Turning The Curve
Within a matter of hours after the official launching of Guyana‘s newest political party, I was able to log into my favorite cyber space room, the GTF Forum, and connect pictorially with those happenings. Yep, our own Bryanmaxx, ever conscious and thoughtful of the diasporian interest in important happenings in our beautiful country, used the agency of technology to bring the mountain to Mahomet so to speak. Isn’t the internet just wonderful? The following day on accessing the various newspapers sites I was pleased to see that the two independent dailys appropriately made that launching the feature presentation on their front page. However, surprise, surprise, I accessed the one paper that is ex officio the property of all the people of Guyana and found that for them it was a matter of politics as usual. The headlines for that day read, MISTERY BOAT FIND IN BUXTON. I will leave the grammatical sorting of that headline to the experts and maybe knit pickers among us, but just for the hell of it would like to throw out this question to the nation at large. Don’t you-all think that when a State run nationally owned newspaper pre-empts the launching of a new political party on a turbulent political scene such as ours, with news about the discovery of an inflatable rubber dinghy, you-all should seriously consider adding your voices to the call for immediate removal of this nationally owned asset from the hands of its public caretakers? Just asking a question.
With the official launching of two new political entities, namely, The Guyana Third Force (GTF) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) now completed, I am driven to ponder another question. And that revolves around whether these recent developments in our political culture are indicators that we are finally turning the curve, and moving away from a baseline of race inflected notions and perceptions seemingly indigenous to our pattern of selecting national leadership. Because despite the fact that we have a history of coalitions, and mergers, and coming together of various political organizations and players, this time there is an aura of expectancy and hopefulness at a level we have never experienced before.
Recent polls and census results have triggered a slew of brass faced and facetious pronunciations from some politicians, to wit, that this whole idea that we are a nation that hibernate into ethnic enclaves during elections is a myth, or conjured up explanation to deny the in-roads they are making into non-traditional constituencies. Well, if you live in Guyana, or have ever done so for a considerable period over the past fifty years or thereabouts, and you still believe that kind of crap, then I have a nice piece of land sandwiched between Brick-dam, Water, Hadfield and High Streets I would like to sell to you. And the price is set at rock bottom on the real estate market. Look, we face a dilemma of which race is the most prominent feature, as is often commented on by the leader of ROAR. Burying our heads in the ground like an ostrich and ignoring it is not an adult manner of dealing with this aversive situation. That would be appropriate if we all were infants and had not yet figured out that things do exist even when we cover eyes to hide from them.
As I contemplate the emergence of two new options for the Guyanese electorate, the questions in the forefront of my mind are, what will it take to make that decisive turn at this crucial juncture of our political history? And what strategy can these two new political organizations adopt that will facility a 360 degree revolution in our political behavior? It is not too difficult to come up with answers for the first question. We have to be moved away from the practice of voting for a party because primarily it is associated with our particular racial grouping. We have to be motivated to begin thinking about the kind of Government we desire in terms of its ideological leanings, and economical outlook. We have to be encouraged to seriously accept our obligation to prepare a better and more people friendly social environment for our kids and their kids. In other words, we have to be influenced into superimposing issues like crime, jobs, healthcare, education et al, above the operand of race as the main determinant of how and why we will vote. The strategy for getting us there is what will be difficult.
In the letter column of an independent daily of Thursday November 3rd, 2005, a contributor, very frustrated with the way things are going, claimed that he voted for change in 1992 and it got him nothing. In fact he was worse off than he was before he voted, and he was mourning the death of a parent whose passing was incidental to the economic travails they had experienced. He said he would not “vote for change” again, but would base his choice on a number of things he illustrated. This, to me, is a microcosm of the kind of mindsets the two new political entities will have to tackle. They somehow have to make people, driven to frustration and skepticism about promises made by politicians pre 1992, understand the difference between a change of garment and driver, to a change of direction and a new car. Obviously, the GTF and AFC will secure the services of better minds than ours, we pontificators in the letter columns of newspapers and in forums on the internet. And they will face the unenviable task of developing a strategic message that connects with the rank and file of our people, in order to lure them away from this current pattern of selecting Governmental Leadership.
Keith R Williams
Atlanta, Georgia.
With the official launching of two new political entities, namely, The Guyana Third Force (GTF) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) now completed, I am driven to ponder another question. And that revolves around whether these recent developments in our political culture are indicators that we are finally turning the curve, and moving away from a baseline of race inflected notions and perceptions seemingly indigenous to our pattern of selecting national leadership. Because despite the fact that we have a history of coalitions, and mergers, and coming together of various political organizations and players, this time there is an aura of expectancy and hopefulness at a level we have never experienced before.
Recent polls and census results have triggered a slew of brass faced and facetious pronunciations from some politicians, to wit, that this whole idea that we are a nation that hibernate into ethnic enclaves during elections is a myth, or conjured up explanation to deny the in-roads they are making into non-traditional constituencies. Well, if you live in Guyana, or have ever done so for a considerable period over the past fifty years or thereabouts, and you still believe that kind of crap, then I have a nice piece of land sandwiched between Brick-dam, Water, Hadfield and High Streets I would like to sell to you. And the price is set at rock bottom on the real estate market. Look, we face a dilemma of which race is the most prominent feature, as is often commented on by the leader of ROAR. Burying our heads in the ground like an ostrich and ignoring it is not an adult manner of dealing with this aversive situation. That would be appropriate if we all were infants and had not yet figured out that things do exist even when we cover eyes to hide from them.
As I contemplate the emergence of two new options for the Guyanese electorate, the questions in the forefront of my mind are, what will it take to make that decisive turn at this crucial juncture of our political history? And what strategy can these two new political organizations adopt that will facility a 360 degree revolution in our political behavior? It is not too difficult to come up with answers for the first question. We have to be moved away from the practice of voting for a party because primarily it is associated with our particular racial grouping. We have to be motivated to begin thinking about the kind of Government we desire in terms of its ideological leanings, and economical outlook. We have to be encouraged to seriously accept our obligation to prepare a better and more people friendly social environment for our kids and their kids. In other words, we have to be influenced into superimposing issues like crime, jobs, healthcare, education et al, above the operand of race as the main determinant of how and why we will vote. The strategy for getting us there is what will be difficult.
In the letter column of an independent daily of Thursday November 3rd, 2005, a contributor, very frustrated with the way things are going, claimed that he voted for change in 1992 and it got him nothing. In fact he was worse off than he was before he voted, and he was mourning the death of a parent whose passing was incidental to the economic travails they had experienced. He said he would not “vote for change” again, but would base his choice on a number of things he illustrated. This, to me, is a microcosm of the kind of mindsets the two new political entities will have to tackle. They somehow have to make people, driven to frustration and skepticism about promises made by politicians pre 1992, understand the difference between a change of garment and driver, to a change of direction and a new car. Obviously, the GTF and AFC will secure the services of better minds than ours, we pontificators in the letter columns of newspapers and in forums on the internet. And they will face the unenviable task of developing a strategic message that connects with the rank and file of our people, in order to lure them away from this current pattern of selecting Governmental Leadership.
Keith R Williams
Atlanta, Georgia.
posted by daretothinkfree @ 11/03/2005 08:59:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home