‘Joe the Plumber’ at the protest

Oct 31, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The busiest political character in Guyana is Joe the Plumber. He has been to the Berbice River Bridge, the new sugar factory at Skeldon, the Harbour Bridge, GPL, scheduled to be at the duck curry competition, and was last seen by the picketing demonstration with some of my friends outside the Carifesta Secretariat.
My long time friend, Barrington Braithwaite, was a vocal member of the protestors.

I don’t normally get a chance to look at television (in addition to not being excited about it) but I pressed the remote to see Trinidad versus Middlesex in the Stanford 20/20 and there was Barry, in the picket line, speaking with the reporter and pleading to be paid for his Carifesta contribution.

Barry reads my columns so he would understand what I am about to write here. I met Barry outside the central Post Office a week before Carifesta and advised him not to do anything for Carifesta unless he is paid in advance. My words are still ringing in my ears. I told Barry that those people aren’t going to pay.

How many doctorates in philosophy does a person need to understand the nature of PPP rule? The answer is none. After sixteen years of persistent blunders and incompetent output by the PPP Government, Barry should have known better; he is a man who understands how politics play out.

I have spent endless hours over the more than twenty years we have known each other with Barry, discussing political behaviour in this land.

In fact we share some political secrets. When Barry told me he got an advance, I remember asking him if he was just saying that to appease me. He responded that he did indeed get a workable advance. Was that the truth, my friend?

This is a sad country indeed. Imagine one could get elected even though one possesses no political virtue. Imagine one could get elected even though one has political sins that would lead to political ostracization if the country was the United States. A Minister in Guyana got entangled in a visa scandal and won reelection. Only in Guyana it can happen.

I read the praise Ravi Dev showered last week on Guyanese migrants to the U.S. He wrote that they started from scratch and today they have made it so they can afford to take cruise liner trips and to make visits to India. When he mentioned India then I figured he was referring to East Indians.

What I find absolutely incredible in the functioning of the human mind is how an East Indian from Guyana could go to the U.S., realize his/her dream, have cruise liner vacations, make expensive trips to India and support a political party in this country whose senior functionary fulminates against the U.S. every week against lack of democracy in the U.S.

I am referring to Mrs. Jagan in the Mirror. But more than that, why would someone who has realized the American dream endorse a party in Guyana that has a Freudian fascination with communism.

But more than this, why would such an immigrant admire this particular party when its leading cadres can get away with any vice, sin, immorality and yet get votes that would take them to the seat of power, yet those same perversities would lead to self-destruction in American political society.

Shouldn’t the East Indian immigrants from Guyana who live in the U.S. judge the PPP by the high standards that are demanded by society in the U.S?

My question is that when you look at how the PPP performs why the Guyanese East Indians that made it in the U.S. do not speak out against the hopelessness of the PPP and reject their leaders when they come to the U.S. to beg the Diaspora?

We return to Carifesta. The person in charge of it, Dr. Frank Anthony, came in first at the congress voting last August. Is this the end of his career? He ran the Carifesta Secretariat. He is the person responsible for the artistes being paid.

Look at how our talented people were treated. Two months after Carifesta is over, members of our literary community have to take to the streets to protest non-payment. This is disgraceful. It is a moment that has shamed us in the Caribbean.

So, is this the end of Frank Anthony? I will bet anyone in this wide world that far from it, Frank Anthony’s career is only just beginning.

Here in Guyana, there is a political party whose members can get away with so many things and yet have prolific political careers.

Sad indeed. This cancer has been with us for over sixty years. It will eventually swallow up this nation sooner rather than later.

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‘Joe the Plumber’ at the protest

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