Dear Editor,
Plumbing new depths of depravity, the Mayor and her accomplices have decided to double down on their toxic parking meter regimen. In the face of an onslaught of vitriol and scorn from the public, amidst calls for the dastardly project to be scrapped coming from all fronts (political parties, trade unions, independent groups), in wilful and unlawful defiance of court orders, against the most basic norms of reason and morality, the mayor doggedly refuses to let go of her Green Monster. The public has long passed its death sentence on the parking meters yet the Mayor, to show how utterly out of touch she and the President are with the masses that they claim to represent, are offering the merest sops to appease the enraged hordes.
The Mayor says she is willing to discuss with her dissenters, but there is nothing to discuss. The gap between the 2 sides has widened; there is no compromise at hand. The only thing to discuss is the date on which the project will be scrapped, abandoned, tossed on the bonfire that consumed endless other greed- and ego-driven projects in past regimes – the power barge, the glass factory, Skeldon sugar estate.
There are three glaring ironies that are being exposed:-
1) Why is it that the general public is clamouring for a much better deal than 80-20 for the city, while the very people whose job it is to do just that are resisting at every turn? Whose interests are they really looking out for?
2) No project in history has ever rolled out after it has been proven to be a palpable failure. But M&CC’s end-game is to do the exact opposite – to blanket the city with its monsters, stifle and subjugate all into submission and eventual defeat.
3) Why is it that the ones who are suffering the most with the parking meter project, and stand to benefit the greatest with its ultimate demise (the retail businesses in the heart of the city) are the most passive in this exercise?
But the most glaring truth that is being exposed once again is how tribal Guyana’s politics remain. The President will not step in, not just because he is aloof and above the fray, but also for the most banal of reasons: that these are his people and he will not go against them. This protest in its very brief gestation is a unique historical moment, and it’s to the President’s great dishonour as a historian not to recognize and seize upon its singularity. This movement, this moment, will pass him by as the Green Monster consumes the Mayor, consumes him, consumes them all.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
