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National Awards ceremony to be held at Monkey Mountain in honour of Barney Johnson

Jun 01, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Who are the biggest clowns and the most talked about jokers in power in politics anywhere in the world today? I know your first utterance would focus on Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy.
Before he came on stage, journalists and world leaders found Gaddafi of Libya a court jester. Willing to say the stupidest thing, he did say the most asinine things no human being should ever say. Not to be forgotten was George Bush, the second. He surely was a figure of fun.
Making the rounds recently is Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana. Why this man is so disposed to behaving in a comical manner in front of his nation is incomprehensible. Citizens from the most admired to the ordinary folk find Mr. Jagdeo a figure of fun. And no matter how much they laugh at the President and go overboard with their hilarity, Mr. Jagdeo brings that on himself.
It had to be the circus in town when the national awards were read out. Topping the list is the most listless of politicians the corridors of power has produced since the Dutch came to these soils, PM Sam Hinds. Mr. Hinds’s gift of the Order of Excellence (OE) can only be described as sociological listeriosis and political listeria. No wonder he made it first on the list.
The national awards were stopped for a long time now because it became a circus where it was given out like monopoly money. I remember I was laughing at the PPP Government when I read that Dr. Compton Bourne was given the OE. I confess at the time I didn’t know who Bourne was and I am supposed to know that because I function in academia.
If I didn’t, then most Guyanese at the time didn’t either. I guess the reason was that Bourne had left Guyana a long time ago. On reading on Bourne, it seemed that he got the OE for performance in the field of economics. Surely, one must find it a joke when one reads that a Guyanese economist could get the OE and it wasn’t Professor Clive Thomas. I need not say more on the fantastic quality of Thomas as a Caribbean economist and Guyanese citizen.
Since that time, Mr. Jagdeo loved to give out awards, but this time he presided over the largest circus in world history. Well, play it again Sam! (Hope Sam and Jagdeo know the meaning of that saying – here is a clue for both of them – the movie, Casablanca).
I guess Sam got his goodbye gift. I don’t think they will retain him as the PM candidate for the election (for which they will get a rude awakening) If I were Sam, I would have asked for something more substantial; like a piece in Pradoville 2.
One thought that crept into my mind when I read that listless Sam topped the list was, “What is he going to do with his perambulations?” Most Georgetowners are accustomed to seeing the PM walking around the surrounding areas of Georgetown with his six-man security outfit. Play it again Sam!
Boy the circus did come to town. Charles Ramson got his gift too. Ramson is the PPP’s ramsayite and Jagdeo’s ramsdellite but he is also politics’ ramshackle. Jagdeo is willing to give anyone who is his ramshorn a national award.
Charlie picked up one. Charlie is out of a movie so he deserved to be the winner of the ramsch (that’s a game Charlie). One will always remember this movie-like character who once told the press; “when ah hear deh talking bout a minister that does illegal things I taaught it was me deh was referring tuh.”
This was the best performance I have seen from a circus in Guyana. If Mr. Jagdeo was expected to leave a legacy, then he has. The national awards announcement for 2011 has become Mr. Jagdeo’s biggest legacy. So unfortunate that when you think of it as the years roll on you will not reflect on it but laugh at it.
This writer got confidential word that the ceremony will be done at Monkey Mountain and the Master of Ceremony will be Kwame McCoy. This writer has also been informed that there will be a posthumous OE for Barney Johnson, the notorious pedophile who plied his trade outside the Metropole cinema in the late fifties and early sixties.
Premier Cheddi Jagan appointed him a teacher of Monkey Mountain primary school.  On the announcement, Opposition Leader, Forbes Burnham, couldn’t control his laugher in Parliament. The Speaker had to upbraid him.

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