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I stood in my shoes and I wondered
August 11, 2000
Sir/Madam,
Just when decent serious-minded people were expecting the end of the horrific spectacle of big pappy commess – Jackie and Darrie and Eddy and the Old Fox – there it comes again to bemuse the simple decent folk.
This time the big football man was waving party and discount cards in a bid to dispel rumours (sic) that his rib had joined the rival gang of vote-catchers.
Only a couple of weekends ago, the same football man was on the radio with an old pan man mixing up in real he say-dey say bacchanal with Eddy. Imagine even the Old Fox couldn’t keep heself out a dat kuchur.
Well, well, all of these high men in respectable offices making theyself a big papyshow.
And I stood in my shoes and I wondered.
I imagine that somehow this distasteful behaviour was to convince simple folk that these big boys just like we (or what they think us to be).
Well I have news for them. Common folks are decent people who don’t like bacchanal and kanka.
This only convinces simple people who are looking for real solutions to the problems that they face in trying to satisfy their basic needs and see some progress in their lives that this big boy politics is really not about them. It is so hollow and lacking any real substance.
This so-called representative democracy is in serious crisis. It and its players lack credibility in the eyes of ordinary decent freedom-loving people. The so-called politicians (more and more are really the oligarchy directly coming into the act of governing for themselves) are increasingly being seen as nothing else than representatives of that minority while the majority are marginalized and only become important every five years in this so-called political season.
These politicians whether they carry a sun, a balisier or a steel beam do so only for the purpose of catching the eye of the rich and powerful in order to represent their interests.
They then make laws and do everything to protect the profits and property of the oligarchy and to further deprive the ordinary folk of their rights.
They are busy trying to satisfy the moneylenders that they are faithfully doing what they want, whether it is trying to force all health workers out of the public service or getting rid of half of sugar workers to get their hands on more IADB money. They have all made it plain that no matter which gang is in power – same khaki pants.
None of them accounts to the finger-stainers once elected. All over the country people are saying, “The last time we saw them was last election”. No one believes them anymore with their promises and their sweet talk about caring for the common people.
Ask the people in Toco, Moruga, Mayaro, Maloney, Sea Lots, Pigeon Point, and everywhere who have to light fires in the streets and protest against these same “representatives” to protect their interests and demand decent living conditions.
And after another five years of ensuring that the ones that the rich and powerful have been completely satisfied, the vampires are coming to the ordinary folk and saying: Believe me, I want to represent you. Believe in the process, and leave everything up to us.
Well, it is time for ordinary decent people to stop standing in their shoes and wondering at the posturing of those who thrive on the deceit and who benefit from maintaining the fraud of a so-called representative political process in which the vast majority remain unrepresented and mere voting cattle.
No ordinary man or woman selects the candidates. These so-called representatives do not consult any ordinary man or woman on any real issue issues. No ordinary man or woman gets to recall any of them if they are dissatisfied with their performance in office. They hopscotch from one gang to the next in complete comfort without consulting those who elected them.
This political process produces a government that represents the minority in the society and over which the majority exercises no control. It is a government that is not accountable to the ordinary man who according to the tale elected them. The majority must radically change this process.
Without renewal this unrepresentative democracy will only move more and more in the direction of arbitrary rule the preparations for which we witness every day.
No longer must the antics of those who corruptly live off of this process leave us in amazement. Their indecent behaviour must be condemned. Their lies and deceit about “representing” us must be rejected. The ordinary folk must demand and bring about a renewal of this democracy which puts the majority in charge, which gives them the say in the selection and election of representatives and makes those elected accountable to them.
HOMEPAGE
Copyright © Clyde Weatherhead
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