Indeed that bell is rung out, that song is sung out

Jan 06, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I wanted today to look back at 2009 but there has been an interesting intervention that needs an exigent reaction. I refer to a whole page advertisement in the Kaieteur News on New Year’s Day by some PPP members who have voiced alarm at the direction the PPP Government has gone into and to lament the removal of Navin Chandarpal from his presidential post. The PPP has denied knowledge of the signatories and surmised that it may be done by enemies of the PPP. But it could also be the work of an inside group preparing for the election battle which doesn’t look winnable.
I once did a column titled, “This bell is rung, this song is sung out.” This was in response to Clement Rohee who kept carping on something called “the PNC dictatorship” each time he sent a letter to the two independent dailies. This was all the PPP had to offer in its defence of terrible governance because the PPP had replaced the PNC dictatorship with a PPP dictatorship. It was a bell that was rung out. It was a song that was sung out. The young population of Guyana hardly knew about the PNC’s misbehaviour under Burnham and didn’t want to know. All they saw and knew was the PPP in government and didn’t like what they saw
As years went on, the old refrain of PNC dictatorship was a requiem that caught no one’s
ear. The PPP has to look for new drums to beat. The PNC horse will not run. It will in fact turn round and kick its rider. The opposition will make mincemeat of recalled memories of the bad days of Mr. Burnham. For each of Burnham’s sins, there is a matching PPP venality. After seventeen years of incompetence, what can the PPP tell the electorate? About an autocrat that once ruled the land named Burnham. The crowd will shout out, “Who is he?”
So it seems that the PPP has found a banner to take it into the election – Mr. Jagdeo has moved the PPP far, far away from the dreams of “our beloved Cheddi.” This will be the only game in town. The race has begun.
That whole page advertisement on New Year’s Day is an indication of how the campaign is going to be shaped. Sugar has taken the count. Electricity is a disappearing element in Berbice. Crossing the Berbice Bridge is an expensive affair. Unemployment in Essequibo and Berbice remains high. Crime is the new bubonic plague in the country-side. So what are PPP leaders going to mollify their supporters with for them to keep the faith? Mr. Jagdeo is going to be the whipping boy.
Shaggy’s famous tune “It Wasn’t Me” will be blared from loud speakers placed on top of electricity poles. The PPP stalwarts will beg forgiveness and say this was not what Cheddi intended. Bharrat Jagdeo will get a hammering on the sugar estates. Jagdeo will be dragged in the mud in the bottom-house meetings. Every possible failure will be laid at the doorstep of Mr. Jagdeo. He didn’t care about sugar workers because he never grew up on a sugar estate. He doesn’t care for the working class the way “Cheddi taught us.” He surrounds himself with people that are strangers to the party. He never listened to party supporters and did his own thing.
Missing from the repertoire of course will be their own complicity. 2010 marks eleven years of Mr. Jagdeo’s reign. Where were those people that put the placement in the Kaieteur News the past ten years? I met Navin Chandarpal at the Georgetown Club three years ago at a function and pleaded with him to stop the rut at UG. He was unapologetic. In fact, we had a mini-quarrel. I met Komal Chand and spoke to him about racist tendencies that had taken over the management of Guyana Water Inc.
He wasn’t rude. He politely informed me, he wasn’t interested in speaking to me. This same Chand, this same Chandarpal saw the monster eating up the very scientists that created him, but the monster was far away from their villages so they enjoyed a separate peace while King Kong ravaged their neighbours.
The campaign to get the PPP elected again has started. Happily the PNC dictatorship bell has been rung out, the PNC dictatorship song has been sung out.
The new tune is Jagdeo’s dictatorship. But shouldn’t these gentlemen give me credit for singing the song of elected dictatorship and ringing the bell of dictatorship for the entire 2009?

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