The reality check is never far away
October 30, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, My Column
Source - Kaieteur News
I got a reality check the other day when I happened to be driving a Mercedes Benz along the streets of Georgetown. There were people who knew me but who perhaps because of the strangeness of the vehicle, only recognised me after I had passed. Then they took to calling me to let me know that they were surprised.
Then there were those who lived in my neighbourhood. There were the sarcasms about me arriving. But the reality came when one of the boys screamed at me that he was certain that I would be voting this year.
It is not that I have ever abstained from voting ever since I attained voting age way back in 1968—the year the vote at 18 came into effect. I got the message that the young man was sending. It was not that I would be voting. Rather, it was that I would be voting for the ruling party and he was convinced that I would.
The bottom line was that I had been given a Mercedes Benz by none other than President Bharrat Jagdeo as some form of inducement. Therein lies another message—that the government has tons of money to throw around and has no hesitation in doing so.
I have long been recognized as someone who would help anyone. I am approachable so people readily seek whatever help I could offer and more often than not, they get it. But the truth is that there are people who cannot conceive me being a member of the ruling party. After all I had been PNC for as long as they knew me.
Therefore to see me drive a high end car was something that simply knocked their breaths away. I had been bought… lock, stock and barrel.
It is in this same light that the wider Black community would see the likes of Gillian Burton, Joseph Hamilton, Fred McWilfred and Dr Richard Van West Charles, as people who have betrayed their trust. These were seen as members of the same family who had now gone and married outside the family.
Unlike politics in the United States and in homogenous societies where people change allegiance according to the issues that would attract them, in Guyana people for the greater part remain firmly wedded to the political party of choice. And everyone expects that to be the case.
When Khemraj Ramjattan left the People’s Progressive Party, despite his popularity within the party, he did not take many supporters with him to his new party. I knew that. Hamilton Green left the People’s National Congress to form ‘A Good and Green Guyana’ and he got more votes than the PNC at the 1994 local government polls.
I remember him saying “I beat them and I gun beat them again.” In the 1997 elections he did not “beat them again”. People were saying that an inconsequential election is one thing; the national election was another. Suffice it to say that he did attract some PNC supporters.
Raphael Trotman, like Hamilton Green, did not cross any floor and he too attracted some PNC supporters. Had he gone to either the PPP or to The United Force, those who voted for him at the 2006 polls would not have done so.
This brings us to Moses Nagamootoo. I know him. We have been close and we shared many private conversations. He dropped a bombshell when he walked from the PPP/C at this time, mere hours before Nomination Day. He was one of the more popular members of the party, securing the fifth largest number of votes to the Central Committee.
Will he be able to take that support with him to the new party? Convention says that he will not, but then again, the unusual has been known to happen. I asked Robert Persaud about Moses’s move and its impact on the people of Port Mourant and Whim from whence he came. Robert was adamant that the move would have no effect on his party.
He even promised that he would allow the media to conduct a house-to-house survey of the people to verify his comments. But Moses is saying otherwise and the people in those communities seem drawn to him.
These are the things that make the upcoming elections most interesting and these are the things that turned heads in my direction when they saw me driving the Mercedes Benz. I had cause to ask PPP leaders to indicate to me where I would live should I accept their largesse.
When a community expects certain things of you, it is wise not to disappoint the members. It is wise to “eat li’l bit and live long.” It is wise to maintain your pride although you cannot take pride to the shop. I try to picture the reaction of people to me coming out as Hamilton and Burton did. The images I get are not nice.
Oh. The Mercedes Benz. It is not a drug dealer’s car. Jagdeo did say that many people were driving drug dealers’ cars. That Benz is the property of Kaieteur News and as a senior member of staff I have the authority to drive it. It is a beautiful machine and when I drive it I feel good and the drive is remarkable. But the bottom line is that I save gas money that I would have spent on my own car.
October 30, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, My Column
Source - Kaieteur News
I got a reality check the other day when I happened to be driving a Mercedes Benz along the streets of Georgetown. There were people who knew me but who perhaps because of the strangeness of the vehicle, only recognised me after I had passed. Then they took to calling me to let me know that they were surprised.
Then there were those who lived in my neighbourhood. There were the sarcasms about me arriving. But the reality came when one of the boys screamed at me that he was certain that I would be voting this year.
It is not that I have ever abstained from voting ever since I attained voting age way back in 1968—the year the vote at 18 came into effect. I got the message that the young man was sending. It was not that I would be voting. Rather, it was that I would be voting for the ruling party and he was convinced that I would.
The bottom line was that I had been given a Mercedes Benz by none other than President Bharrat Jagdeo as some form of inducement. Therein lies another message—that the government has tons of money to throw around and has no hesitation in doing so.
I have long been recognized as someone who would help anyone. I am approachable so people readily seek whatever help I could offer and more often than not, they get it. But the truth is that there are people who cannot conceive me being a member of the ruling party. After all I had been PNC for as long as they knew me.
Therefore to see me drive a high end car was something that simply knocked their breaths away. I had been bought… lock, stock and barrel.
It is in this same light that the wider Black community would see the likes of Gillian Burton, Joseph Hamilton, Fred McWilfred and Dr Richard Van West Charles, as people who have betrayed their trust. These were seen as members of the same family who had now gone and married outside the family.
Unlike politics in the United States and in homogenous societies where people change allegiance according to the issues that would attract them, in Guyana people for the greater part remain firmly wedded to the political party of choice. And everyone expects that to be the case.
When Khemraj Ramjattan left the People’s Progressive Party, despite his popularity within the party, he did not take many supporters with him to his new party. I knew that. Hamilton Green left the People’s National Congress to form ‘A Good and Green Guyana’ and he got more votes than the PNC at the 1994 local government polls.
I remember him saying “I beat them and I gun beat them again.” In the 1997 elections he did not “beat them again”. People were saying that an inconsequential election is one thing; the national election was another. Suffice it to say that he did attract some PNC supporters.
Raphael Trotman, like Hamilton Green, did not cross any floor and he too attracted some PNC supporters. Had he gone to either the PPP or to The United Force, those who voted for him at the 2006 polls would not have done so.
This brings us to Moses Nagamootoo. I know him. We have been close and we shared many private conversations. He dropped a bombshell when he walked from the PPP/C at this time, mere hours before Nomination Day. He was one of the more popular members of the party, securing the fifth largest number of votes to the Central Committee.
Will he be able to take that support with him to the new party? Convention says that he will not, but then again, the unusual has been known to happen. I asked Robert Persaud about Moses’s move and its impact on the people of Port Mourant and Whim from whence he came. Robert was adamant that the move would have no effect on his party.
He even promised that he would allow the media to conduct a house-to-house survey of the people to verify his comments. But Moses is saying otherwise and the people in those communities seem drawn to him.
These are the things that make the upcoming elections most interesting and these are the things that turned heads in my direction when they saw me driving the Mercedes Benz. I had cause to ask PPP leaders to indicate to me where I would live should I accept their largesse.
When a community expects certain things of you, it is wise not to disappoint the members. It is wise to “eat li’l bit and live long.” It is wise to maintain your pride although you cannot take pride to the shop. I try to picture the reaction of people to me coming out as Hamilton and Burton did. The images I get are not nice.
Oh. The Mercedes Benz. It is not a drug dealer’s car. Jagdeo did say that many people were driving drug dealers’ cars. That Benz is the property of Kaieteur News and as a senior member of staff I have the authority to drive it. It is a beautiful machine and when I drive it I feel good and the drive is remarkable. But the bottom line is that I save gas money that I would have spent on my own car.