Latest update November 23rd, 2024 1:00 AM
Sep 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
There are times when some members of the political elite say the stupidest things that you cannot help but describe them as sores (mormals) or morons. Is there any government in the world that has Ministers capable of spewing the kind of comical miasma as we have here in Guyana?
Years back, a high PPP official wrote under the pseudonym, Oliver Sam. There was no real person by that name. When challenged, he fought back vigorously saying he, Oliver Sam will step forward. He did, but with a mask over his face and vanished into thin air.
How can someone who makes policy for a Caribbean Government be so foolish. If Oliver Sam does not exist then why say he will come forward. He never can, he never will, because he does not exist. Commonsense should have driven that PPP high priest to offer a more thinking response.
How about the Minister who told the media that when he heard news going around that a high cabinet official was intimately linked to Roger Khan, he thought the news was about him since he is the kind of Minister that would do the things the press reported Ramsammy as being engaged in.
A certain Minister confused our CARICOM Commonwealth neighbour, Dominica with the Dominican Republic. In full view of scores of learned Guyanese another policy-maker pronounced the French word deportment (di por mah) the way it is spelt – de-port-ment.
We now have a senior Minister insinuating that the Mormons in Guyana may have been engaged in spying. Now why would the Americans use twenty or thirty well-dressed white people in a tropical Third World country as spies? If anyone who is in the policy-making establishment believes that, then he/she is a fool.
In a country where the population is made up of East Indians and Africans, commonsense would dictate that if you want to spy on the country then you would send down some Caribbean born-American citizens, both Asian and Africans. To think that a Minister could even utter that facetiousness, tells the kind of person he/she is.
At the time of writing, I don’t know why the Mormons were told to leave Guyana but I can use political theory and the particular knowledge I have of the nature of the PPP to advance an explanation. It could be that the Muslim and Hindu priests that are intricately bound up with the Government have complained to the political gods that the Mormons are converting their people.
That would have the entire PPP leadership plus Ravi Dev (whom I heard in all seriousness will be taking up appointment with the Government soon – I wish him well) into pandemonium. I know in Wakenaam where my wife has her roots, the proselytizing process has been going on for years now but not with the Mormons.
There is nothing wrong in a globalized world if the major religions compete for parishioners. This is what globalization brings. The king of cultural globalization was that genius of music, Michael Jackson. Which Muslim and Hindu didn’t like the music of Jackson? In the Muslim and Hindu villages all over the world, they listened to the King of Pop.
There are different denominations all over Guyana. Everywhere you go in Guyana you see these Christian preachers.
What is wrong with that? Many white folks have converted to Eastern religions. I see Mormons in the National Park everyday. They walk past you and would smile and give you a hello. I see mormals and morons in another park, too, the park of policy-making.
The thing that should upset all Guyanese is why the Mormons were detained at the Eve Leary Headquarters? This is a huge, international church that must have official representatives in Guyana.
Why couldn’t the police and the Ministry of Home Affairs deal with these representatives rather than have the entire flock at Eve Leary? Of course, Mr. Jagdeo got into the act. After a meeting with him, the deadline for leaving was extended. But how did Mr. Jagdeo get involved in the first place?
If it is a case of illegal entry, that is the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police. If it is permission to stay and work, then there is a governmental structure that has that kind of prerogative, the Ministry of Home Affairs.
How did this matter reach the President? President Jagdeo is the Minister of Defence but surely, the decision not to grant the Mormon Church permission to remain in Guyana should not involve the Minister of Defence. I wonder whose side in this matter God is on.
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