IN Politics, they often cynically remark, ‘all things are possible’.
For those guided by the definition that it’s “the art and science of government”, they should also pay close attention to the language of politicians who seem to thrive on peoples’ short memories. As a journalist of our Caribbean region, I recall doing my apprenticeship in political journalism in Guyana where I was exposed to the eloquent and rousing rhetoric of Forbes Burnham who had prided himself in being a student of (Niccolo) Machiavelli.

The language, as experiences right across our Caribbean have revealed, could be used to convey different messages to expediently satisfy changing circumstances.

Politicians on both sides of the political divide -government and opposition – know this too well.  Burnham was in the habit of remarking that ‘politics is the art of the possible’.

Now President Bharrat Jagdeo seems to be engaged in his own language game in Guyana to permit Guyanese to participate in casino gambling.

In Trinidad and Tobago, where an abounding sense of humour prevails, even amid the most intense discussions, reprimand can surface to remind anyone, “don’t try that”–when it is felt that misrepresentations, or wrong impressions were being conveyed.

Against that background, I offer my own suggestion to the President of Guyana: Don’t try pushing of his new political twist to rastionalise resident Guyanese to also participate, without legal restraint, in the money-spinning casino gambling, the game of chance associated, worldwide, with various vices.

Whether it was his own religiosity, moral suasion or “2020 vision” for Trinidad and Tobago that had influence Prime Minister Patrick Manning  to authorise the message during the 2009 national budget, the country has been made aware of his government’s determination to bring an end to the casino gambling industry within five years.

With The Bahamas being an outstanding exception to the norm –  having grown old with the industry – attempts to introduce casino gambling as a means of boosting the vital tourism sector, has routinely met with opposition from the religious community and other segments of civil society in various CARICOM states over recent years.

GUYANA SCENARIO
In 2007 – year of Cricket World Cup – when his administration enacted legislation, which he endorsed, to permit introduction of casino gambling, President Jagdeo had done so after intense consultations with various stakeholders, including the country’s diverse religious community, with assurances of careful monitoring.

The understanding at the time of the consultation process was that gambling casinos will NOT be opened to Guyanese residing in the country and who were not guests at hotels licensed to permit this game of chance.

Then came his apparent ‘conversion’, or change of perspective, as Jagdeo was to reveal at the ceremonial official opening last week of the US$2 million ‘Princess Casino Guyana’ (part of an international hotel chain).

The Guyanese President was to signal in his address to guests that he had reservations from  the beginning against excluding resident Guyanese from participating in the Princess casino. But he, nevertheless, had signed the legislation into law.
It would appear that a ‘Damascus’-like vision had brought the President the realisation that this discrimination against Guyanese to enter the hotel’s gambling casino was tantamount to a kind of “apartheid” and denial of the right to choose.

Whatever the real factor, or factors, to have impressed  him to change his original stand that favoured “no entry” to Guyanese for casino gambling, President Jagdeo, whose successes in economic management has significantly transformed Guyana, has to be cautious  in pushing his idea to extend the choice of casino gambling to resident Guyanese.

For him to draw parallels with a different dispensation (when the People’s National Congress held power under Forbes Burnham) and there were denial of choices in what Guyanese ate and did – is not clever by half in his attempt to now justify amending, as he hinted, the gambling act to extend the right for Guyanese to also participate in casino gambling.

As Trinis love to say, “don’t try that”, Mr. President. The argument advanced is flawed. Moreover, there are clearly demanding national priorities to otherwise occupy the administration in Georgetown than to focus on a review of the law governing casino gambling.