In Guyana, a victory over fascist power

Aug 11, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The sheepish opposition that crawls into the National Assembly each day and participates in a parliamentary farce should internalize the lessons of the garbage defeat of the Guyana Government yesterday. Today, the WPA holds a public forum at its head office in Queenstown to solicit the views of the populace on the shape of coalition politics for the forthcoming national elections. I will be there.
I know I will be in an eager mood to listen to the opposition MPs who will serenade us with their strategies. I will be tempted to ask them to reel off for us their parliamentary achievements, especially Ms. Sheila Holder. She recently defied opposition unity and voted for the report of the Parliamentary Appointments Committee while the PNC boycotted the sessions.
In fact, Ms. Holder voted for the PPP’s nominees. I guess Lincoln Lewis had her in mind when, on benschopradio.com, he told his listeners that there may be a surprise coming in that though the anticipation is that the PNC may give the PPP the constitutional change for a Jagdeo third term attempt, it may come from within the AFC itself. Ms. Holder’s recent attitude in Parliament certainly necessitates a response from that party’s leadership.
Yesterday’s episode in the garbage confrontation holds important lessons for the opposition, but will they listen? The miasma had totally enveloped the capital, and the little dictators hoped to defy logic and science. Their thinking, as characteristic of their nature, was to let the filth pile up and Guyanese would denounce the City Council. Guyanese have long renounced the City Council. But ensconced in their delusions of grandeur, the little dictators are incapable of comprehending reality – Guyanese have seen the nature of fascist power and have denounced them too.
Only a fool would have accepted the good guy (Government) versus the bad guy (City Council) scenario in the garbage crisis. The people of this country may not be impressed with the City Council (this citizen is one) but they know that municipal power is a farce. The PPP leaders do not believe in devolution of authority.
Absolutely nothing in this realm underwent changes during the long years of local government negotiations between the ruling party and the opposition. Had we gone into local elections this year, the masquerade would have continued, whereby people vote for local authorities who have no legal power at all.
The City Council would argue that it couldn’t pay the collecting companies, but one suspects a subtle game of realpolitik (with some hilarity) was played out by the City Hall. It had to be a self-defeating exercise by the little dictators. Which society would accept a capital city completely surrounded by garbage with frightening possibilities of an endemic? Only a sick government would believe it can win such a nasty, indecent and human battle. In the end it lost. There was of course the presence of hilarity.
There must have been an ocean of rib-tickling jokes at City Hall and among the population as the stench spread to the noses of important visitors from around the world who came to do business with the elected dictatorship in Georgetown.
We are fighting desperately to get a Marriott brand but on their way to the Pegasus, the Marriott officials must have been hit with the stench even though the government-appointed chauffeurs would have been warned to take them through streets where they would not see the miasma. They must have wondered why tourists would come to this war-torn hell.
It had to be laughs galore when you watched the mountains of waste covering Georgetown, polluting the earth and set to do permanent harm to the environment and you reflected on the President being a Champion of the Earth – so described by of all places, the United Nations. There can be no question about it – the embarrassing monster was hurting fascist power. In the end, the oligarchs were defeated. The little dictators had to pay the garbage collectors. They lost the battle. Democracy triumphed.
The City Hall should no longer pay for garbage collection. Let those who restrict the Council from raising its own revenue, let those who don’t believe in devolved authority, let those who can build an Olympic-size swimming pool, let those receive international grants for saving the environment save their own environment.
The garbage companies have been paid by the little dictators and the cleaning process has begun. When the money runs out, let’s play the game again and see who wins.

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