Uncouth and louche

Politics trumps all
There’s a lot of folks out there muttering ‘why can’t these politicians work together to build our country?’ Especially in this holiday season of (presumably) bonhomie and goodwill. Well, the story of what happened when the government – in an effort to ‘work together’ – invited Opposition Leader David Granger to deliver the ‘charge’ to the latest (and largest) batch of teachers ever graduated from the CPCE, will explain.
Now – as everybody who’s been to a graduation from nursery school to medical school would know – a ‘charge’ to the graduates is supposed to ‘fire’ them up and inspire them about the world into which they’ve just ‘graduated’. Worlds to conquer! The sky’s the limit! Find your mojo! And all that.
You’re not going to tell those wide-eyed six-year-olds about the horrible grind that faces them with the Grades Two, Four and Six Assessments, are you? And for sure we hope you wouldn’t tell them that if they become your loyal follower, you have a pill that would take care of all the ‘swotting’ ahead.
Well, guess what? That’s exactly what Granger belched out to the 862 teachers who graduated from CPCE (not CSEC, as the Muckraker’s headline blared!). Granger reminded them about the ‘ pittance’ they’d been getting while being trained; low pay they’ll now be getting as teachers (that’ll inspire them!); implicitly criticised teachers when he moaned about the student dropout rate and essentially declared that teachers were wasting time because ‘graduating students can’t find jobs’! But if that wasn’t low-down enough, the man actually seized the opportunity to regale the captive audience with the PNC/ APNU’s manifesto’s wild promises to teachers! One laptop for each teacher… higher salaries (“the best-paid profession in the entire public service”… and so on and so forth. He insulted the 197 teachers who were the first batch to graduate from the newly- introduced Associate Degree in Education programme – from which they could complete their full degree at UG in a mere two additional years.
So rabid was Granger to score cheap political points that he lambasted the ‘inordinate length of time” for teachers to earn a degree – not recognising that the government had already solved this old problem – and the proof were sitting right in front of him. Probably with dropped jaws! This power-hungry opposition will never cooperate with the government. It’s totally consumed with playing politics.
If the shoe fits…
AFC’s apologist and propagandist Ms Maxwell is distraught that many people are seeing “the AFC and the PNC as one single entity”. She claims that there’s an “attempt to paint” them as such. But she should know that ordinary folks don’t need torchlight to see that which is made clear by sunshine.
Ever since the AFC and PNC/ APNU connived to place old- time PNC executive Raphael Trotman in the Speaker’s chair, they’ve been acting so much like twins joined at the hip, it’s absolutely impossible to tell which one is doing what.
Look at the Budget Chainsaw Massacre operation – could Ms Maxwell say where exactly they differed? Right after the elections, Ramjattan had announced the AFC would play a pivotal role and support whichever party has plans for the improvement of Guyana. Could Ms Maxwell point to a single instance where the AFC took a common position with the government? Let’s concede that maybe not every single proposal of the PPP was good for Guyana – but is Ms Maxwell saying that every single PNC/ APNU’s proposal was? What a crock! Principles Ms Maxwell invokes the old chestnut about the PPP and PNC’s ‘unity’ talks in 1985 to justify the AFC marriage with PNC/ APNU. She says, “It was the PPP which approached the PNC.” Not so! She then says that some of the old crew from that era are still around. Damn right! Nagamootoo! She should revisit the PPP’s principled positions versus the AFC’s present wanton behaviour.