…in Guyana
Our European colonial masters introduced us to the notion of “sovereignty”, which describes where in the polity POWER should reside. Around the time, they “discovered” us (evidently, we’d been lost or misplaced!), sovereignty was defined as residing in the Monarch. He’d been decreed by God to rule and his orders were to be obeyed to the “T”! If you dared disobey, it was” “Off with his head!!”
But a strange thing happened over the next few centuries. Ordinary Europeans – especially the ones exploiting the “colonies” – outside of the nobility started improving their material circumstances and soon demanded a share of sovereignty – making rules for themselves. And so, after a gap of 2000 years with Ancient Greece, “democracy” came to Europe! And the Kings were decreed not to be so divine as not to take advice from the people – through their representatives.
Now we natives, of course, weren’t as advanced as the Europeans and so had to wait another hundred or so years until we’re tutored in the ways of governing ourselves. So, by 1966, we were declared ready for our “democratic” right to share in our governance and share in the “sovereignty”. Heck…our Constitution declared that sovereignty RESIDED in we, the people!!
But, as we know, Burnham and his PNC decided we weren’t REALLY ready…we were still lacking in the nuances of democracy and he had to “mould” our destiny by rigging elections for the next 20-odd (VERY odd!) years. By bringing our country back to a “state of nature” so “we the people” could live like “noble savages”! Burnham, of course, had to make the ultimate sacrifice and accumulate all sovereignty in himself! Poor fella! There were some recalcitrant souls, of course, who chafed at the demands of “noblesse oblige”, which would allow the “small man to be the real man”!
Now after the PPP managed to return to office in 1992, they had the temerity to remove the PNC’s debt burden, expand the economy and move us from a “Highly Indebted Poor Country” into a “High Middle Income Country” etc, etc by holding democratic elections in 1997, 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2015. In the last one, of course, the PNC returned to power – they had the troops to guarantee not just “office” but POWER – and promptly promised to return us to the path marked out by the Founder Leader Burnham.
And it’s against this background we can understand Prezzie’s unilateral appointment of the GECOM Chair – he has to “mould” us further.
It goes without saying, of course, he’ll have to sacrifice himself and allow all sovereignty to flow into his bemedaled body!!
…in Sugar
In Orwell’s “1984”, written in 1949, he describes the totalitarian future he saw lying ahead for mankind. Well, after what proved to be a false start by the PNC between 1968 and 1985, it’s clear (even if you hadn’t seen the argument above) by the headline in the Chronic, we’ll all be goose stepping in unison soon.
Here it is, three sugar plantations are going to be shuttered, at least 7000 workers are losing their jobs –which will put at least 30,000 men, women and children on the breadlines and the Chronic announces in banner frontpage headlines: “Future looks sweet for GuySuCo”!!!
Like in “1984”, the PNC believes, “…if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale –then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’
But what the PNC forgets, is Orwell also wrote: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Guyanese must speak truth to power!!
…and teachers
After the teachers said “enough is enough” to being given Larwah one more time, they threatened to strike. But after a meeting with Prezzie, they recanted!!
In the days of Divine Kings, peasants also fell on their knees in HIS presence!!