The police: Complete class bias in a banana republic

Oct 21, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I told Jimmaul Baggot, the chairman of the BV/Triump NDC last Monday on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show that I consider over 55 years of social activism as a failure.

I told Mr. Baggot that my permanent psychic destruction lies in bringing back my talented wife to live in Guyana in 1984. I will say more on the failure of my life in my birthday column which is not far from now. When you see what takes place in this country, it is irresistible in describing Guyana as a banana republic. If you study comparative politics and political theory then, the description of Guyana being a banana republic stares you in the face.

One of the misleading things about the definition of banana republic is that the original definition has been expanded but people still define it wrongly. It was derived from the oligarchic system in Central America where the ruler is a pawn in the hands of the plantocracy.

The term has been widened since the 1960s by political theorists but especially journalists to include a system where because the rich could do anything they want, the society becomes corrugated and any cruel or comical act becomes the norm. Anything goes in a banana republic. There are no mores, norms, regulations, values, social guidelines. The society is just a mashed up system where people with moneyed power are layers above the rest of society.

The rest of society just allows them to do what they want. I will offer vivid evidence of moneyed power in a banana republic named Guyana in my birthday column.

This column here offers a snippet of what goes in the banana republic of Guyana and how the police are little boys and girls in the employ of the plantocracy. The way the rich oligarchs treat the police in a banana republic is to ignore them or dictate to them.

Remember the Minister of Public Infrastructure issued a no-nonsense warning to citizens who have encumbrances on public parapets. The edict was issued the Friday to go into effect the Monday. I responded with a column on the issue the very Monday, (June 27, 2022), titled; “I’m old now; don’t want another confrontation with Minister Edghill.”

The exercise never took place. It died in stillbirth. You don’t have to study sociology to know why there was no “Operation Encumbrance.” Commonsense can tell you why. More moneyed people than the wash-bay boys had encumbrances on the parapet and since they are the untouchables, the ministry, the City Council and the police could not touch their things on the parapet. This is what is meant by a banana republic.

So we come to one snippet of life in a banana republic, while you await my birthday column (I was born on December 30; I’m Capricorn, the goat). The police announced this week they are clamping down on heavily-tinted vehicle windows. Really! I say again with uncontrolled decibels; really?

This will be one of the most asinine exercises the Guyana Police Force would have ever undertaken in its history. The dimension of stupidity will be so pyrotechnical that the police should not do it because in doing it, the police will prove to the world Guyana is a banana republic.

Which tinted windows the police are targeting? Not windows in general in Guyana. Surely not! The police are going after minibuses, hire cars, small income people like the canter truck owners and low income earners who have a family size car.

I have a car whose windows are in accordance with the tint but if it had exceeded the legal limit then I would not have taken it off because in a banana republic, anything goes so why pick on me. You want to see how stupid the police operation is then leave reading this column and look out of your window. You will see hundreds of vehicle windows that are so heavily-tinted that they are darker than the colour of Hades in ancient Greek mythology. Those vehicles will not be touched because they are owned by people that the police will not stop.

I sit on the Eve Leary seawall at the bandstand every afternoon with my dog. While my pet buries her head in the grass, I look at the traffic. I look at Guyanese as they go home from work or arrive on the seawall.

I say with no hesitation, about 80 percent of the vehicles I look at each afternoon, exceeds the legal tint limit. All vehicles that are over 20 million dollars owned by moneyed people whether business folks or professionals have illegal tints. The police force will harass the ordinary driver today because Guyana is a banana republic.

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The police: Complete class bias in a banana republic

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