Dear Editor,
It might be fair to say that Guyanese have had the governments and political leaders they deserve. At times, it is as if time has stood still for the last six decades, and the same tired, timeworn thoughts and postures from long ago are just repeated and repeated in one endless cycle.
Here is a society trapped in a primarily two-toned rainbow of division and distrust, supporting one side or the other in ways mostly blind, obviously puerile, and occasionally asinine. More than a few populate place and space to tout positions that are indicative of a lack of deep reflection, or any semblance of heavy thinking; the specious and superficial have become the standards of discourse. This has been the way for too long, and continues to be just this way with no end in sight.
For example, mention unemployment or crime or corruption, and, as sure as the sun sets in the West, there is the rejoinder that those heads of the Hydra are all over. I do not think that I have ever seen or read where anyone posited any of these things as uniquely Guyanese. Nonetheless, it is enlightening-and distressing-that our thinking has degenerated to such an automated and pathetic response. Of course, it is conveniently ignored that some of the other societies can “afford’ the ill effects of some corruption and failures; that there are safety nets in place; that the official poverty measurements represent a manageable livable standard for our fleeing countrymen; that justice is served most of the time; that the playing field, while not always level, admits others; and that even at its most deplorable, those societies are repositories of hope, inspire confidence, and which their citizens will not exchange for anywhere else.
Having said all of this, and even if there were no mitigating features in other societies, who among us wants to live in a street inhabited by common criminals or corruption czars? Who is there within the Guyanese village that is so immunized that he or she is unaffected by the evidence of the impoverished and unfortunates in the midst? Since when have we become so vacuous that the nonchalance of “it’s all over the place” or “all of this happened under the PNC too” becomes acceptable? Who cares about what happens elsewhere? And what has happened to the pursuit of excellence?
I would believe that when children are encouraged and pushed relentlessly to do well in school, to earn high grades, and to aspire higher is a fine example of striving for betterment, even excellence. Such a standard might be propagated in the face of hostility from the rest of the class, school, and wider community; or when everyone else is doing otherwise. Yet it never deters those who dream of a better tomorrow. If this is so for the individual and child and family, why does it become a curse when manifested as a form of national aspiration? Why the hostility when some dare to question how things are, and then think of what and how they should, and could, be? This is why we celebrate a poor but average child rising to his potential; especially one from a troubled environment. It is why some of us yearn to see Guyana rise above her limits, and not be mired in its present condition. And if the worst conditions exist in, say, Jamaica or Indonesia or the USA, then I submit that those concerns and battles are better addressed by their own concerned citizens; and not be guides or yardsticks for Guyana, other than where we do not want to be as a nation, and what we do not want to become. If it is wrong to hope and believe that Guyana-backward, polarized, corrupt Guyana-can separate itself from its peers, and lift itself out of the gutter from which it has resided in perpetuity, then count me wrong every time.
It is clear that too many individuals and groups are so irrevocably committed to a partisan line of thinking that those who dare to think along national lines are damned as outsiders, racists, elitists, closet quislings, and political heretics. Those comfortably immersed in superficiality continue to harp about the PNC legacy, PPP purity, the CIA, “Us against Them,” those who ran and those who stayed ad infinitum. The result is that there is neither movement, nor any meeting of the minds at any level or of any degree, since stalwarts on both sides dig deeper graves in which to seal themselves in an eternity of intransigence and the arrogance of ignorance. There is just no give, incremental or otherwise.
Once we continue to think and articulate and act along these lines, then the die is cast, and the stage is set for the next several decades of leadership, contention, and results as have been seen and experienced. Regrettably, I must say it again: Guyanese have had the governments and political leaders they deserve. These fine gentlemen (and women) must be laughing their heads off all the way to the banks; whether local or offshore.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall