Pholourie Joe and defending the indefensible

Jun 15, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the back either. Just refuse to bear them.” William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
Editor, a more apt quote does not apply to what obtains today under the PPP government since “so-called” democracy has returned to Guyana. While Faulkner’s quote needs no embellishment, I will add “not race or party affiliation should stop each Guyanese from recognizing right from wrong and to give voice to the truth even when it is unpopular to do so.” The PPP’s moral equivalence fallacy has trapped Guyana in a perpetual backward gaze by forever using the PNC’s 28 years in office and of rigged elections to deny citizens of their constitutional right to vote in local government elections for over 20 years. Denial of citizens’ rights by whatever means is denial of rights. To hear the out-of- his depth and intellectually puny president Ramotar, state on the record, that had the PPP secured the parliamentary majority in the 2011 general election they would have been in the mood to hold local government elections is downright shameful and yet the likes of letters writers such as Dolly Hasssan ensconced in democratic United States of America will defend the PPP to the end.
And then there is Phoulorie Joe’s expected defense of his belated attack of conscience and his affiliation with the PPP reeks of naked opportunism. Without equivocating, can MP Hamilton explain the difference between the wrong doing he’s admitted to while in the PNC and the multitude of corruption, unbridled criminality, and torture by the police and those affiliated with the PPP government of today? Again, the PPP’s embrace of another former member of the PNC and GGG with a checkered past speaks to the symbiotic and some would say parasitic relationship that exists between the two major political parties. How else can one explain APNU’s misguided support of the Cricket Administration Bill?
Chronology of events and facts matter and though facts are stubborn things that often get in the way of a particular pre-determined narrative, they withstand scrutiny where opinion and conjecture fails. In a recent letter published in Kaieteur News “the president must rid Guyana of cricket cartel”; I find the use of the word cartel and PPP most interesting but not in the cricketing context but I digress. While I’m not discounting letter writer Jewan Persaud’s version of ills with Guyana’s cricket administration, his support for the remedy that a government that has no standing in terms of integrity and anti-corruption is misplaced.
This is where chronology is important. It was the government that illegally and unjustly raided the homes and offices of Guyana Cricket Board members. The GCB took the government to court and gained an injunction/won. As is the PPP’s won’t, this was followed by the equally illegal imposition of the IMC (incidentally this played a huge role in Clive Lloyd not becoming head of the WICB) that led to the misguided Cricket Administration Bill. In a court of law this is known as the underlying crime and logically, no law no matter how well intentioned, should not be supported. In essence, it’s a phony solution in search of a problem.
I will end on a positive note. I was pleased to see the nuanced approach that two young Guyanese leaders whom I’m familiar with and have the potential to transcend race; coined the phrase “PNC part 2” in their recent letter in Kaieteur and Stabroek News. Guyana needs more people such as
Gerhard Ramsaroop and Tarron Khemraj.
Nigel Jason

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Pholourie Joe and defending the indefensible

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