… Onwards next year
Here we are, on the third day of Christmas, and while we do not know what our “true love” brought us, we certainly know what fate will bring us. There will be lots of big arguments as we gather around the Christmas table, ruining our masks and social distance!
How much? Let us count a little. The first one will be about whether there is really any virus to worry about. Yup! You’d be surprised how many of our revelers this Friday think this entire COVID-19 pandemic is a temptation in a tactic!
Now, don’t call them “crazy”. After all, you really can’t WELD the virus, while nearly half of Guyana who is SAW Mingo does his thing with that dirty bedsheet, but insists that’s the PPP throw shade in the PNC! And we don’t call THEM crazy – just “PNC fans” !!
Another controversy will be about when do we actually get our vaccines? We hear it’s going to be “next year”; but WHEN next year, and in what order will we get our shots? The elderly? The healthcare workers? The FRONTLINE healthcare workers? The rich and connected? Then who will take the vaccine? Is it halal? Is it another ploy by “the man” to use black and brown folks as guinea pigs?
And this conspiracy “perspective” will separate us into the biggest dispute of them all – the election petitions that will be heard by the Court starting next January. Arguments will be the hottest on this one, because the poles are so humble. Here you have the PNC staring in the face of not only confirmation of their defeat in the polls, but BASED after the PPP blitzkrieg since August 2! What will make the invectives fly more “fast and furious” is the realization by dawn of PNC supporters that Granger gave them a basket to fetch water by forcing Harmon as Leader of the Opposition!
Another hot topic – which could even cause fists to fly – is whether we should allow “all these wallpapers” to come into our country and stay here. The reason why this is going to be so controversial is because we already see rationality going out the window on this one, since there are play motives other than what’s good for our country . And to be frank about it – as with the case for the “Case of the Extinct Haitians” – the heat is generated by politics. Will the Haitians carry out the task that “small islanders” did to Eric Williams and his PNM over in Trinidad, to help him secure a job for thirty years?
Unfortunately, there will be no dispute over the impact the pandemic will have on work, play and relationships in the years ahead.
We Guyanese do not look beyond our fists!
… On the border debate
As a child growing up in a well-founded neighborhood, your Eyewitness was often advised to look carefully at how rum bottles were stacked on the shelves. “Lil” bottles were never on the same shelf as “big” bottles. The lesson, of course, was that we should not involve ourselves in situations where we do not measure up. Your Eyewitness hopes that some of the local interlocutors who enter the disputes following the ICJ’s decision that it has jurisdiction to hear our submission that the 1899 Arbitration Award on our border with Venezuela is genuinely listening on the council.
International Law is a very specialized law body, and there are not too many experts in that field in Guyana at the moment. For good reason, the PNC and PPP-led Governments have gone to the World Court with the few locals who were around for decades dealing with the issue – Ramphal and Greenidge, for example – but also with foreign experts at a very high price.
This is not the time for armchair experts.
… At sea
A staple of your (humble) diet Eyewitness is what it identifies as “shiny shrimp”, or “white belly”, and “coarse shrimp”, or “zebra”.
All he is demanding – after the “gillbacka” mess – is that it’s not better to deplete the supply!