Category Archives: Justice

‎”When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.” - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Some people seem to be hedging, others are hiding.

I see how they have scattered from Facebook especially, after having been busy liking, posting and commenting all morning. As soon as news broke of James Bond and Edward Collins and others being shot by riot police they fell silent.

Hypocrites!

But more important than spineless sheep on Facebook, six hours after riot police (called into action against peaceful protestors) shot innocent citizens in the streets of Georgetown a short walk from the Office of the President the nation has seen or heard nothing from our ‘caring and compassionate’ government. Our dear President Donald Ramotar seems to have gone dumb. Can someone at New Garden Street please locate the cat which has taken ownership of his tongue?

I have seen and heard the others asking the question which the propagandists seem to be circulating to their minions.

“Did they have permission? “

I have a question of my own to ask: How did we move from peaceful people walking, whether they had permission or not, to a man being shot (regardless of the type of bullets) 33 times and in his back and neck?

How can the absence of permission for a peaceful march result in even one person being shot even once? Let alone multiple people being shot dozens of times?

Today, December 6th, 2011, Guyana as a society took a deeper plunge into barbarity. A new president, a new cabinet, a new government. Nothing has changed. The tyrants remain in command and their ruthless savagery knows no limit.

Innocent people being shot must be a sure sign of the empire crumbling though. We have seen cracks, we have seen partial collapse. Now is not a time to relent, it is a time to intensify pressure. The leaders of right thinking people must know this and act, not appease.

The signals are clear. Democracy died under Jagdeo, Donald’s purpose is to scatter its ashes. So much for equality under Donald. So much for citizens being able to stand up for what they believe in and peacefully fight for their rights. So much for Donald’s inauguration speech laced with empty rhetoric.

Donald Ramotar minutes after being sworn in as President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana: “I promise to be a fair and just President; to govern in the interests of all; to ensure that the legitimate aspirations of our people are respected.”

James Bond, Edward Collins, those who were shot and assaulted in the streets of Georgetown today and all Guyanese need the Commander-In-Chief to act. They need justice. Where are you comrade?

Why were they shot? Who gave the orders? Why was riot police called out against peaceful unarmed protestors?

Answers? What answers? Expect none.

But like feeding birds at the slightest noise, the hypocrites, those on Facebook and those in government, scatter deep into the bosom of silence. They will emerge when the situation dissipates and pretend as though what transpired today is another insignificant event which we must all hasten to forget. It has become the way of life in this republic gone mad.

But pressure must not relent because madness must end for “there have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.”

Nigel Hughes does not need anyone, least of all me, to defend him against any lewd and scurrilous attack. To the seeming envy of quite a few but to the obvious outright jealousy of one in particular, Hughes possesses the acuity, decency, clarity of thought and courage of character – traits patently missing in his attackers – to successfully defend himself with grace and civility.

The contempt with which power is being treated in this country though ought to be broadly examined.

The bitter, unjust and preposterous onslaught on Hughes, rather than diminish the reputation of the target, has had the reverse effect. Further, and most instructively, it exposes for the umpteenth time the notorious and unabashed indecency of those with whom rabid fish market styled busings have become synonymous.

Though my interactions with the eminent attorney have been sparing they have been adequate enough for me to have formed the view that he is a learned man of integrity and decorum, who, if ever, he were president, would not have any inclination to bring into dishonour and disrepute the highest office of the land.

To have taken the decision to mount a political platform with the knowledge that these sorts of acrid attacks would have been forthcoming, speaks to Hughes’ commitment to country. He has demonstrated that he will stand up to defend the country and its citizens regardless of the consequence. He is not a man who will be cowed by dastardly verbal diarrhoea spewed by those desperate to energize their disillusioned supporters. I have come to learn that such is the profound calibre of the leaders and men and women of the Alliance For Change.

On the other hand, to have observed the bizarre and incoherent cobbling together of assumptions and outright gibberical nonsense in the attempt to sully Hughes’ character, was to have witnessed behaviour one would more come to expect from inmates of a particular Canje institution. Not only is the pension package vulgar but so too is the absence of any public discussion on the dire need for close psychiatric care of the pensioner.

I have observed the public antics and behavioural patterns of the pensioner and the attendant cabal and cannot avoid concluding that their existence is devoid of guidance from any moral compass. Whether driven by fear of pending defeat or otherwise, they will target anyone for public denigration and they will cowardly cloak himself in afforded or bullied immunity as they debase and assassinate the characters of decent, law-abiding citizens of which they themselves can have no justifiable claim to be.

The cussings underscore to me that here is a man who possesses a not inconsiderable amount of personal and perhaps political insecurity. For reasons which will not even escape the self-respecting fish market crowd, the now familiar cussings are in themselves admissions that the ‘cusser’ lacks the intellectual capacity to contend with substance and logic. And so he feels obliged to resort to gutter tactics which seemingly allow him a level of familiarity and comfort. In fact when the evidence of the behaviour of the cabal is laid bare it becomes rather obvious that there is a sweeping paranoia among their ranks when confronted with any level of above average cerebral acumen. Even a talking parrot might cause them nightmares.

Perhaps we ought to temper our outrage though. History does teach us with the aid of ample amounts of evidence that we cannot reasonably expect the intellectually bereft to behave in a manner inconsistent with their mental capacity.

“Seek not to be consistent with past positions, but with the truth as it presents itself to you.” - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Following comments made by President Bharrat Jagdeo at the formal opening of the Princess Casino there has been a reheating of the debate on the virtues of casino/gambling legislation in Guyana. The President finds himself in some difficulty with regard to what appears to be an about face on the issue given his most recent comments and has been copping some criticism (see here also).

There is merit in most of the criticisms I have seen, however I have found that a narrow view is being mostly propagated (perhaps for political and other convenience) when there is a critical larger issue which needs to be ventilated.

The point of conditional and thus discriminatory casino/gambling legislation, in my opinion, takes a U-Turn from basic human equality – an essential facet of life now, apparently, taken much for granted to the point where it is treated with scant regard by even our National Assembly.

In my mind the issue is a simple one which can be a sorted through by asking a basic question. “How can an individual – regardless of who he or she is – have a legally protected right to partake in an activity in MY country which legally I, as a citizen of said country, am debarred from participating in?”

I am not a gambler and I may never visit a casino in Guyana or anywhere else, however I take offence to any law which prevents me from participating in an activity which foreigners are allowed to freely partake in. There can be no moral justification of it in what we all consider – perhaps to varying degrees – to be a democracy. The freedom of choice has been withdrawn from locals while foreigners have that option.

I have agonized over this to find some way of accepting that it can be. I am unable to find even an iota of sense or good judgment in it.

My view is that gambling should either be made legal and permissible for all in Guyana (whether Guyanese or not) or it should be an illegal activity for all. Legislation which discriminates on the basis of nationality reverses hundreds of years of social advancement.

It cannot be legal for some and illegal for others. Surely we have not forgotten times when there were restaurants for some, washrooms for some and when the front of the bus was only for some among other discriminatory practices.

The contention that government should allow vices for foreigners in our land whilst ‘protecting’ its citizenry from these vices is a flagrantly dangerous one as it is grounded in false logic and flawed thinking.

It is, in fact, the bedrock of hypocrisy.

The legislation as it now stands allows a loophole which defeats the presumed intention of the law. A local can very well enter and partake in the activities of the casino if they are a guest of the hotel. Therefore there is no real protection of the citizenry against the vice. It is in fact a worsening of the vice.

Whereupon a Guyanese wishing to gamble could have just walked into the casino and so do, they now have to expend additional financial resources to book a room to qualify themselves to gamble. For persons who are intent on gambling this is not a deterrent, it is a mere inconvenience. Addicts will find a way of overcoming the hurdles and the current design of the law aids them in so doing.

Also for government to take the role of – based on the construct and operations of our Parliament – unilaterally determine what is good and what is not for citizenry and enshrine same in law is to set a scandalously treacherous precedent – the perils of which, through unkind experience, I am sure most are all only too familiar with.

What next? Exclusive dining options for foreigners? Special airport transportation services only for foreigners?

The precedent has been set.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi