It’s been said that the pendulum of the moral universe swings slowly, but it swings inexorably towards the realms of justice. Apologies. Just couldn’t help taking a few liberties there. Something always struck me as wrong with how the PPP Govt dealt with the subvention for the folks at the International Decade for the People of African Descent Assembly -Guyana (IDPADA-G). Morally wrong. Ethically wrong. Politically wrong.
I believe that PPP General Secretary and government vice president, Dr. Jagdeo knew all of that, and yet…. How could a man of his agile mind, nimbleness of feet, claim to be ignorant of such basic wisdom? Yet, he persisted. Like a stubborn dog that wouldn’t let go of an unrewarding bone. IDPADA-G stuck in his craw, controlled the workings of a mind operating at never less than full speed. Warped speed, he can be at times. Jagged and hard-edged. What is indicative of too much cleverness, with a touch of weakness seeping around the edges.
The PPP Govt came out with a barrage of broadsides. All with intent to cripple. To put IDPADA-G out to pasture. Unceremoniously. Repulsively didn’t matter, was taken in stride. Whatever the demands of the push to decapitate IDPADA-G into a netherworld of insignificant existence. Just get the job done. Whatever has to be done, just do it. It was. Nasty didn’t matter. Preconceived audit conclusions. Fabricated audit claims and assaults.
When criminalising the entity and is people was thought to be the extra lever needed, it was employed. When cheap agents with cheaper mentalities and the cheapest defenses were needed, they marked themselves present, willing, and available. A great country is this, isn’t it? A grand PPP Govt also, with leadership to match. No country is deserving of such a ghastly fate. No society of civilized people should be cursed with the ghoulish political setup as Guyanese have. Not even those where cannibalism is practiced daily.
The arc of the moral universe does take forever to complete its tortured semicircle, that slowest of slow-moving 180 degrees. But it does get there, to that serene arena where justice reigns, eventually. Whenever I think that the PPP Govt can’t go lower, I lose money. Whenever I think it isn’t capable of more of the same unusual horsepower, I’m shocked. Sadness follows. Not so much for the presidency.
But for a man of the caliber of Bharrat Jagdeo. He knows better. He knows, he has to let some things go. Another great Guyanese takes the gloriously rollicking form of one Mohabir Anil Nandlall. An attorney general possessing some sliver of the right stuff, should be able to stand his ground and say: goddammit, don’t go there. Don’t tamper with what should be left alone. Don’t drag others into a dirty, shaky, fray, causing them to soil themselves.
The stench of what went wrong; wrong in its essences; wrong in the sum of its parts, from creation, reached to the heights of the Guyana justice pile. So, what do we have here? Say what? Who dragged in this dead cat involving withheld IDPADA-G subventions for four grinding years? It was chancellor of the judiciary (ag), the well-named, Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire who looked down her nose, and still couldn’t believe the horror before her.
She neither winced nor wilted. True to her extended surname, she was. Get this abomination out of my docket, from these docks. Oh, by the way: see to it that IDPADA-G gets dealt with, pursuant to the decision of this honorable court. One vulgarity is enough. Let there be no other. Pay the people promptly, I add by way of subtitles, attaching my own orders.
Courts are not elected bodies. Their jurists are selected by people who got elected. It is part of the chicanery and contrivances of the politically crafty to force issues to unelected courts. Thus, they sneak from their mischiefs. Try to get others to do their dirty deeds. Justice George-Wilshire was having none of this tomfoolery, these palpable shenanigans. The arc of the moral universe takes an eternity to chart its course. But it does bend in the direction of justice. Will IDPADA-G collect?
