…of children and parents
While in school, your Eyewitness was forced to read DH Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”. He soon realised that it could’ve well been named, “Sons and mothers and fathers”. What with Paul’s intense relationship with his mother which supposedly prevented him from ever “committing” to his girlfriend! Your Eyewitness had a blast regurgitating Freud’s “Oedipus Complex” theory and nodding knowingly. Even though he thought it had absolutely nothing to do with relations in his family and those of his friends around him.
With “Father’s Day” just behind him (your Eyewitness received two bottles of his favourite vino, which, of course, he had to test for quality control!), his mind wandered over these supposedly seminal relationships in his life. Note that we dub them “seminal” rather than “germinal”. You didn’t get that? “Seminal” from “semen” – male and authoritatively assumed to be the “foundational” element in life while the female “germ” needs to be “seeded” to produce anything!!
In Guyana, life hadn’t progressed – and still hasn’t progressed – far beyond Hobbes’ “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” life of man. Our Leviathan state that was supposed to change all of that has actually made it worse! So mothers don’t dote over sons like Mrs Morel. It was more like if you didn’t do your chores with alacrity, you earned some well-deserved blows behind your ears! Your Eyewitness suspects that with all this new “woke” insistence on denouncing those blows as “child abuse”, things are different? The present generation might be experiencing Freudian turmoils that make them hate their fathers because they’re “competitors for their mothers’ love”? As you can tell, your Eyewitness always found Freud to be a hoot!
But, seriously, folks, aren’t the “hands that rock the cradle” supposed to “rule the world”? Meaning if mothers rear children, aren’t they the ones who can have the greatest influence on how they behave later in life? Even if we concede that nature (inheritance) also plays a role…surely nurture has some influence. Or else we might just go back to the caveman days and start bopping folks over their heads with clubs! And maybe this is what is going on with all the stick-ups and robberies all over the place?
So, what exactly did Father’s Day do to improve the dynamics within the typical Guyanese family? How different are those husband-wife dynamics from the ones in “Sons and Lovers”? Like Mrs Morel, do Guyanese wives have real respect for their husbands who have to demean themselves in their everyday lives to cope with the “big ones” in society?
Does their bonhomie and good cheer give them respect when they can’t deliver the “fine things in life” with savoir faire?
…of PNC leaders and followers
Your Eyewitness is still trying to wrap his head around Harmon’s casting doubts on using the Russian-made Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. The question on the price is a legit one…which, not so incidentally, could’ve been pursued by the Economic Services Committee. Formed as part of the “inclusive governance” innovations after 2000, this rotationally-Sectoral Committee – between the Govt and Opposition – can inquire into any governmental activities in real time. Ministers and others can be summoned to answer questions.
But let’s say Harmon had some genuine concerns about the sourcing of the vaccines – after 200,000 doses had already been administered, including to himself. Exactly how going public helped the situation? Does he really believe that the Minister of Health would have himself and his family receive Sputnik jabs knowing they were “fake”?
But what’s most intriguing is that this equivocation on vaccination has been the PNC leadership’s default position from the moment they were forced to quit office.
Don’t their supporters’ lives matter?
…between us and our space
Your Eyewitness wonders what’s gonna happen if – as projected – the rains will continue (historically) into August. What he doesn’t worry about is whether we’ll change our attitude to dumping detritus everywhere.
That’ll never happen!!
