage they’ll be making on the death punishment issue. It was Desmond Hoyte who brought back the ‘hang ‘em high’ policy back in the late eighties. He had to get a grip on the kick-down the door banditry that paralysed the country the previous decade. Contrary to studies on the effect of hanging on the commission of serious crimes abroad, in Guyana, there was no doubt that hanging the bandits acted as a rather powerful deterrent.
But the three issues coming up are all driven by an international agenda-and expect to see the Opposition rushing to show their foreign paymasters how ‘progressive’ they are. Death penalty? Look how backward that is! Ditto for corporal punishment and same sex unions. But we’ve seen what happens when we import laws and rules from societies with totally different mores and values. Parliamentarians must have the courage to discuss these issues on their merits-merits that are acceptable to us.
Take corporal punishment. Very few parents actually enjoy whipping their children-or having their teachers whip them. But they know that the difference between adults and children is that the former have been socialised into integrating the rules of society to a much higher extent than the latter. If the developed countries that are pushing the abolition of corporal punishment can show that in their societies it has led to more law abiding citizens being produced, then let’s have a discussion.
On the same-sex unions. We don’t believe in discrimination of any sort, but the danger is that the shield being created might soon be turned into a sword. Like in the U. S.
Dust in their eyes
Since the last election hustings, the people of Linden have had a lot of dust thrown into their eyes by the Opposition politicians. But for a much longer time they’ve been breathing dust into their lungs-from the bauxite operations. Dust of this type can lead to all sorts of health complications-not to mention the steady accumulation of that patina that covers everything in the town. Well it looks like the latter kind of dust is soon going to be a thing of the past. The first of two dust collectors-at a cost of US$ 8 million, we’re not talking chicken feed here-has been installed and already the difference can be seen-and felt. The second collector’s installation is imminent.
Now that Linden has seen progress from its new owners’ Bosai on promises made, can we hope that the Opposition figures will now ease up on the dust into the eyes of Lindeners. But maybe they can now take up the issue of sugar workers, who have had the dust from the sugar factories and the burning cane fields raining down on them for 174 years? And ease up on throwing dust into their eyes also?
“Alternative Sources”
The previous and present Ministers of Social Services reported that their reporting to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was contradicted by “alternative sources”. Do they have names and are they the usual suspects’?