When your Eyewitness woke up this morning, he could just smell that sweet, heady odor of freedom. Then again, it could’ve been the all-day and all-night rain that – still threatening to gush down again- that washed out the air!! Surprisingly, some folks near the stadium complained about the “Stink and Dutty” concert scheduled at that venue to usher in the Birth of our Republic!! Don’t they know this was deliberately appropriate?
Don’t they know that birth was real stink and dutty? Whoever’s complaining about the name of the concern just don’t know our history!! And in case, you’ve also forgotten, dear readers, do gather around and let your Eyewitness tell you the (sordid) story how were were conceived, gestated and created on Feb 23, 1970. It all began in the summer of 1967 when Burnham had already decided to dump his erstwhile (and naive!) coalition partner, the UF. He cocked the works by creating a new voters list that gave the franchise to thousands of youths below 21, who were “born PNC”!! He also enfranchised some horses and such like in England. They all combined to deliver a great “victory” in 1968.
By then, the UF had quit in disgust but the Prime Ministership wasn’t enough. Burnham never liked the idea of a Governor General being above him- representing the Queen – even symbolically! And that’s where the idea of a Republic came in. Don’t forget that Jamaica and Trinidad, which had gotten independence four years before us, didn’t even think of going that route! To Burnham, a Republic would just give him a greater freedom to “do wha’ ‘e want wid we”!! And boy did he allow his imagination to run wild!!
We were pronounced “the first co-operative republic in the world”!! No one quite knew what that meant – including Burnham, as it soon became clear! He assured us we all had an inbuilt compulsion to “cooperate” – which, he insisted, came from our slave and Indentureship experience. Burnham obviously had a warped sense of humor since whatever “cooperation” we exhibited to dig all those canals and such like, came at the crack of whips on our backs!!
So even as he said we would “feed, house and clothe” ourselves, he complained we were too “indisciplined”! He dragged 23,000 of us into the Army, Militia, National Service, YSM etc, to “mould” some more discipline into us!! By golly…if WE didn’t know what was good for us, he certainly did!! So for those public servants – then called “Civil Servants” – who were just sitting on their haunches according to Burnham. Every Saturday they had to show up at Hope Estate to weed and fork!!
Maybe the Govt could repeat this today?
…social Justice
So Sunday was “World Day of Social Justice”. You didn’t notice? Well, the government certainly moved mountains to go beyond the usual fatuous exhortations to make this year’s theme -‘Achieving Social Justice Through Formal Employment’ – real. What is your Eyewitness going on about? Hey…have you already forgotten about that MASSIVE Oil and Gas Conference? Wha’dya think that was all about? Jobs, baby, Jobs!!
Your Eyewitness didn’t notice many Chinese companies at the conference, so we can be assured all those other companies that showed up WILL be hiring locals. Remember the local content LAW?? Even if we aren’t qualified right now, we’ll have to be gradually trained to take over. And that’s what FORMAL employment is all about. No more going “back-track” to every country that we could slip into and work illegally (euphemistically, “informal employment”)!
So what are we to do? Well, for one, take advantage of the 20,000 scholarships the government has lined up to get you qualified for those jobs that are “a coming”!!
…our own foods
Burnham’s “eat local” drive wasn’t a bad idea. But he should’ve socialized t go down that road after 300 years of colonization! Not compel us.
The alphabet should’ve started with “A” for “awara” rather than “apple”!
