TWICE I mentioned in previous articles that I find this country’s production of outrageous political stances to be per capita, the worst in the world and this is taking into account the bizarre world of politics that has canopied the US since the arrival of the penetrating personality of Donald Trump.

Last Friday, I looked at two women – Elizabeth Dean-Hughes and Vanda Radzik – employing, attorney Melinda Janki to petition the Eximbank to stop consideration of the bank’s loan for the gas-to-shore project here. I concluded that it had to be a publicity stunt since a bank of that international standing would never in reality read the petition and conclude that the women are right and stop its financing.

If international banks operate like that then the world has to end up in turmoil because literally millions of people in their individual capacities will write the UN, World Bank, IMF, OAS, Commonwealth Secretariat, CARICOM, Caribbean, Development Bank, European Central Bank, Arab League, Mercosur, OPEC, African Union, ECOWAS and other powerful international bodies and simply ask them to stop a policy direction. And after reading the letter, from some unknown person, they accept the letter’s content and agree with it. Is this the way the world operates?

Is it not plausible to argue that this is comicality and should be treated as such? In that same article on Friday, I made reference to Dr. Janet Bulkan’s appeal to the OAS to intervene to stop oil production in Guyana. The OAS ignored Bulkan and the Eximbank will ignore Hughes and Radzik because there is comicality in this kind of activism.

Before we move on to my Sunday column, I need to remind readers that Bulkan, Hughes and Radzik were part of a group that published a letter in the November 13, 2022 edition of the Stabroek News calling on the government to cease oil production because greenhouse gas pollution kills African people. They chose not to specify any other race of people, only Africans. Do these three ladies speak for Guyanese, a multi-racial country? Are these three ladies ethically biased in favour of African people? If not, can they explain why in that letter they only mentioned the African race and found it useful to state that civilisation started in Africa. Is that the politics of danger or the politics of comicality?

Let’s move to my column. I looked at the ranting of a German citizen who says he has Guyanese in him. His name is Andre Brandli who works as a professor in science somewhere in Germany. Let’s demonstrate the politics of comicality and the comicality of politics.

Brandli argued that when he read a commentary by presidential adviser, Dr. Randy Persaud praising Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, he thought that it was a sycophantic outpouring that you don’t find in a country of liberal democracy but only in authoritarian countries. I replied to Brandli and asked him if in a country of liberal democracy, leaders support genocide as his leader in Germany did in relation to what Israel is doing in Gaza.

Let’s quote Brandli once more in our attempt to prove the politics of comicality and the comicality of politics. “I have spent over several decades of my professional life working as an academic and biomedical researcher in liberal democracies, such as Switzerland, Germany and the United States. However, I have never come across such a clumsy and ingratiating propaganda on behalf of a political leader by a respected academic. In Germany, where I currently teach, these types of pamphlets were commonly penned during the rule of the national socialists in the 1930s and 1940s.”

I ask Brandli again the question I did yesterday, in liberal democracy do the heads of government support genocide? His chancellor in Germany does. His country has openly rejected the hearing on genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. But I want to go further and ask Brandli what is a liberal democracy and what happens in a liberal democracy.
I am sure Brandli read the indignant outpouring of rage against American presidential contender, Nikki Haley who said that the USA has never been a racist country.

The latest critic of Haley is basketball icon, Charles Barkley. Is Switzerland a liberal democracy, one of the most enduring racist countries in the world? Are you allowed to protest in liberal democracies? Brandli lives in Germany where it is a criminal offence to advocate for the boycott of Israeli goods, to have a placard that reads; “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and to print or say anything in favour of Hamas. Please Dr, Brandli, stick to biology. You know nothing about politics.