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McRae is petty in criticising gift of bridge for burials

Jan 23, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Something is seriously off balance when the gift of a bridge for public use in burial of the deceased is reportedly criticized…For what? What’s next to go on and on?
Both SN and KN reported that Mr. Elton McRae, a Triumph-based Guyanese, reportedly found the report on the bridge “offensive”. The media reported that the area of the BV/Triumph community burial ground for Hindus and Muslims, without an official entrance, received an $840,000 adorned gateway and bridge.
It was donated by former Deputy Chief Education Officer, Mrs Bibi Shariman Ali, her husband and two sons. Chairman Mr. Bruce Adams received the bridge on behalf of the NDC. The Roman Catholic section of the cemetery has its own bridge and is well maintained.
But Mr McRae is complaining that: “The bridge was given to their Muslim community between Success to Mon Repos. It was a facilitating endeavor for the members of that religious community so that they can have easier access to their burial ground.”
Mr. McRae did not volunteer what impediments actually prevented anyone’s use of the bridge.
Could normal maintenance without any tolls be anymore abnormal? Neither race nor religion is prerequisite “power sharing”, bridging death and burial. Could it however provide jump start motivation to at least restore gracious goodness which avoids death and burial as issues of disagreements? Can it? If not so, There must be something to the examples of PNC veteran deputy leader Dr Ptolemy Reid choosing to be buried in his native Essequibo and Presidents Dr Cheddi and Janet Jagan’s cremation in Berbice – with the latters’ ashes scattered elsewhere over Guyana.
All three leaders are far removed from the usual hubbub of our living.
Even in death we find so much contentiousness among Guyanese that a donated bridge makes us more abridged. Indeed, what can be more downright petty for such insensitive disrespect for the dignity of the defenseless dead?
See Mr. Elton McRae’s complete letter in the KN of 16-1-14 titled “everything linked to this report is offensive” and in the SN of 16-1-14 titled “BV/Triumph bridge should be maintained by Muslim community not NDC”. Then the urgency of decentralized Federalism becomes more validated by his criticisms.
Now contrast this to Georgetown’s Le Repentir cemetery where bodies locomote themselves, not by bridge or by boat, but by flood water!
Let’s assume Mr. McRae’s criticism unburdens the BV-Triumph NDC of its responsibilities. Such would give matching justifiable glorification to the PPP/C’s astuteness for Mayor Hamilton Green to remain unhinged from theirs. Righteousness would expect Mr. McRae to then bravely go tell it on the garbage mountain. Hopes that the Mayor, so preoccupied in the press, would ever awake to his caretaker responsibilities to restore Le Repentir, must not be without effort.
Only the PNC/APNU is best equipped to evaluate humbugs which hamper its trek to any new promised land for all.
Maybe long tortured minds and souls in the cemetery are now in silent screams of remorse, neglected even in death. How did their misplaced, trusting votes prescribe them such karmic Le Repentir hell in Georgetown under the PNC?
All the brimstone and fire raining on Town Clerk Ms Carol Sooba may also explain why some remain quite so comfortable among decay and nastiness to celebrate another Triumph.
Everyone knows dignity and respect for the dead is without religion. What else could it be to look a gift Arabian horse in the mouth?
For Mr. McRae what is very bothersome is that the NDC taxpayers’ funds would take care of the free bridge in future for everyone’s wellbeing. He was indeed a surprising protester, with no money no love for those families undertaking sanctuary’s final rest of their beloved.
The PNC cannot be so dead, unable to first fix Georgetown as a symbol of their ideals and aspiration. Everyone knows where they would not be welcome if dead. Can they do it? Only God knows.
Sultan Mohamed

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