Let’s invoke Walter’s “King Midas” chant

Nov 06, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Let us tell you first about King Midas. In ancient Greek mythology, the god Dionysus heard that King Midas was a kind person.
So one day, after hearing about a good deed of the King, Dionysus asked him to name a wish. The King said that he would like everything he touches to turn into gold. His wish was granted.
When in journalism, politics and literature, you come across the term. “The Midas Touch” you know it means that the person who is being referred to has the touch of gold.
Michael Jackson had the Midas Touch. So did Burt Bacharach. So did Brian Lara. So did Shane Warne. So did Michael Jordan. Maybe, Nelson Mandela; maybe, Tiger Woods; maybe, Roger Federer. Definitely, the man of the moment – Barack Obama.
During the reign of Forbes Burnham, the indomitable Walter Rodney put an interesting interpretation to the rule of Forbes Burnham. He urged his supporters to reverse the Midas Touch slogan and chant it in the reverse, meaning that everything Burnham touches turns not to gold but the opposite – sh…t. It caught on and at most of his rallies Walter would invoke the Midas Touch caricature.
I was part of that moment and those memories will never die. Walter aroused those crowds to feverish levels with his chant of “King Burnham and everything he touches turn to sh…t.”
The time has come in this country to invoke the chant of Walter’s caricature of King Midas. Our King hasn’t turned anything into gold the past decade.
A decade is a long time. The city of Dresden in Germany suffered the worst bombing of a specific target during WW2 yet a decade after the war, Dresden was dressed up again.
Everything the King embraces turns to the opposite of gold. Look at it for yourself. There is no golden transformation of Guyana. Not even into silver but sh…t. Start with electricity. The Wartsila plants developed warts all over their casings the past ten years. Blackouts will continue once the King reigns.
The King took control of UG. The sh…t is all over that place. The King built a harbour bridge in Berbice and the shape of that structure makes Forbes Burnham look like the real King Midas when you think of the handsome construction Burnham put to connect East Bank with the West Coast and named the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
That Berbice edifice looks shaky and we should adopt the headline of an issue of Dayclean written by Eusi Kwayana way back in the early eighties titled; “Troubled Bridge over Water.”
The King went into a relationship with Lawrence Duprey, the CLICO boss from Trinidad. There is no gold in CLICO only pain, sorrow and sh…t. And maybe bullets because look at what happened to the lady that took over CLICO. Someone tried to kill her on Lombard Street.
The King strategized his way into control of the army and police. Look what is happening there.
There aren’t golden boys in the security forces. Instead you have killing machines that torture people, brutalise them and in many instances kill them.
Nothing golden came out of Mr. Arokium’s Lindo Creek mining camp.
When he went there to collect his gold and diamonds, he found dead bodies. King Midas’s reverse touch was in full swing. Someone has to visit that tortured, little boy in the burns unit of the Georgetown Hospital and read the story of Walter Rodney to him and how Walter turned the King Midas tale into a successful political campaign.
Mark Benschop has the ability to chant with good results. I’ve seen him do that several times and it attracted people. He is good at caricaturing things when he is in the picket line.
Next time, Mark and I go on a street protest, I will ask him to do the Midas Touch echo in reverse as Walter did. The caricature of the Midas Touch is ubiquitous in this country.
Poor Guysuco has been visited with the sh…t. And low carbon looks like it will run into sh…t.
The US senate has postponed debate on climate change and legislation on the subject until next year. That means Copenhagen will not produce gold for King Midas.
If you want to see the Midas Touch in reverse just gaze at the Chronicle in 2009. Never was the Chronicle in such sh…t in all the PNC years.
I feel sorry for the Guyana Times. It has been hit with the Midas Touch in reverse. And what about dem old people pension in the NIS. Dat gone into de toilet. Dem boys seh NIS is heading for what we call sh…t creek.

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