Curse of the bambino and the pretty bambina

Mar 16, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

For those who don’t know, the saying “Curse of the Bambino” is very popular in American sports lexicon. It has since been transferred to all types of discourse. It is the story of the baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. They sold their star player, Babe Ruth, (the popular chocolate bar is named after him) nicknamed the Bambino in 1918, and never won the national tournament again. By a miracle, they won it eighty-six years after in 2004.
The PPP is suffering from the curse of the bambino. Since Cheddi Jagan left the world, the PPP has been without its magic. In 2006 Mrs. Jagan, under failing health took to the campaign trail. It was her last fling at national politics. It was her last attendance of the ceremony of worship of Cheddi Jagan.
You didn’t need Cheddi Jagan to be there in the 1997 election. His grieving window was ever present to remind East Indians all over Guyana what Cheddi Jagan did for them. Cheddi wasn’t there but his other half was in front of them serenading them on the greatness of the man. Once Cheddi or his wife was there, the Jagan symbol was hypnotic in the Indian parts of Guyana. The PPP couldn’t lose.
Age was beginning to take its toll on Mrs. Jagan so she resigned the presidency in 1999. But she was there and once she was there Cheddi Jagan was there. The aura of the Jagans was indestructible in the 2001 and 2006 elections.
Burdened with seriously declining health, she had to travel to the campaign sites in 2006 to remind Indians that Cheddi was their god and that god was in front of them in the form of his wife.
In 2011, the Guyanese curse of the bambino was born. The PPP lost their first election since 1957. Eighty-six years after 2011 will be 2097. If you follow the pattern of the curse of the bambino, then the PPP will win again in 2097. For now, the certainty of victory is not there. The Jagans are in hell or heaven depending on your analytical perspective.
There has been an attempt to exorcize the curse of the bambino through the invention of the pretty bambina. The PPP dumped its recurring face, its ever dependent servant, Sam Hinds, for the pretty bambina – Elizabeth Harper. How the pretty bambina can dissolve the curse of the bambino needs no discussion. She cannot.
The PPP founded by the Jagans and held together by the Jagans since the fifties was an unbeatable election machine. It is doubtful that if he was alive, the younger Indians in 2015 would have voted against Cheddi Jagan. It was an inexplicable, eerie, uncanny hold this man had on the East Indian psyche.
Herein lies the difference between the African-Guyanese psychology and the psychic make-up of the Guyanese East Indian. There is no space to discuss that topic here. Suffice it to say that African youths and older African folks in sizeable numbers defected from Forbes Burnham with the advent of Walter Rodney until Burnham died in 1985. It was a terrible mental blow for Burnham and I don’t think he ever recovered from it. From the time Walter Rodney achieved influence among African Guyanese, Burnham was never the same man again.
It is doubtful that the Indians would have ever questioned the rule of Jagan no matter how authoritarian he would have become. And it is naïve to think that Jagan would not have been dictatorial had he ruled Guyana as long as Burnham did. Jagan was no different from Burnham in terms of the preservation of power. My own feeling is that Jagan would have been harsher for cultural reasons that cannot be explained here.
The Indians would have stuck with Jagan because unlike the African Guyanese who were Christians and whose middle class embodied the European values of democratic thinking, the Indians were at the mercy of the teaching of their religion. I think this is the essential difference in the psychic structure of Guyana’s two main races. Space is not available for an elaboration of this cultural sociology of the Guyanese society.
Back to the curse of the bambino and the pretty bambina. The PPP knows that the curse of the bambino is haunting it, that is why it is trying to see if the pretty bambina can help the party. The potent fact is that Harper’s introduction is graphic evidence that the PPP is desperate because it cannot rely on what is not there – the Jagans. The PPP’s best chance lies in the year 2097.

Latest News

Curse of the bambino and the pretty bambina

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 31st, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Twin tons from Anderson, Imlach steer Eagles back on course

Race for quarterfinal spots commence today at MoE...

Marsh sets up Lucknow’s comfortable win...

‘One Guyana’ 3×3 Quest tips off today

Saints and GTI dominate as YBG Georgetown...

Carty misses ton, Hamilton (80) sets up tense...

Features/Columnists

The One-Man Republic

The U.S. “Joining” the Commonwealth: an unreasonable expectation

Polls – what they say, where I stand

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

Curse of the bambino and the pretty bambina

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 31st, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]