Maybe we should come to bury Caesar and not to praise him; especially at this moment in our political history when worse can never be better.
It’s enough that the international community, which clutches its pearls as it speaks of rogue leaders in countries other than their own, was able to infect Guyana’s electoral mechanism with a 19 –time indicted candidate in the form of Irfaan Ali.
And the suffusion of melancholy can only intensify with the nation’s chief Magistrate being compelled to dismiss 19 fraud charges against a sitting President lest she violated some Prosecutor’s Code of Conduct which says prosecuting a thief who had become president would not be in the public interest; some article 182(2) of the Constitution, some law adopted in 2018 during the tenure of the last Administration…
..which brings us back to Caesar and a burial that, from lamentations both expressed and implied, seems to be in inexplicably extended negotiations with the undertaker.
We, too, are of the opinion that Guyana’s 2020 election was not won but ceded to the PPP for reasons we find no relish in analyzing publicly.
And the demonstrated bereavement of those who openly express grief, frustration, exhaustion, we empathize with; knowing how much they had given, how hard they had worked.
We appreciate their public mourning which is healthy, for Despair, after all, is the enemy of Action…
which brings us back to Caesar…who remains unburied.
As the battle was lost and won, the troops of the commitment, dedication and political fortitude described above were suspended in action, still executing their assignment with the duty, obedience and loyalty that troops give under those circumstances.
That their leader abandoned his troops and deserted his post was singularly humiliating and to follow the military analogy, would be subject to court martial.
So it was more than just shocking, more like worrisome, to see the troops answer a call to assemble at the summons of a person who had deserted them through a public communique and telephone orders for them to stand down; disassemble; scatter because said leader was not going to be there to march them home from their service in battle.
And this is no personal flagellation.
It’s a reckoning as it relates to the contract of service that the position demanded; upon the acceptance of which all the components of leadership were expected to be exercised equally – during the glamour and the hard times.
Maybe the strategy is some strange iteration of a resurgence…an arrogant, even brazen expectation; having wounded the troops within emotional mortality, becoming incommunicado then resurrecting; expecting a parade.
But we’re seeing a reassembly of the very mourners, the bereaved and the broken, fall in behind a leader who has demonstrated with a sickening kind of dexterity that self-service comes before public service…even if it means desertion and abandonment in the face of battle.
The Constitution of the Party, they say, which, we say, can be addressed with incisive and decisive action…a complete overhaul of the document.
Boycotting the meeting would have been one way to register due disgust, as would have been turning backs to the podium of the person who dared to stand there as leader, having demonstrated the contrary to the world.
No, this is no insurgent hand book but if the Party wants be taken as a serious political arm, it would have to project itself as a serious entity to its supporters and fund raisers, both at home and abroad.
Really, the slavish focus on its Constitution is precisely what is most dangerous about this moment…
the expectation, even the knavish calculation that the bereaved would serve a document that is meant to serve them.
And equally as perilous is allowing a leader who has shown as poor an appetite for the position, as in skill set, the privilege of charting the path forward.
Calling for a 50% women membership in parliament is no longer a ground breaking approach, neither is professional variety nor is the submission of a younger cadre- which is only logical if the principle of succession is to be taken seriously.
Seriously though?
Maybe we’d be more impressed if it were declared that those with a documented reputation of desecrating Parliament or the office of parliamentarian should be strictly prohibited from the list and that attendant consequences will be suffered, should those behaviors re-occur.
But if , we’re thinking, positioning women and youth is, in 2020, seen as avant- garde, cutting edge, that really spotlights the primary malfunction of Party Leadership…
and what those with the passion for its existence as a contending political entity need to re-arrange to set them on course, due forward.
The country has been hijacked, feels the 60% who have had a felon and a thug inflicted upon them by an International Community that has denied one travel privileges and has detailed the other’s reign of roguery in its State Department records.
And as morose and melancholy create the canopy of existence for those who were not hoisted as place holders for the imperialists, the sirens and jackboots and breaking glass that interrupts the day are the sounds of the deconstruction of the livelihood of many, the society’s makeover in the image of an Ali and a Jagdeo to affirm that Guyana will be reverting to a Gangsters’ Paradise, only this time with a Diplomatic Madam as its handler…albeit temporarily.
But that is – the temporary anticipation – small comfort when the reality is that lawlessness has now been officially commissioned, as has wholesale race baiting and name calling on social media, once monitored by a National Ethnic Relations Commission, visibly absent since the change of Government.
Those are the reflections of many who use the term ‘betrayal’ as they commiserate over the circumstances that have jettisoned them back to the era of 1963, they feel, when their leader unilaterally changed course, inflicting the kind of rudderless captaincy that should break the spirit of even a Sergeant Ironside.
They are the heroes here…the abandoned and deserted, the double crossed and deceived…
They made it to the other side, in spite of…..
And now that passion needs to be diffused for the necessary reincarnation of their inclusive politics.
The Party needs to be a viable Opposition which would inherently mean a makeover, not through puffy talking points or a jostle on the basis of card and seniority but by its re-tooling to improve its power base in measurable ways.
We’ve seen the emergence of a young group of citizens with a patriotic compass and an affinity for an ideology that is more national than partisan and a politics that embraces our motto. They acknowledge founding fathers but do not exhume them to captain the ship.
This, in the collective mind of the 60%, is the beginning of how we arm any Opposition aiming to unseat a ruling Government…
Which brings us back to Caesar and why his burial should no longer be in discussion with the under taker…
Out in the field, where battle has degenerated to more than catch phrases and word play, where political enemies are now the subject of social suffocation, the Opposition Party would be wise to enter Parliament only with viable leadership.
We are already in our nation’s darkest hour.
Racism, especially anti Afro racism, sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all.
Our nation’s health is now judged by the character of those to whom power has been ceded.
Invasion through ‘diplomacy’ it seems can be successful if they are up against a Caesar…all of unreluctant and unilateral and in the right places at critical moments.
So here’s an opportunity to bury Caesar and all that comes with that era of leadership.
It’s an opportunity not to be squandered.
And, we should be grateful that we have a cadre of citizens in the Opposition, still with the courage to continue.
