Whuh bout de odder chatree coolies?
I took that to mean chatree coolies who might want to adopt the chatree position of dealing with injustice rather than silencing those who trying to deal with the injustice you perpetrate.
Another young coolie man who had worked in 1992 but did not vote in 2011 but with whom the last conversation I had was that it was best to hold to local government elections so that the PPP could give back Georgetown to the PNC so that they 'could mess it up' and then everyone would see that the PNC could not manage the mess like how Hamilton Greene failed to deal with vendors and so. He had told me when facing the injustices before the 2011 elections that 'it is all out of our hands'
Nuff of the young coolie chatrees who either old enough to remember their parents in lines or who were friken Burnham or who young enough to know the stories do not want to believe that there is nothing which can be done
What frikens me though, is that the coolie chatree warriors who do not speak out about the injustices of their loved ones, have also silenced themselves about other injustices because as we all know, you cannot pick and choose and being public means you expose yourself to the question 'what the rass you talking about liquor/suicide/illiteracy/littering/domestic violence when you not talking about Anil Nandlall/ PPP tiefing/ Dictatorship' what ever.
And now wid de AFC going back to de PNC (as we all know dey were doing anyways) den PPP just have to keep saying dat and everybody will shut up.
So , with the young man in mind who ask me.. I aint know what each chatree coolie will do, but some things which they might want to think about. This is not for de chatree coolies who believe dat de PPP is right and dat de AG should remain de AG and dat foreign beer better dan local beer and dat Fright Night is a noble event to show dat tings good.
What do you believe
Some of you might know women who have left abusive relationships and who did something. Depending on the situation, the women might have had to face a lot of hardship including the rejection from family and community. Some of you might know others who stayed and put up.
Chatree coolies like everybody else have to understand their own ethics and what is right and wrong. The right and wrong keep morphing depending on who doing the wrong as we know and people can justify why they would absolve some and not others.
Sometimes good, in the confusion, you have to write down what your current value system. How would you let the your buddies know? And how far would you go to assert those values?
Your silence will not protect you
This not from the Bhagvad Gita or Quran or Bible or West on Trial .
Is a black woman, Audre Lorde, who had cancer (and some of yall like black people music and black people food and so it should be arite to read this)..
"In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences.
Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death.
“But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else’s words.
“I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”"
Is arite to stand up against your family
Some of you might be Hindu or like wear Indian clothes and watch coolie movie and listen coolie music and so. There is a coolie soap opera from a thousand years ago called the Mahabarata from which has this Bhagvad Gita.. and in that story, the oppressors oppressed their cousins. And the whole thrust of that Gita was that there was dharmic duty to stand up to injustice even from you own. And there was a symbolic war .. not that you stand up to injustice by cussing up in rum shops where nobody cant hear you or cussing dem in private at de wake and de jhandi and so, or even as de nice Minister 10000 ladyd de AG, a lil cuss in public but she still breaking bread wid him in Cabinet instead of resigning.
Standing up to dat injustice until de injustice done. And yuh Karma is in yuh hands, it not out of your hands.
Dey need you more dan you need dem
Some of de chatree coolies friken fuh dey wuk and dey business and suh. A businessman has a war at Customs when he has to resist the bribing he says, but he doesn't do more than just let them know they can hold the 'entries' as long as they want even as he has to pay the wharf fees.
We will dead in de end. Life goes on. If you choose to find ways to reject the injustice to protest publicly.. and to let it be known that you will resist , each public individual action (or inaction depending on what you not acting to do) becomes part of the resistance.
Can you imagine if a group of people who believe dat de PPP should stay and de AG should go join in a daily one hour picket outside Office of de President?
Organising
All attempts at non-partisan civil society coalitions in Guyana have flopped for various reasons. Groups are never perfect and individual agendas are always conflicting.
I am not a part of any group except the Ramayana Gole.
Organising means knowing what you want and ensuring all expectations are clear.
So in organising , can a chatree coolie who says "I am a PPP supporter who want the AG to go and the PPP to win the next elections" join with anybody else who says "The PPP must go (or haul dey ass'?
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