High-level slackness and vulgar legacies

Jan 19, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The photo circulating of this country’s leader gyrating behind a woman (also known as ‘backballing’) at the army’s Old Year’s Night bash epitomises the vulgarity, slackness, depravity and lewdness of the two most recent presidencies. It reminds us of the no-limits approach that typifies the rule of both individuals, a period when Guyana has slouched into its most immoral, crass and contemptible mould.
The ‘backball’ is a naturally vulgar dance. Its inherent obscenity is magnified when it is performed in any public sphere and moreso when it is performed in public settings where dignitaries such as the leaders of this country are attending.
Shame on the GDF and the President. The latter is following in the ‘backballing’ footsteps of his predecessor, a man who had no problem receiving a ‘backball’. It confirms how tragically leadership in this country has declined under the last two presidencies. This shameful incident validates the belief among Guyanese that the moral compasses of both men have gone awry.
It must also be said that the women who have ‘backballed’ both of these men obviously felt no powerful respect for them, to the extent that these women felt perfectly comfortable to do what they did. It seems these women must have felt these men were tolerant of indignity and tawdriness and receptive to indecency, and they were proved right.
Cheddi Jagan, Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte never engaged in this lewdness or entertained such advances, nor did they remotely give off ‘vibes’ that they would allow such scandalous behaviour. What is worse with this sordidness is this is not the first time this has occurred nor is it the first time public figures have commented on this behaviour by the two leaders.
Stella Ramsaroop wrote an article titled “Presidential backball” on October 15, 2011 during the height of the PPP election campaign when our two most recent leaders received “backballs” at their rallies. There was outrage at the smuttiness of their conduct then. Proper leaders would have heeded the moral warnings from these public commentaries. It seems like our current leader did not care about the public consternation from the last time he was ‘backballed’ or he sees nothing morally decrepit with it, which is why he went right ahead and had another ‘backball’. What can we expect from a man whose ascension to the presidency has been a terrible continuation of the politics of his predecessor?
In a country where women are routinely treated like garbage by many men, ‘backballing’ presidents gyrating on bent over women is clearly the kind of absurd message the leaders of this country must not send to these brutalized women.
If a man with all the powers available to the presidency would do nothing different from the tarnished legacy of his predecessor, why should we expect him to stop ‘backballing’? How could the leader of a party filled with crudity and boorishness and constantly celebrating ineptitude find the courage to morally refuse a backball if he lacks the stomach to do the right thing within his own party?
Our last two presidents have ‘backballed’ all over Guyana, and our nation seems to be going further into a hole of immorality, vulgarity and profanity. At this rate, the Guyanese people have no chance of ever getting up off the floor again.
“Backballing” is in the nature of some among us, it is part of their innate core willingness to engage in slackness at the drop of a hat. And in the above cases, the administrations are a reflection of these ‘backballing’ atrocities.
It is no wonder this country wakes up every day to a new act of wrongness and nastiness that the leaders turn around and defend to the hilt.
M. Maxwell

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