‘Impress’ is Christopher Columbus, Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortes combined trickery on the youths of Guyana

Aug 20, 2011 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Look, I don’t read the Guyana Chronicle. So if Cheddi Berret Jagan II, Esq. wants to address my letter published in Kaieteur News, he should send his response to Kaieteur News.
Don’t publish it exclusively in a government organ. A friend brought his letter in Chronicle titled “Marco Polo” Maxwell’s trickery ain’t gonna work with anyone” to my attention.
Readers, I apologize for this long response but this is the youth of the nation we’re talking to and about here. It is most important to set this straight. Mr. Jagan, Esq. said Impress was “meritorious, sincere, good-faith effort … aimed at noble causes, as here, youth empowerment.”
Then Mr. Jagan, Esq. stated that “Impress: Making Our Mark,” was the first of a series of similarly situated events organized by young Guyanese professionals for the PPP/C …” Therein lies the problem. Meritorious, sincere, good-faith, noble and youth empowerment don’t mix with the PPP/C and most definitely not under the PPP of Jagdeo and Ramotar.
Unless Mr. Jagan, Esq. wants us to consider as noble causes things such as corruption, crime, a drug trafficking industry, immorality, perversity, wrongdoing, a culture of bribery, runaway cost of living, chicken prices at $400 per lb while rich Americans pay $261 per lb, people being murdered “left, right and centre”, gun smuggling, racketeering, floating wharves, washed-away roads, empty sugar factories, brand new ghost hospitals, brand spanking new schools without teachers, staggering youth unemployment and underemployment and youths dropping out of an education system, it is only Mr. Jagan, Esq and his friends in high places in the PPP that can swallow this one. Cheddi Berret Jagan II, Esq. “ain’t” fooling me. I know he “ain’t” fooling the youths of this country.
Mr. Jagan, Esq. himself states that this Impress fiasco was organized for the PPP. This means this was a PPP thing. Meaning this entire Impress fiasco was PPP propaganda. Mr. Jagan, Esq. should tell us how many of the attendees were rented or in other words brought in by bus to attend this thing.
Mr. Jagan, Esq. then waxes poetic on us. He says the Impress event and other planned events of a similar nature are to “alter the historic disregard for young Guyanese in national affairs due to the perception by society that they are politically mute and complacent, as well as to transform the ensuing social stigma attached to such youths due to their political immobility.”
Quite a mouthful. Some people didn’t have as much to eat for the past week as this mouthful. Let me interpret it for the common man like me: mumbo-jumbo.
This ‘historic disregard’ for our youths in national affairs is whose problem exactly Mr. Jagan, Esq.? Last time I checked most of these same youths were born during the PPP’s 19 year rule. I am not an Esquire (its sounds fancy and bright) like Mr. Jagan but I know basic logic.
This little logic I know tells me that the historic disregard of youths Mr. Jagan, Esq. is
talking about happened right under the PPP rule!!
So really what Mr. Jagan is saying is that the PPP is trying to fix this thing it broke in the first place? No, the PPP “ain’t” fixing anything. It is trying to empower youths to vote PPP with this gimmickry.
Did it take 19 years of staggering youth unemployment, mis-education, dis-empowerment, suffering and malaise of and by youths for the PPP to suddenly realize that the youths were historically disregarded?
Who politically muted youths and made them politically immobile, Mr. Jagan, Esq.? It is the same party that ruled when youths were being born in this country: the PPP. They held the political reins completely during this period. This is the same PPP that has reportedly refused to hold a congress for its youth body, the PYO, since 1999.
The same PPP that suspended a constitutionally due congress due this year to keep its ruling cabal called the Central Committee in power without election and to have its presidential candidate approved without question by its membership.
But I guess you can blame the PNC for this one too. A dog bites a PPP supporter, it is the PNC that did it. Rain falls, it’s the PNC. A PPP official fills his pocket, it is the PNC that is to be blamed for creating a culture of corruption. Ahmad sends 29 tons of building materials to Jagdeo and it is the PNC to blame.
But Mr. Jagan, Esq. wasn’t done there. He then wrote this beauty: “that youth exposure to dynamic and diverse experiences provides an invaluable avenue for political and social transformation, not only for the specific individual, but for the nation as a whole.” I agree.
Youths have had a 19-year eye-opener to crime, corruption, graft, immorality, abuse of power, mismanagement, incompetence and waste under the PPP.
But they are still looking for that dynamic and diverse experience called a job. Yes, work, job, employment, proper education. Any of those would be the dynamic and diverse experience they seek.
I guess the PPP wants the youth vote before they inevitably leave this country for better pastures. Who are these people trying to fool? Do they think that youth are a gullible bunch who will fall for anything. I know this: youths will not fall for anything that stands for nothing: that is the PPP.
So 5000 people show up at this ‘Impress’ and Mr. Jagan, Esq. boldly declared success in this propaganda effort. Is this how these PPP plotters see youths? That if they show up in numbers the hoodwinking, conning and trickery is complete.
The same way Christopher Columbus, Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortes showed up on the lands of our Amerindian peoples and by handing out some beads believed that the conquest was complete.
This Impress conference was to get, buy and con youths into voting PPP. Because joining the PPP as a youth is not an option. You won’t have a congress for 11 years. Or you will have suspended general congresses.
This version of the PPP is not for the working class youth of suffering and hardship. It is for the few, the rich, the well-heeled, the well-connected, the powerful and the people with certain names.
This version of the PPP is a party of the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful. Jobless young people are nothing but pawns.
Nothing but votes to them. Nothing more, nothing less. Hearing Clement Rohee, Irfan Ali, Ashni Singh, Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar at some youth expo does not change the reality that you will wake up tomorrow jobless, unemployed and economically castrated. These men had 19 years to create jobs, security, safety and a proper system of education and non-corrupt government and they failed. So them coming and talking up a storm at a youth expo is nothing but more talk. Talk is cheap, Cheddi Berret Jagan II, Esq.

These breakout sessions chaired by Ashni Singh, Irfaan Ali and Kwame Gilbert were PPP propaganda sessions. Did Ashni Singh talk about the expanded opportunities for corruption created by the PPP? Or how he expanded cost of living as Finance Minister? Did this transformation and modernization agenda of Guyana facilitated by Minister of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan Ali talk about the one road in and out of a housing scheme of more than 40,000 people in Diamond?
Or was it about the transformation of the Sparendaam land by the Atlantic ocean where mansions are being built while people cannot even afford to eat a piece of chicken in this country?
And Kwame Gilbert’s session about confronting social and cultural challenges in a diverse society, did it talk about Jamzone bringing lawlessness to this country and government funding it? Is the facilitation of youths ‘wineing’ up and down on each other now deemed culturally and socially desirable by the PPP?
Mr. Jagan, Esq. said I have too much imagination when I called this Impress set of beads for what it is, a scandalous sham. Mr. Jagan, Esq. said it was a thing of meaningful knowledge and discourse. Mr. Jagan, Esq., did any youth get knowledge of when they would get a decent job or a job to begin with?
Did Impress have a job board showing tons of positions ready to hire? After this venting by youths to Ashni Singh, please tell me Ashni Singh announced 5000 jobs to youths attending the fiasco expo.
Youths want the discourse of a better Guyana. Not this tragedy of a country being delivered by the PPP. That discourse did not happen at Impress. The only people impressed with Impress are the PPP and their hacks, soup drinkers and bootlickers.
Mr. Jagan, Esq. needs to tell me what exactly would attending 10,000 further Impress events do for the army of jobless youths of this country who need to beg or borrow a bus fare to get there? Is this the answer to the Damocles Sword of youth unemployment that frightens this country: to talk it to death?
To hold 10,000 Impress conferences and propagandize them to death until they are so mentally battered and twisted they will become robots and show up and mark that X next to a leaking Cup?
The PPP can hold these conferences from now to Thy Kingdom Come and it will not change anything. It will not change the suffering, the inequality, the pain, the angst, the smashing of their spirit and the breaking of their soul that youths have experienced in 19 years of PPP misrule.
To the Christopher Columbuses, Francisco Pizarros and Hernan Corteses of the PPP, the youth natives need more than shiny beads of hot air, big tents and political diatribe. They need change. Hope.
Transformation. Jobs, employment and work. The PPP never had it, never offered it, doesn’t have it and can’t offer it.
M. Maxwell

---

---