Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 03, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
There are ways in which you can hold both fire and electricity in the palm of your hand. First, magicians take actual fire in their hands all the time. They do it in two ways just in case you want to emulate them as our politicians and other stakeholders do in Guyana. They have on an insulated skin-coloured glove that defies the heat and you think that it is their actual skin that the fire is on or they paint their palm with a chemical that prevents penetration.
Secondly, when you see the GPL workmen up on the pole and the current is still in the wires, these workers have insulated gloves that absorb the shock. The brutal fact of life is that you don’t play with electricity because it will shock you and you don’t play with fire because it will burn you.
Such a priceless lesson is still to be learnt by both the opposition and the society in this unyielding and tragic land.
The opposition and other stakeholders are playing with fire. They have been burnt. They will continue to get burned. The only Guyanese who understood this lesson of life was Desmond Hoyte.
Mr. Hoyte’s relentless theory was that the PPP will not adhere to democracy, decency in politics and morality in governance unless they are confronted by the politics of protest and forced into the war room to negotiate. Some political observers nicknamed his strategy, “Slo fyaah, mo fyaah.”
Once Hoyte died, the Macbethian witches extinguished their flames and disappeared into the woods forever. There are those in Guyana who were glad that “slo fyaah, mo fyaah” was doused. Since then the monsters in Greek mythology have taken up residence in Guyana. These monsters are spewing fire and many in Guyana are playing with it. I repeat – if you play with fire you will get burned.
Christopher Ram and the TUC President, Norris Witter, are friends of mine. These two gentlemen have come out against the Jagdeoite gorgons that have literally eaten up the political economy and social fabric of Guyana. But both of them will tell you, I disagreed in separate conversations with them on their attendance at the stakeholders’ forum that President Ramotar hosted last month. They put forward their polemic. I offered an alternative theory.
I openly (on this page) opined that the Red Thread organization and the Alliance for Change should not have gone into the studios of NCN and participated in a forum with Minister Manickchand. There were two moral dilemmas that immediately surfaced when
the invitation was accepted. First NCN is a symbol of all that is rotten, evil and utterly unacceptable in the political culture of the PPP.
NCN descended to a level of gutter journalism and Hitlerite propaganda that was incredible to see during the elections last year. Rupert Roopnaraine said on television before the elections that he was an election observer in Zimbabwe and despite the nature of the dictatorship there, more openness exists in the state media in Zimbabwe than in Guyana.
When Red Thread and the AFC went on NCN, did they think of how Lindeners felt about NCN? What about symbolism in politics? Do the AFC and Red Thread believe in that concept? Secondly, Red Thread and the AFC should not have engaged the Minister of Education on the very NCN given the nature of governance at UG. She is the subject Minister.
Now we see the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Ms. Deborah Backer calling on the Minister of Education to apologize for a personal attack on the President of the Women Lawyers’ Association. Emily Dodson. Soon all will be forgotten and the opposition and other stakeholders will cozy up once more with those who have no intention of ever democratizing their own political culture much less the exercise of power.
It was put most brutally by Roger Luncheon. If ever there was a sweet piece of realpolitik it was shown by Luncheon last week at his press conference. When it was described for him that under the Constitution, the Deputy Commissioner of Police can only hold office if the Opposition Leader was consulted, Luncheon was barefaced but brave and daring. In his drooling way, he nonchalantly intoned that when the PPP sees something unconstitutional it goes to the court as with the parliamentary committees. He was neatly suggesting that others can do likewise when the government acts unconstitutionally. Against this background, one man is playing with fire – the Speaker. He says he will be neutral. We are in the burning season in Guyana.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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