In Guyana, we seem to lurch from one crisis to another. Right now, we most obviously have a crisis of lawlessness on our hands, as suggested by yesterday’s editorial.
But crisis is not confined to Guyana alone, though we should take no consolation from the fact. Indeed, the whole world appears to be caught up in an interlocking web of crises, essentially man made, but afflicting us like biblical plagues: the global economic crisis, the poverty crisis, the food crisis, the energy crisis and the global warming crisis, to name but the most prominent. While the global economic crisis has been a stern test for the world financial system and the economic resilience of countries, both big and small, and has made the interdependence of all who participate meaningfully in the global economy, all too painfully clear, it has also forced all the major international players to come together to find collective solutions to prevent economic Armageddon. If this is the silver lining to this particular cloud, then it is to be hoped also that the toxic combination of greed and stupidity that brought about the crisis will never be repeated. But that is perhaps a pipe-dream given man’s propensity to ignore the lessons of the past.
In Guyana and the Caribbean, we are, of course, not immune to the current global crises. And, as if they were not enough to test our resolve, we also have crises of public security and governance, which appear for all intents and purposes to be inextricably linked in a vicious circle of barbarous crime and uncivilized responses – the lawlessness to which we have already referred.
In the region, the security crisis is made manifest in violent drugs-related crime, small arms trafficking, human trafficking and increasingly murderous gang violence, especially in countries like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. A lot of this crime is, moreover, transnational in nature, and in addition to the human and economic costs, it is politically destabilizing, threatening the social fabric, the rule of law and weak public institutions in our fragile democracies.
Even tiny St Kitts and Nevis, with the seemingly minuscule figure, in absolute terms, of 17 murders in 2008, has a relatively astronomical per capita murder rate of 40.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, when it is considered that the country’s population is only around 42,000. This places it, by some estimates, among the highest in the world and just below Honduras, Jamaica, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unofficial estimates put Guyana’s murder rate in the low 20s, but this is hardly cause for celebration.
Clearly, the combined effects of all the above crises can only contribute to making matters worse in developing states like ours, with our peculiar vulnerabilities due mainly to our smallness and the fragility of our political, social, and economic structures, as well as that of our natural environment. And while the human and economic costs can be calculated in cold figures, it is more difficult to assess accurately the impact on national morale and our quality of life.
But what do we as a people want? Basically, most of us want a safe and clean environment in which to live, in which to raise our children and in which to pursue happiness. We want a decent standard of health care and a good education system. We want jobs that hold out the promise of decent work, dignity and reasonable remuneration. We want to live in peace and harmony.
Sadly, many of our fellow citizens are denied these fundamental human rights or are forced to put up with mediocre or non-existent public services because of weak governance, inadequate systems and, perhaps, our own limitations of vision and the will to make a difference, even as we seem to be constrained by the recurrent fear that things will get worse before they get better.
Admittedly, there has been some social and economic progress in Guyana over the past 20 years, but there are doubts as to its sustainability and nobody can reasonably claim that we are living up to our full potential. Should we however be looking to government alone to solve our problems and to provide all that we wish for? And if the basic problem is perceived to be one of governance, do we not all, government and citizens, share the responsibility to work together towards improved governance, an inclusive approach to problem-solving and the creation of conditions for generating not only more wealth but also more equitable distribution?
Some collective introspection is called for, but we will need to go beyond mere navel-gazing and finger-pointing. Nor can we simply wish the problems away. We have to be honest and methodical in recognizing them, addressing the root causes, and identifying collective responses.
We should therefore revisit our approach to building democracy, peace, justice and equity in our country, even as we acknowledge that it is a long, hard and often painful process that does not begin and end with the holding of elections, every five years.
We need to recognize the value of a robust civil society, operating in an atmosphere free from intimidation and seeking no favours, in order to promote a culture of national dialogue and positive, innovative thinking, of speaking with each other, not speaking at or down to others, as is too often the norm.
For as long as we continue to have short memories, set the wrong priorities, practise discrimination and recrimination, wallow in mutual suspicion and disrespect, we shall be condemned to living in a state of perpetual crisis, never finding solutions and never making progress in peace and harmony.
